Klevu, a provider of AI-powered search technology for retail e-commerce sites, has debuted a Discovery Suite, an end-to-end product discovery solution designed to capture online shoppers’ intent to drive conversion, average order value and loyalty.
The Discovery Suite includes four major functionalities: Smart Search, Smart Category Merchandise, Smart Recommendations and a Personalization Engine. One top global footwear brand is already experiencing significant results with access to the Discovery Suite.
“Puma has seen a 52 percent average increase in search-led conversion since integrating Klevu’s solution,” said Heike Zenkel, senior team head of content management, global e-commerce at Puma in a statement.
Klevu works with Puma’s regional teams across the globe to optimize product discovery and increase use of search. The solution provider says that the quality of Puma’s e-commerce user experiences has improved via the suite’s Smart Search and Category Merchandising capabilities.
The discovery tool is built to learn from shoppers at every point of their journey as they navigate an online store, not just when they type keywords into the search box.
Smart Search is an extensible e-commerce search solution that delivers search results based on real-time shopper intentions and behavior, and is powered by machine learning and natural language processing capabilities. When shoppers use text or voice search, the feature is designed to identify nuances of spoken or typed language to identify shopper intent and search all available product data to return relevant results. Klevu even says it automatically adds contextually relevant synonyms to the product catalog to enrich wider search coverage.
Related Stories
The Smart Category Merchandising function includes controls that are designed to be merchandiser-friendly, dynamically ranking the ordering of products on category pages. From the Klevu Merchant Center, merchandisers can visualize each category page, fine tune the results with a drag-and-drop interface, and preview before publishing. Multi-user support empowers a team of merchandisers across the store to work on merchandising campaigns together.
The AI-powered Smart Recommendations feature is designed to display hyper-relevant product recommendations, whether through sitewide product carousels that show recommendations on any page, within personalized and curated collection and category pages, or within high-conversion product detail pages to encourage upselling.
Finally, the Personalization Engine is the backbone of the Discovery Suite, connecting real-time website behavior to shopper profiles and reordering products that best fit within typical preferences, such as brand or price range.
More than 3,000 global brands including Puma now using Klevu’s proprietary technology, including Toys “R” Us/Babies “R” Us, Callaway, apparel retailer Sunspel and furniture and homeware seller Made.com.
With the product launch, Klevu also announced that it has secured $12 million in Series A funding, led by venture capital firm Alfvén & Didrikson, with participation from initial investors EVLI Growth Partners, Jerry Pruttz Holding and Jonas Dromberg. Klevu will use the funds to accelerate its global expansion and further develop products that leverage machine learning and natural language processing to drive data-driven success for online retailers.
Nilay Oza, CEO and co-founder of Klevu, said 30 percent of online shoppers will bounce from a site if they can’t find what they want. Oza appears to have built the Discovery Suite on the premise that extended search and discovery capabilities can prevent this kind of bounce rate, and that search involves much more than the search box itself.
“[Search] encompasses every part of an online shopper’s experience, from using filters and navigation tools to receiving product recommendations and even chat—all of those touch points are part of search,” Oza said in a statement.
He said that the suite also enables brands to gather data insights geared at informing merchandising and product development decisions. This could be important for identifying demand for new category extensions and product improvements or making catalog and promotional/pricing decisions.
The solution integrates with all other digital and e-commerce platforms, including Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce. Additionally, brands can integrate this data with their existing ERP systems, email marketing systems and POS systems, which also could help empower in-store associates with insights that allow them to offer a more personalized experience for each customer they serve.