This is the third in a series of articles that explores how Searchspring’s Generative Discovery platform complements Shopify and other ecommerce platforms to create state-of-the-art product discovery solutions. In the first two articles, we explored Searchspring’s enhanced search and personalization. Here, we are looking at Searchspring’s ML-powered merchandising solution and how it works alongside Shopify to enhance product discovery.
Searchspring and Shopify platforms are extremely complementary. Shopify provides a robust platform for merchants to manage their ecommerce site while Searchspring adds sophisticated search, recommendations, merchandising, bundling, and data management tools to take product discovery on Shopify sites to the next level. Together, Searchspring and Shopify empower merchants to provide the best possible shopping experience for their customers.
How Searchspring Merchandising Contributes to Generative Discovery
Our vision for Generative Discovery positions us as a leader in ecommerce innovation. By integrating AI, machine learning, and NLP to enhance product discovery and reduce search abandonment, our technology deeply understands shopper intent and enables merchants to deliver hyper-personalized experiences through search, merchandising, recommendations, and bundling.
Just as search engines organize the world’s information and social networks connect people, Generative Discovery understands customer intent to predict exactly what shoppers want and deliver it instantly.
Searchspring’s Intent-Based Merchandising
Generative Discovery powers intent-based merchandising, analyzing customer behavior and tailoring product recommendations, merchandising, and promotions across merchants’ sites to exactly match each shopper’s profile.
This degree of personalization enables merchants to provide a unique shopping experience for each customer, leading to greater customer satisfaction, higher engagement, and increased conversion rates and average order value (AOV).
How Searchspring Helps Shopify Merchants Personalize and Automate Merchandising
Shopify alone: The native Shopify platform offers basic merchandising tools, with flexibility often constrained by the limitations of specific design templates. Merchandising options are relatively static and ecommerce managers are usually required to use manual processes to create, update, and optimize product displays.
Shopify + Searchspring: The Seachspring platform excels in automated, personalized merchandising and provides advanced tools that enable brands and retailers to leverage personalization to precisely control recommendations, merchandising, and scheduling.
As part of their marketing strategy, merchants can apply:
- Specific Sorting: Arrange products for maximum impact in different contexts (e.g., sort by newest in a collection of “new arrivals” while preventing the same sort from applying in other contexts).
- Boost/Bury Logic: Promote and demote products by context (e.g., raise the priority of the most discounted items in a sale or clearance).
- Pinning: Permanently promote high-performing or strategically important products at the top of targeted pages.
- Switch: Turn personalized search on or off.
- Triggered Banners: Trigger promotional banners based on each user’s specific actions or contexts. For example, banners can change depending on the search term, the category, or even the user’s location.
- Scheduled Banners: Save time and money by scheduling banners to appear and disappear automatically to coincide with promotions.
- Multiple Banner Placements: Boost conversions by placing banners where they have maximum impact. Banners can be placed at the top, bottom, or side of a page, and even inline with products on a product listing page (PLP), offering greater flexibility in design and user engagement.
- A/B Testing: Optimize merchandising strategy by A/B testing different banners in various placements to determine the most effective configuration. Optimize for maximum revenue.
What Do Customers Say About Searchspring’s Personalized Merchandising?
BHFO is a Shopify customer that works directly with some of the largest brands and retailers in the world that are famous for their quality and style.
The Challenge
BHFO found that merchandising was incredibly time-consuming. The company needed a solution that would streamline the process and get relevant products in front of shoppers quickly.
The Solution
BHFO found that Searchspring gives them the freedom to create and schedule landing pages and global merchandising campaigns, as well as set rules and test strategies.
BHFO also discovered that they didn’t need multiple tools or plug-ins to address their issues because Searchspring had everything they needed in one package. Searchspring’s reporting features, for example, helped BHFO make data-driven decisions, empowering marketing and merchandising teams, streamlining communication across the entire company, and enabling inventory optimization and conversions based on shopper intent.
Why Searchspring is a Must-Have for Shopify Merchants
Generative Discovery brings advanced search functions and personalized merchandising and recommendations to ecommerce businesses seeking a smart, scalable product discovery solution. While Shopify provides a strong foundation, Searchspring’s AI-powered tools significantly improve personalization and merchandising. Searchspring is a critical enhancement to the Shopify platform for merchants aiming to deepen customer engagement, increase conversion rates, boost AOV, and scale their operations quickly.
Also in this series:
