Abstract
This study explores the effects of the lexicon and syntax of product titles on product accessibility. This is done by comparing the previous and current product titles and categories on Website X, which was recently revamped. The study aimed to specifically explore the effect of the change in lexicon and syntax on the performance of the website in terms of product accessibility. The study further aimed to explore how product accessibility affects user experience and customer satisfaction, thereby affecting product reach and overall sales on Website X. The study is multi-disciplinary, drawing from the fields of linguistics and the industry of e-commerce. It employed a mixed methods approach and data was collected using interviews and comparative product title tables (with old and new titles in different syntactical arrangements and with different lexicon) for each of the five categories on Website X. The overall results of the study indicated that lexicon and syntax as is used in product titles, along with product categorisation, have a direct influence on product reach and customer satisfaction. From the data collected and compared, the syntactical arrangement used for the homeware category performed the best based on the significant increase in the sales of the ten products whose titles were revamped according to the syntactical arrangement: ‘Brand + Material + Item + Colour + Size’. This arrangement used on the ten products chosen from the homeware category performed the best, which could have been a contributing factor towards a spike in the sales of these products post the renaming. This increase in sales was attributed directly to the change in the product title, its syntax, and the lexicon used since only the product title was changed with no other change on these products or any marketing done for these products. The increase in sales and thereby product reach, was therefore attributed to the change in the title, for the purposes of this study. This shows that the lexicon selected for a product title along with its syntax directly influences the product reach and thereby the overall user experience of a customer who is shopping online.