“Once we implemented Searchspring we were able to create campaigns, add rules for product display priority and improve our search with custom synonyms and term redirects. The dashboards and reporting are very helpful and save our team hours of manual labor so we can focus on the bigger picture.”
John Jordan
Director of Ecommerce, Mast General Store
The Brand
Mast General Store is a family- and employee-owned business with a history dating to 1883. Over the years, it has expanded from one location in rural North Carolina to 11 stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The Original Store in Valle Crucis, N.C., is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as one of the best remaining examples of a general store.
From old-time candy to clothing, grits to technical camping gear, Mast Store believes “if you can’t find it here, you don’t need it.” Their wide selection of products, mixed with a rich history and legendary customer service, makes Mast Store a must-see destination for locals and tourists alike.
The Challenges
With such a large variety of products and the discovery that their native ecommerce platform wasn’t designed to return relevant results on its own, Mast General Store started looking for a solution that would help online guests quickly find what they’re looking for.
In addition to a more powerful on-site search, they were also looking for online merchandising and personalization tools that would improve the overall shopper experience. They needed a solution that would allow them to arrange products in a way that makes sense and display relevant product recommendations.
After shopping around, they knew Searchspring would be able to meet all their requirements.
“We wanted our online guests to have a great search experience. Our current IT partner did not have search and merchandising enhancements on their roadmap, so we began the journey to find a search and merchandising specialist platform for integration. Searchspring proved to be a great selection. We continue to see product improvements and added features.”
John Jordan
Director of Ecommerce, Mast General Store
The Solutions
Searchspring helped Mast General Store take control of their ecommerce site with tailored, powerful, on-site Search, Merchandising, Personalization, and Insights tools.
“We wanted to bring the in-store shopping experience online. Searchspring helped us achieve this with personalized product offerings, giving us more control over our online product merchandising and improving our on-site marketing capabilities.”
John Jordan
Director of Ecommerce, Mast General Store
Some favorite Searchspring features include:
- Badges – Badges help shoppers identify special product information such as new, on sale, made in the U.S.A., and staff picks. This feature not only helps guide shoppers to great deals, it also provides information that is important to this specific audience.
- Personalized Product Recommendations – Personalized Product Recommendations are just one part of Searchspring’s Personalization Suite, and they’re exactly what Mast General Store was looking for. Personalized Product Recommendations automatically surface relevant cross-selling and upselling opportunities based on shopper behavior (not just blanketed suggestions).
- Out-of-the-Box Technology – Searchspring is easy to use and produces results almost immediately after implementation. This is especially important when working on small or growing teams.
- On-Site Search – Relevant search results get the right products in front of the right shoppers. With search relevancy logic, they now deliver search results that make sense.
- Boost Rules – The ability to automate rules that demote out-of-stock items and push available products to the top of pages is a game changer for Mast General Store. With such a large inventory, Boost Rules save time and money and streamline the merchandising process.
- Inline Banners – Inline Banners help communicate things like sales, events, and campaigns with shoppers.
The Results
Since implementing Searchspring, Mast General Store has experienced amazing growth. Between November 2021 and November 2022, 14% of shoppers on their site used search. That 14% was responsible for 40% of all orders and 43% of their overall revenue.
This means that shoppers who use search are 4.3 times more likely to make a purchase and they spend more than shoppers who do not use search.
By providing a great experience through Search, Merchandising, and Personalization, Mast General Store customers who use search are now 5.4 times more valuable than shoppers who don’t use search.
“In addition to a solid product, Searchspring has some top talent in the IT and customer service departments. They actively participated in our recent website redesign and have always been very responsive in handling our help desk requests.”
John Jordan
Director of Ecommerce, Mast General Store
