Sophelle Focus Report | Product Findability: Connecting People and Products October 2016

© Copyright 2016, Sophelle. All rights reserved.
www.sophelle.com
info@sophelle.com
November 2016
945 Concord Street
Framingham, MA 01701
508.875.5700
FOCUS REPORT
PRODUCT FINDABILITY:
CONNECTING PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS

A WORD FROM SOPHELLE
DOUGLASWEICH
CEO
For over 20 years Sophelle has been helping retailers navigate
the continuous change in the way people shop. Throughout
this time, one underlying theme has remained constant: how
can retailers connect the right people with the right products at
the right time? If that can be accomplished, retail success will
follow.
In this report we will look across the retail enterprise at how
you can most effectively connect your customers with the
products they are looking for, and share key insights on how
you can be more successful with product findability. And we
will present several of the more innovative vendor solutions
and their perspectives.
I hope that you find the report helpful.
© Copyright 2016, Sophelle. All rights reserved. PAGE - 2

ABOUT SOPHELLE FOCUS REPORTS
Sophelle Focus Reports are intended to provide readers with
information and insight into specific areas of retail technology
and operations. The information attributed to Sophelle in this
report is based on the combined experience of its associates
working with hundreds of leading retailers on strategy and
implementation projects.
Sophelle Focus Reports are not intended to provide all of the
information needed for retailers to make a decision on
selecting a specific solution. We recommend that each retailer
conduct a thorough solution selection project, identifying its
particular requirements, and reviewing each vendor’s solution
in detail. Sophelle has conducted hundreds of selection
projects and we invite you to find out more by visiting our
website at www.sophelle.com.
Readers are encouraged to contact Sophelle and all of the
participating vendors. Contact information is provided at the
end of the report.
Sophelle Focus Reports are published regularly. For the most
recent versions, please visit www.Sophelle.com/Focus.

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Introduction
Benefits to Retailers in Getting Product Findability Right
Customers Expect More
Customer Experience Drives Retail Success
Mobile Product Findability
Enhanced Product Data
The Data Factor
Finding the Right Solution
Vendor Offerings
Vendor Directory
About the Author
Get in Touch

Product findability is more than on-site search.
INTRODUCTION
Doing product findability right connects the right person
with the right product at the right time. Consumers
don’t recognize channels, technologies, warehouse
locations, or drop-ship relationships. They are expecting
a seamless, frictionless experience, and retailers that
provide it are succeeding in the marketplace.
Connecting people and products effectively significantly
improves the customer experience and leads directly to
downstream benefits such as:
Customers want retailers to meet them with relevancy
wherever they choose to shop. Seamless customer
experiences across all touchpoints requires coordinated
operations, integrated systems, and shared data
throughout the enterprise. Retailers must find the right
mix of solutions for their products and customers.
Higher sales and margins
Increased profitability
Greater loyalty
Operational Considerations:
Data Considerations:
Technology Considerations:
On-site search
Navigation
Personalization
Recommendations
Mobile
In-store applications
Customer database
PIM
Well-thought-out policies for each channel
Coordinated processes between channels
that keep the customer experience in mind
Shared single views of the customer,
product, inventory, and order data

When people find what they are looking for, they buy more.
Bringing customers closer to the products they are looking to
buy, faster and across all customer touch points, enhances
the customer experience and drives measurable increases to
retailers’ bottom line.
Relevant site experiences result in higher conversion
rates, units per order, and average order value.
Relevancy drives customer loyalty, and loyalty reduces
attrition.
Purchase information from product relevancy initiatives
can be leveraged to improve operational processes such
as inventory forecasting, assortment planning, and supply
chain optimization.
Improving product findability online has a positive impact
on in-store sales and supports clienteling efforts.
Retailers can drive customers toward higher value, higher
margin items and improve profitability by leveraging
personalization and product data.
Applying product findability to marketing efforts can
garner higher ROI and increase marketing budget
efficiency.
Key Trend: Empowering Business Users
Sophelle Tip:
Key Insight:
An ongoing shift in digital technology is
toward untangling business users from heavy
reliance on IT with business user-friendly
tools, allowing them to execute and react to
market and business changes more quickly.
Revisit your digital commerce platform’s
capabilities in connecting people and products.
Are you taking full advantage of all
out-of-the-box product findability-related
features and functionality?
A personalized website experience can
increase sales by up to 19% as well as increase
average order value, the average revenue per
customer, and increase customer retention
rates.
- Monetate
BENEFITS TO RETAILERS IN
GETTING PRODUCT FINDABILITY RIGHT

When customers provide their personal and behavioral
data, they expect something in return.
Customers know retailers are collecting data on their
behavior, and they want it to be used to deliver more
personalized and relevant experiences. Customers’ research
patterns, browsing activity, and purchase history provide
retailers with the information needed to connect people and
products effectively. Retailers need to have the right
strategies, tools, and resources to execute this successfully.
Customers expect to be recognized across all channels -
online, in-stores, and on their mobile devices. This
expectation starts with a personal greeting online, in email
messages, or in-store, and extends through content,
products, marketing messaging, and even customer service
contacts. All of these touchpoints have a role in creating
opportunities to connect people with the right products. By
making small, incremental changes in each of these areas,
retailers can have a positive effect on the customer
experience.
CUSTOMERS EXPECT MORE Key Trend: Personalized
Omnichannel Experiences
Key Insight:
Sophelle Tip:
As retailers look toward coordinating operations,
integrating technologies, and centralizing data to
deliver truly personalized and seamless
omnichannel experiences for customers, they are
smartly approaching it in phases. Tackling
low-hanging fruit first is a surefire way to prove
success and gain support for bigger, more complex
initiatives.
One of the simplest things to implement is greeting
the customer by name in an email, on a website, or
during a customer service contact session. Retailers
can also utilize social log-in functionality to further
enhance customer profiles with interest and activity
data, which can be applied to personalization and
marketing communications to improve relevancy.
Over 50% of consumers will share their private data
if it will expedite or improve their shopping
experience.
- Monetate and Accenture Interactive

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
DRIVES RETAIL SUCCESS
Key Trend: The Mash-up of Site Search,
Navigation, Merchandising, and In-store
Applications
Key Insight:
Sophelle Tip:
Digital commerce point solutions are evolving well
beyond their original capabilities in an effort to
support seamless customer experiences. Before
investing in new technologies, retailers should audit
their existing toolset to avoid redundancy and
ensure current capabilities are maximized.
Product findability solutions vary greatly in capability,
complexity, and price. Functions such as advanced
filtering, comparison features, and guided selling help
customers make better purchase decisions. Customer
journey analysis and mapping helps retailers better
understand their customer experience opportunities
and should be a key consideration in selecting a
solution.
Only 32% of retailers can see a consumer online
and match them to their mobile device or tablet.
Just 22% have a complete profile of customers
across all channels.
- Retail TouchPoints
Successful retailers are solving for complex
customer journeys.
The customer journey continues to become increasingly
complex as customers research, browse, and purchase via
multiple devices and channels over extended periods of
time. However, personalization efforts are often siloed
within multi-channel organizations, preventing the delivery
of a truly personalized experience.
Successful retailers coordinate operations, integrate
systems, and share centralized data across all customer
touch points. By focusing on improving, enhancing, and
orchestrating the connection of people and products across
the enterprise, retailers can better satisfy customers’ needs,
meet their expectations, and mitigate the risk of losing sales
to competitors.
Achieving the holy grail of seamless customer experiences is
not done overnight, but is a process over time which
requires discovery, planning, and enterprise alignment. The
approach taken toward achieving that goal will be
dependent on many factors including retail and digital
system architecture, the number and complexity of data
sources, and the state of the company’s data hygiene.

If they can’t find it, they can’t buy it.
Digital traffic to retailer sites from mobile devices can be as
high as 50% and is growing. With conversion rates
approximately half that of desktop, mobile represents a
significant opportunity in improving product findability and
monetizing traffic.
Poor navigation and search on mobile shopping sites may not
align with the way customers prefer to shop. Reduced screen
sizes limit options, but creative solutions are evolving rapidly.
Retailers need to focus on how to design the optimal mobile
user interface for their specific product catalog and
customers.
Nested fly-out navigation menus make good use of limited
space and are an effective way to move shoppers through the
product findability journey. For most retailers, guided
navigational elements such as dynamic facets and filters on
mobile are a must-have, particularly for large and varied
product assortments.
Equally important for retailers is ensuring the search feature
is easily located on the mobile UI, and provides the user with
smart search functionality such as auto-complete, suggested
searches, auto-correct, and multi-word key phrase
recognition.
MOBILE PRODUCT FINDABILITY Key Trend: Natural Language Search
Key Insight:
Sophelle Tip:
Technologies that support natural language search
and built-in mobile phone capabilities, such as
voice-to-text, are leading the way in solving the
challenges of product findability on small screens.
To improve mobile product findability, ensure that the
most relevant search results are presented first. Design
navigational interfaces to support accurate clickability
and the most efficient path to relevant products.
In a study of 50 major U.S. mobile sites:
34% do not offer “thematic” product browsing, e.g.
“casual men’s shoes”
38% have a category hierarchy that is either too
deep or too shallow
88% present shoppers with “no results” without
providing contextually relevant help to maintain
engagement, leaving the user at a dead-end
- Baymard Institute

Let customers search for and find products the way
they want to.
In direct-to-consumer selling, there’s a risk that
company-speak does not align with customer-speak. If so, it
can greatly affect product findability success. In order to
develop an effective product data strategy, retailers need to
understand how customers actually think about, search for,
and find a retailer’s particular products. Insights from content
consumed, site search query data, paid search, SEO activities,
and even customer service contacts are some of the ways
retailers can discover customer-friendly product attributes to
enhance product-level data.
Tools which enhance product data beyond what is native to
most digital commerce solutions allow for the inclusion of
natural language descriptors, product features, multi-word
phrases, and problem/solution-oriented terminology – all of
which should be accounted for in a comprehensive product
data set. A fully attributed product catalog enables better
search results, more relevant facets, filters, and drill-downs,
and powers more comprehensive data feeds.
The benefits in aligning queryable product attributes with
customer-speak include higher average order value, higher
conversion, and greater customer loyalty. The risk in not
doing it is that relevant products will not be shown to
shoppers, leading them to believe you don’t have what they
are looking for.
ENHANCED PRODUCT DATA Key Trend: The Internet of Things
Key Insight:
Sophelle Tip:
Advances in digital technologies are making it easier
for retailers to deliver personalized experiences in
stores. Beacons, RFID, and augmented reality
applications are enhancing the connection of
people and products.
You don’t need to tackle the entire assortment with
enhanced product data all at one time. Starting with a
category, sub-category, or even product type to test,
learn, refine, and build upon success is a more
manageable approach.
According to Edgecase, to power navigation aligned
with how shoppers actually think and speak, most
retailers would need to increase their product
attributes by an average of 689%.

Well-planned, managed, structured, and accessible
customer and product data fuels product findability.

Implementing and running product findability solutions in
silos results in performance ceilings, stifles innovation, and
blocks cross-channel orchestration. Before retailers can
effectively employ advanced solutions to support product
findability, they must take stock of their data environment.
Optimal product findability is driven by the intersection of
real-time product and customer data, including behavioral,
demographic, geographic, and historical purchase data.
How all of this data is managed, and its accessibility, factors
greatly into the degree to which product findability can be
maximized.
Breaking down data silos and creating a single source of
truth also offer benefits in improving strategic decision
making, gaining operational efficiencies, and enabling
advanced functionality, such as predictive analytics and
preparation for the Internet of Things.
THE DATA FACTOR Key Trend: Hosting Data in the Cloud
Hosting data in the cloud allows retailers to benefit
from operational cost-efficiencies, increased scalability,
and streamlined real-time accessibility by disparate
systems. While cloud hosting is a good option for
many retailers, it’s important to ensure that it solves
for connecting data from all relevant sources.
Sophelle Tip:
Solving data silo challenges takes time and proper
planning. Consider creating a cross-functional
Data Task Force to oversee the effort from internal
discovery, through planning, and ultimately to
remediation.
Retailers’ top two challenges in achieving a
centralized view of the customer:
Key Insight:
34% state poor data quality
40% state an inability to link different technologies
- CMO.com by Adobe

There is a vast and growing landscape of product findability solutions.
With so many product findability solutions available, many with overlapping
functionality, retailers are challenged to find the right solutions to maximize their
opportunities and minimize risk. Sophelle has helped hundreds of retailers make
thousands of smart technology decisions with a proven process for success based
on four fundamental pillars:
A disciplined approach to achieving product findability success is critical. Here are
some tips to get your company started on the path to the best solution:
We can help! Contact Sophelle today for a free 30-minute consultation on
solving your product findability challenges.
1. Holistic view: to consider impact across the enterprise;
2. Deep domain expertise: to foresee long-term needs and impact;
3. Vast experience: to have previously witnessed solutions’ performance; and
4. Objective assessment: to ensure the optimal solution is selected,
not the best sold solution.
Develop product findability goals – what are your customers expecting from you?
Assess current state – how well are you meeting your customers’ expectations?
Determine gaps in People, Processes, and Tools – what are the specific areas
of opportunity and risk?
Define business and technical requirements – what is needed to bridge
the gap between current state and achieving your product findability goals?
FINDING THE RIGHT SOLUTION

VENDOR OFFERINGS
Product findability is enabled with the right tools.
Sophelle asked several of the leading software vendors with solutions
in the product findability space to present their views on best practices,
trends, and their particular approaches. The information provided under
each vendor represents their respective view. Sophelle has not verified their
claims nor endorses their solutions. The information is presented to allow
readers to learn and make their own decisions.

Leading brands in apparel, home and sporting goods rely on the
BaynoteONE smart data platform to drive highly relevant and
personalized experiences on their website and in email
campaigns. BaynoteONE integrates with existing ecommerce,
onsite search, email and CMS systems to drive a seamless
personalized experience for consumers that increases
conversion, average order value and brand loyalty.
BaynoteONE provides key infrastructure elements that are
missing from most commerce operations that drive relevance
and item findability including:
Online Customer Data Hub
The BaynoteONE CXP is a smart, online customer data hub to
collect, connect and enhance data about individual customers.
The data hub can be used to connect data from online and
offline sources into a single profile for each customer. The
system uses machine learning techniques to enhance the data
by pulling out actionable insights like each customer’s preferred
categories, styles or price points.
Self-service Merchandising Console
To drive the needs of modern commerce, applications must
be self-service and allow business users to make changes
without extensive training. BaynoteONE VUE was designed
with 30 of Baynote’s industry leading retail clients to be used
by retail marketers and merchandisers. BaynoteONE VUE
includes advanced features like built-in A/B testing, outfitting
and boost and bury.
Real-time Performance Engine
The BaynoteONE RTX modelling engine enables machine
learning on complex datasets that combine online and
offline data with derived presences. Using Hadoop as a data
refinery and for scalable computation, the BaynoteONE
modelling engine uses unique, patented machine learning
algorithms and a new composite approach to find patterns
that are impossible with prior or off-the-shelf or
king-of-the-hill techniques.

BaynoteONE powers smart data solutions that integrate with
existing systems to increase relevance, personalization and
product findability including:
Homepage – Trending items and categories by segment and
location and recently viewed items.
Category Pages – Personalized category sort to bring the most
relevant items to the top of the category results
Onsite Search – Deliver more relevant search results based on
consumer behavior and trends
PDP and Cart – Personalized product, accessory and category
recommendations
Transactional and Campaign Emails – Personalized
recommended products and content
Call Center / Store Sales Agents – Real-time customer data,
recently viewed items across channels and recommended items
based on preferences and recent intent
Mobile Applications – Deliver recommended items, trending items
and more within existing mobile applications
Smart Data Solutions for Relevance and Findability
1:1 Personalization vs. Persona Targeting
Many “personalization” solutions are little more than persona-based
targeting engines using rules to target users based on well-defined large
groups and limited content. BaynoteOne uses individual customer data to
understand each customer’s preferences and current interests and then
directs them to the best items to meet their current needs.
Cross-Device Profiles and Interactions
Existing solutions are typically isolated to a particular channel of
interaction and cannot utilize data from other touchpoints or interact
across touchpoints. BaynoteONE is designed to collect and connect data
and make that data available online to applications and touchpoints with
very low latency.
Full Automation
Many “old school” recommenders and targeting systems must be
completely setup ahead of time and do not change as new data is
introduced. BaynoteONE automatically processes real-time data and
algorithms to quickly adapt to changing customer behavior without
additional configuration.
Self-service Merchandising
To drive the needs of modern commerce, applications must be self-service
and allow business users to make changes without extensive training.
BaynoteONE VUE was designed with 30 of Baynote’s industry leading
clients to be used by retail marketers and merchandisers.
Delivering relevant, dynamic and impactful customer experiences has
never been easier. With the BaynoteONE retailers can have smart and
actionable big data and a proven partner to accelerate business results
today.
Smart, Actionable Big Data, Today
The BaynoteONE Difference

VISUAL
SEARCH
Analyze every
keystroke within
search to uncover
shopper intent
and predict
relevant text
suggestions and
product discovery
up to 28%
conversion
increase
up to 70% Click-through
increase when product
sought is on 1st page
up to 7%
conversion increase
up to 120%
AOV increase
up to 70%
higher conversion
than product page
Deliver personalized
product discovery aligned
to category and
sub-category search and
driven by real-time
interaction with your
navigation menu
Uncover
shopper traits and
in-the-moment
interests with a fun,
interactive quiz.
Combine answers with
predictive modeling to
deliver products that
will best resonate with
each unique shopper
Predict the most
relevant order of
products on category
and sub-category
pages based on
in-session activity,
interaction with
faceted elements and
shopper history
Leverage Certona best
practices and flexible
merchandising rules for
home, product detail,
cart and other site
pages to deliver the
most relevant
recommendations to
each individual shopper
VISUAL
NAVIGATION
PRODUCT FINDER
& GIFT FINDER
AUTO
DISCOVERY
PRODUCT
RECOMMENDATIONS
Consumers have spoken—in surveys, in reports, in jumping ship to buy from the
competition—not only do they want personalization, they expect it! The question for
retailers today is not “to personalize or not to personalize,” but rather:
How do I find the right personalization technology to connect shoppers with relevant products that match
their individual preferences and in-the-moment interests?
How do I make it easy for shoppers to find what they are looking for across digital and in-store channels?
How do I help shoppers uncover products they didn’t even know they wanted?
EMARKETER REPORTS
Maximize Product Findability
The number one ask by consumers: “Make it easy for me to find and buy what I’m looking for.” It seems
like a simple request, but the level of technology required to make it happen is not. A sophisticated blend
of data collection unified across channels, predictive analytics and contextualization for actionable
insights and real-time experience delivery is the only way to meet expectations for that one-to-one,
individually relevant experience shoppers demand. With the most data-driven technology on the market,
backed by patents for search and discovery, and predicting human behavior, Certona makes it simple to
deliver on the retail experience elements that are most important. Below are some of the best practices
driving increases in AOV, conversion and overall revenue for top retailers.
1. Optimize the Path to Conversion
Combining a collection of simple yet essential discovery tactics with more advanced innovations, Certona’s
Smart Discovery solutions create an optimal path to conversion by immediately uncovering shopper intent to
engage them early in the shopping experience, then guiding them each step of the way to purchase:
“SHOPPERS WANT PERSONALIZATION”
Consumers rate most important
retail experience elements
Can find what I’m looking
for and buy how
I want to buy
Consistent across digital
and in-store channels
Relevant to my current
interest
Consistent across devices
Relevant to my personal
taste, style, age group or
location
52%
54%
56%
59%
81%

2. Connect the dots across digital and in-store channels:
Consumers research, browse and purchase across devices and
in-store. They expect each interaction to be personal and consistent.
Certona can ingest data from in-store point of sale systems, CRM and
third parties to enrich our deep customer profiles built from every
click and interaction across channels. The result: a tailored customer
experience within each channel seamlessly informed by the others.
up to 2X Lift
in digital engagement
up to 11%
Digital engagement
increase
when point of sale data is ingested
with personalized content &
offers
3. Deliver the complete experience
Personalization need not be limited to products. Like
recommendations, hero shots, articles, videos, offers
and just about any digital asset can be personalized
based on customer profile, location, style, taste,
preferences, context and segmentation models.
It’s all about the individual
Optimized paths engage customers at every turn—on any device and within every channel—for maximum findability. See below
for an example of possible initial site search points and ways a personal experience could flow.

Connecting with Shoppers
Retailers exist to connect shoppers with product. Great retailers do this in a way that inspires shoppers and attracts new
customers. To execute on this core principle of retailing, merchants have traditionally turned to a number of tried and true
techniques such as ensuring that categories are sorted appropriately, identifying collections and making good use of product
bundling. More recently, though, the intersection of content and data has accelerated the importance of two particular digital
commerce merchandising strategies: guided selling and personalization.
Guided selling is a process that accelerates the connection between
shoppers and products by matching interests or needs with product
attributes. A 2014 survey of digital marketers conducted by
Forrester Consulting found that 51 percent plan to increase
spending in guided selling. 1
CONSIDER GUIDED SELLING FOR:
CASE STUDY – DIGITAL BEAUTY COUNTER
A leading beauty brand uses guided selling to
recommend products like a trusted beauty counter
associate. Successful engagement and interactivity show
you can create a confident buyer – in any channel. Traffic
to the guided selling application outperforms the rest of
the brand’s website.
TECHNICAL PURCHASES - Customers may need education to
understand the benefits of complex items and feature-rich
products, especially when price is a consideration.
BEAUTY PURCHASES - In the U.S., 79% of beauty brands now
offer some form of guided selling tool on their sites. 2
SEASONAL PURCHASES – Retailers often leverage guided selling
for early-funnel shoppers, using attributes like gender and age to
drive product discovery. Prom or wedding dress finders are often
used in the spring and summer, while holiday gift finders are an
effective way to guide consumers in making an appropriate
purchase decision for Christmas, Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day.
“Refresh Your Approach to 1:1 Marketing: How Real-Time Automation Elevates Personalization,”
Forrester Consulting, August 2014, p. 4.
(“Intelligence Report: Content & Commerce,” L2 Inc. and Demandware, October 23, 2014, p. 38.)
1.
2.

1970s:
Ad-hoc segmentation
1990-2010s:
‘Big Data’ TODAY
The Next Generation of Personalization
Born from recent advancements in data science, retailers can now model shopper activity and affinities to predict the most
relevant products for each individual shopper. This machine learning approach to personalization moves past the days where
segmentation reigned. Gone are the days when ‘You May Also Like’ is an innovative merchandising tactic. Soon, shoppers will
expect personalized sorts and pages that surface products that will make their way into the cart. These merchandising tactics
require intelligence to be woven into the shopping experience, far deeper than a simple integration.
The Personalization Evolution
As content and commerce blend, retailers must provide a true shopping experience that engages and connects the brand to
the shopper. Guided selling and personalization provide opportunity for innovative retailers to attract and retain shoppers.
“We comb through what we know about each
shopper, facets like color, style, fit and even price
sensitivity, to infer what she likes, what she doesn’t,
and automatically find insights that create relevant
experiences.”
-- Rama Ramakrishnan, SVP Data Science,
Salesforce Commerce Cloud

EasyAsk is the industry-leading provider of Site Search, Navigation and Merchandising functionality for eCommerce. Some of the
largest, most successful retailers have integrated EasyAsk’s site search technology into their eCommerce platform, resulting in
much higher revenue per search, better conversion and AOV. Providing the best search and merchandising and generating the
products your shoppers need, EasyAsk delivers an outstanding customer experience that earns customer loyalty.
Why “Good Enough” Search isn’t Good Enough
Corporate priorities have accepted mediocre search for too long. As priorities jockey for top-of-mind position in a retail organization’s
C-suite, search gets pushed lower down the list. That’s a mistake. Search is the lynch pin to a successful eCommerce business. The search
box is the jumping off point for most shoppers and therefore is the one spot on your website that you must get right to deliver what your
customers want.
Search and the Mobile Revolution
The technology behind the search box determines the products that
are delivered to your customer as well as complementary
merchandising decisions. Serving up the products that fit your
customer’s request along with relevant cross-sell and up-sell options
will increase your average sale and boost revenue.
Understanding the intent of a shopper’s request is the key to more
accurate search. In order for a search engine to understand the intent,
the technology must do more than just match keywords. Customers
can use their own words and not be hamstrung by words thrown
together for the benefit of the search engine. The search engine needs
to speak the same language as the shopper – not the other way around.
When it comes to mobile, search is even more important. Mobile
commerce now accounts for 30% of all eCommerce in the U.S., with
numbers expecting to grow to 50% by 20181. Natural language search
and built-in smartphone voice-to-text technology work hand-in-hand to
provide shoppers the experience they expect while searching for
products. Regardless of the device your customer uses, they will get the
most relevant results first. Because of the smaller screen, this is even
more significant for mobile. If a customer needs to scroll past the first
screen, they are more likely to abandon your site and move on to a
competitor.
Example: exact search on two
sports apparel mobile sites.
EasyAsk on the left

1 According to Internet Retailer https://www.internetretailer.com/2014/03/10/mobile-
commerce-will-be-nearly-half-e-commerce-2018
Empower your Merchandisers through Search Seamless Integration
Features and Benefits
EasyAsk Commerce Studio provides the tools your
merchandisers need to create and configure new
shopping experiences:
EasyAsk provides a search and merchandising tool that seamlessly
integrates and works with your existing eCommerce infrastructure.
Once implemented, analytics provide intelligence for
merchandisers that empower them to make updates and create
business rules to meet the demands of a changing market.
EasyAsk eCommerce Edition is available as a SaaS offering as well
as an On-Premise Enterprise License. EasyAsk eCommerce Edition
is a complete product offering Search, Navigation, Merchandising
and Analytics to help eTailers get the most from their eCommerce
sites. Join over 350 customers worldwide to deploy the
best-in-breed search and merchandising software.
Visit www.easyask.com
Best-in-class search using natural language technology
Direct control of shopping sites by business users making it
easy to react to changes
In-depth analytics provide a detailed view of shopper’s
behavior
Integration with eCommerce platforms, such as
Websphere, Magento, Infor, and Netsuite
Mobile-ready
An easy-to-use interface where merchandisers can
quickly set up promotions that automatically adjust to
the selling environment
Optimized product display in searches, category pages
and landing pages based on dynamic parameters like
popularity, sales, inventory and relevance
Up-sell and cross-sell offers for products based on
natural language rules that dynamically adjust
according to the current selling environment
Quick creation of new promotional strategies with the
ability to test these, on-the-fly, to determine their
value and responsiveness

Enriched Product Data:
The Key to Great Shopping Experiences
Connecting shoppers with the products they actually
want remains an incredible challenge for retailers today.
Today’s consumer is forced to express their wants and
needs in retailer-speak rather than using their own
language and preferences. Meanwhile the poor state of
underlying product data limits the retailer’s ability to
connect shopper preferences with accurate and
compelling product options.
The result is often a generic shopping experience that
feels like the retailer just “does not have anything for
me.”
On the surface it appears to be an experience problem,
but the real culprit for the majority of retailers is
incomplete and inaccurate product data that is
overwhelming to create and manage.
Edgecase is the leading provider of product data
enrichment technology to fuel e-commerce.
By identifying and creating enriched product attributes
that align with how consumers think and communicate,
we empower retailers to speak the language of their
shoppers.
Edgecase technology creates expanded product vocabulary to
power discovery experiences that connect shoppers with the
products they’ll love, resulting in higher engagement,
conversion, and revenue.

Real Solutions to
Complex Product Attribution Problems
Without great product data, even the most
sophisticated product selection and user experience
won’t help shoppers find what they are looking for.
The average retailer has only 15–25% of their catalog
thoroughly and accurately attributed, while also missing
the vast majority of attributes that would align with actual
shopper vocabulary and preferences. With this data
powering shopping touchpoints like search and navigation,
products become “hidden” from shoppers, limiting
conversion rates and product sell-through across all
channels.
So, you’re experiencing the product data pain and
wondering what’s the next step – or from Edgecase’s
perspective, the next four steps:

Retailers and Brand Manufacturers are implementing various technologies in their pursuit of omni-channel
capabilities. They face the daunting task of enriching product details with digital and visual content, while
simultaneously expanding online assortments to drive top-line growth. Retailers and brands must centralize
information from disparate applications, spreadsheets and databases into a ’command and control’ hub for
master data and product content.
The requirement: Automate manual
processes to coordinate and synchronize
people, processes and data within and
across enterprises.
The goal: Provide a single view of content
across channels.
Master Data Management (MDM) / Product Information
Management (PIM) platforms enable orchestration of complex
content, business relationships and work flows to achieve
differentiated customer experience, findability and brand
consistency (as detailed below).
EnterWorks’ MDM/PIM Enables Findability

EnterWorks’ MDM/PIM Enables Findability
Assortment
Expansion
Search &
Syndication
Site Search &
Browse
Localize &
Globalize
Digital
Assets
Digital
Assets
Product
Associations
Product
Associations
An expanded product assortment provides
enhanced customer experiences and
competitive advantages. The time and effort
required to setup products in manually
intensive and inefficient. EnterWorks PIM
accelerates item setup to enhance findablity,
drive top line growth, and improve customer
experiences as they interact with your brand.
Steve Jobs said people don’t know what they
want until you show it to them. EnterWorks PIM
drives product association creation and
management including up-sell, cross-sell and
substitutes. This information is typically fed
into recommendation engines to drive
enhanced performance. EnterWorks provides a
feedback loop to learn from the results and
drive merchandising improvements.
Keywords, images, attributes and other
metadata feed search engines to drive your
product findability. PIM solutions centralize
and manage these data elements into a
single operating model. Syndicating data to
your partners at the right time, and with
accurate information using a PIM, enables
you to expand reach and findability across
the marketplace.
The brain processes images 60,000 times faster
than text, and EnterWorks PIM provides a
Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution for
organizations to utilize images, videos,
installation guides, MSDS sheets and other
digital content to enhance customer
experiences and drive findability.
An organized hierarchy, structured taxonomy,
and relevant search facets (e.g. product
attributes) drives findability and
personalization. Ensuring marketing content is
aligned with customer expectations also drives
findability. EnterWorks PIM controls, manages
and federates this information into various
customer touchpoints including digital catalogs,
eCommerce, CMS and site search systems.
Customers want to find products, and
experience your brand, in their local context.
As companies expand operations globally,
translated and localized content becomes
increasingly important to differentiate and
compete in each market. EnterWorks PIM
orchestrates language translation and becomes
the ‘single version of truth’ for global and
localized product content.

Optimizing the e-commerce experience is one of the most important challenges facing e-commerce professionals today.
Because site search is so important, businesses evaluate the pros and cons of selecting a third-party site search solution.
Businesses need to also look beyond features and ensure that the solution is implemented with long-term goals in mind.
Site search feature could arguably be the most important
feature of a website. As more shoppers head online and
mobile, online retailers cannot ignore:
SITE SEARCH IMPLEMENTATION GAPSTHE IMPORTANCE OF SITE SEARCH
Site search accounts for over 30% of the activity on
an e-commerce site.
Site search is a part of the shopping experience in
over 40% of online purchases.
80% of visitors will abandon a site as a result of a
poor site search experience.
94% of searchers never go past the first page of
search results.

The Hawk Search platform upgrades basic site search functionality with a full e-merchandising suite. Built to be agnostic
and flexible, plug Hawk Search into any existing e-commerce system and modernize the customer experience.
Over 25% conversion increases are
achieved with next generation
Intelligent Search, Smart
Autocomplete, and over 300
e-merchandising features.
A flexible dashboard configured to fit
all reporting needs. Save time and
have the key metrics emailed on a
regular basis.
From predictive recommendations
to content management,
merchandisers now have full
access to tailor the experience
that fit the shopper.
INFLUENCE THE EXPERIENCEBE ENGAGEDDRIVE A KILLER EXPERIENCE
GO BEYOND SITE SEARCH

Tealium is the leader in real-time customer data solutions and enterprise tag management. Leveraging Tealium’s customer
data platform, retailers can build a unified view of the customer in real time and power more relevant, engaging
omnichannel customer experiences. Tealium is the neutral data foundation that marries customer behavior across
every channel and digital marketing technology, allowing marketers to define and segment once, yet take action
everywhere.
Today’s consumers are engaging with retailers across devices and
across channels, and expect to be engaged with the right message,
in the right channel, at the right time. The ability to deliver that
message, in the right place and at the right time, is dependent on
having a clear, comprehensive view of the consumer and their
preferences, interests, and behaviors. This comprehensive is also
critical when aiming to foster product findabililty, increase cart size,
and build customer loyalty and retention.
Omnichannel marketing is the realization of the long-held marketing
goal of delivering the right message to the right customer at the
right time. Omnichannel marketing requires assembling a single
view of the customer across channels and devices, and then sharing
that customer data with all of your systems so they can work in
concert to improve the customer experience. This important
capability requires the right approach and very specific technology
components, including a real-time data infrastructure.
Tealium enables ATMOSPHERIC MARKETING =
Segment Once, Take Action Everywhere
To fuel growth and achieve best-in-class results,
companies must engage customers at every point.
Collect visitor interaction data across every
channel and device
Be able to act on that data in real-time to
improve engagement and conversion rates
Powers 25% of Top 100 Internet Retailers
Has a turnkey integration marketplace with 800+ vendors
Served up 3.4 billion tags on Cyber Monday 2015
The company:

Tealium’s customer data platform includes:
As the leading enterprise tag management system and the foundation of Tealium’s real-time customer data platform, Tealium iQ
empowers marketing organizations to unify disparate sources customer data and drive better, more meaningful visitor interactions.
The Tealium iQ tag management solution builds a unifying data layer that allows your marketing applications to share a consistent,
centralized source of data, resulting in more consistent customer experiences across channels. Then, equipped with an ecosystem of
800+ turnkey vendor integrations, you can easily deploy and manage vendor tags, test new technologies, and take control of your
marketing technology stack. These integrations include leading e-commerce providers such as Magento, Demandware, Certona,
Optimizely, and others.
Fueled by first-hand knowledge of your customer, AudienceStream enables marketers to build comprehensive visitor profiles, enrich
these profiles with powerful additive data, and take relevant action in real time. AudienceStream allows you to correlate datafrom
across every digital touch point, and then synthesize it with offline audience data, such as call center or point of sale information. In
addition, the solution identifies visitors across devices by collecting any known identifier and matching that identifier across sessions
on any mobile, tablet, or desktop device.
AudienceStream also enables you to easily discover and target a diverse mix of audience segments, and speak to them with the right
message, at the right time, in the right way. The AudienceStream ecosystem is made up of deep, native integrations with leading email,
marketing automation, online advertising, social, and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. These live, two way
connectors share your rich visitor data with these technologies you already use to power real-time engagement and action.
Tealium DataAccess is a suite of rich data services built from the ground up to break down the barriers between the marketing data set
and data available across an entire organization. DataAccess offers the richest source of clean omnichannel, event, and audience data
collected across web and mobile touch points, and makes that data available for real-time action.
An enterprise tag management solution, Tealium iQ TM
An omnichannel segmentation and action engine, Tealium AudienceStream TM
A suite of rich data services, Tealium DataAccess TM

In order to maximize the reach of product catalogs and to increase overall visibility within organic search engines,
retailers need to embrace four primary tenets within the eCommerce businesses. By executing these aspects
effectively and to technical best practices, retail brands will enhance their overall penetration and rankings for
their “long tail” terms, the phrases that associate to their product listings and ultimately convert at the highest
percentages.
What It is: Responsive mobile design is a
method of coding that resizes websites to fit
screen sizes across mobile devices. This
method of mobile website creation ensures
a seamless viewing and interaction
experience across device types.
Why it is Vital: Google, and other search
engines, have mobile-only search results
where ‘mobile friendliness’ is a ranking
factor. In addition, with the number of
search queries on mobile devices now
eclipsing desktop as of 2015, the potential
for long-term revenue generation for
ecommerce sites may very well depend on
their ability to deliver a quality mobile
experience that can drive conversions.
Tenants of Mobile Friendly Design:
What It Is: With the announcement of
Rank Brain, Google is integrating machine
learning as a core function of its algorithm
to understand relations between topics to
increase relevance of search results for
user queries. The search wants to do
more than serve results. They want to
understand meaning, relationships
between topics (topic modeling) and
context.
Why it is Vital: As the third-highest ranking
signal, Rank Brain becomes a signal that
websites must address through robust
content that answers searcher questions,
convinces them to engage through
increased time spent on site, and
lengthens the time it takes searchers to
return to the results pages after their
initial click-through.
How Brands Make an Impact:
What it is: Semantic or structured
markup, managed through a partnership
with Schema.org, is the technical practice
of adding additional code snippets (RDFa,
MicroData or JSON-LD) to your product
pages in order to visually impact search
listings through rich snippet display and
give a known boost to click-through rate.
Why is it vital: Semantic markup enables
brands to integrate additional content into
search listings in a programmatic way to
search engines, helping them understand
their content and products better while
also improving click-through rates.
Context that can be included in markup:
What it is: The elements within
your webpage and underlining
code that serve as key directives
for Google and other search
engines to understand and initially
classify your pages.
Why is it vital: Google uses these
on-page elements to shape your
visibility and listings within their
search engine results pages. Each
can have varying influence on
ranking within SERP and
click-through rate, which search
engines use with increasing
frequency to gauge searcher
satisfaction for queries. These
elements also help reduce
duplication, which helps improve
ranking potential across the
domain.
On-Page Ranking Factors:
Size tap targets appropriately to help
searchers click on the products and info
they want with ease
Keep an appropriate font size so text is
simple to read across screen sizes
Make navigation simple so searchers can
find their products and content without
confusion. This also helps them down the
sales/marketing funnel.
Optimize load times –mobile loads at
different speeds than desktop site
versions. Streamline files, including css,
image pixels and Java, to account for
varying connections and device types.
Craft content for humans with info drawn
from authoritative sources
Answer questions in a robust manner that
encourages the incorporation of additional
resources (images, video, interactives)
Understand the importance of searcher
behavior over keyword search volume.
Construct content to target transactional
queries that’s different from content
geared to capture searchers on
informational queries
Do not rely on manufacturer generated
descriptions for products. Always create
unique content aimed at helping searchers
make purchase decisions easier.
Product price
Aggregate reviews (star ratings)
Product Availability
Address for physical locations
Phone numbers
Awards won (for product)
Manufacturer
Model
Weight
Depth
Page Titles
Header Tags (H1, H2)
Image Alt Tags
Solving Duplication:
Canonical tags
Prev/Next tags
Improving Click-Through Rate:
Meta Descriptions
Page Titles
Core On-Page Elements Semantic Markup Topic Modeling & Relevance Responsive Design for Mobile

945 Concord St
(508) 875-5700
sophelle.com
info@sophelle.com 333 West San Carlos St, Ste 700
San Jose CA 95110
Baynote.com
Nhungly Dang
ndang@baynote.com
(408) 213-9661
200 Wheeler Rd. South Tower, 3rdFl
Burlington, MA. 01803
easyask.com
Evan Bobotas
evanb@easyask.com
(781) 402-5647
800 Roosevelt Rd. Ste A360
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137
hawksearch.com
Phil Fiore
sales@hawksearch.com
(630) 984-5872
9530 Town Centre Dr. Suite 200
San Diego, CA 92121
certona.com
David Wang
dwang@certona.com
(858) 369-3888
5 Wall St
Burlington, MA 01803
commercecloud.com
commercecloud@salesforce.com
(888) 553-9216
1826 Kramer Lane
Suite B
Austin, TX 78758
Edgecase.io
Matthew Cyr
sales@edgecase.io
(855) 512-2677 (954) 380-8541
11085 Torreyana Rd, Suite 200
San Diego, CA 92121
tealium.com
Adam Corey
adam.corey@tealium.com
(858) 228-1936
32 North Front St
Philadelphia, PA 19106
trinityinsight.com
Craig Smith
csmith@trinityinsight.com
(610) 638-1047
VENDOR DIRECTORY
susan.worth@enterworks.com
6040 Center Oak Plaza
Suite 115
Sterling, Virginia 20166
enterworks.com
Susan Worth
4

Julie Barile has over 17 years of ecommerce and digital
marketing experience in both the mass and luxury markets.
Having led digital marketing at several top global companies,
including Avon, Lancôme, and Toys”R”Us, Julie’s experience
spans several product categories, business models and
corporate functions. Focusing on business strategy and
technology selection, Julie has helped top online and
multi-channel retailers gain operational efficiencies, grow
their businesses, select best-fit technology solutions, and
solve for their unique business challenges.
Please feel free to reach out: jbarile@sophelle.com
JULIE BARILE, Director Digital Commerce Practice
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GET IN TOUCH
Sophelle, an experienced provider of management and
technology consulting services to the retail and fashion
industry since 1995, helps both emerging and Fortune 500
clients achieve IT and business objectives by delivering
sound, flexible strategies and reliable, efficient solutions.
Sophelle is privately held with offices in Boston and New York
City and comprised of a team of industry experts and more
than 50 retail technology professionals.
TRADEMARKS Sophelle Focus Reports are trademarked by Sophelle. Vendor and solution
names and trademarks are the property of the respective vendors. All rights reserved.
No portion of this report may be reproduced without authorization by Sophelle.
Sophelle
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Sophelle Focus Report | Product Findability: Connecting People and Products October 2016

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