The mid-2017 product update webinar outlined Searchspring's advancements in merchandising, personalization, and product recommendations, aiming to enhance online retail experiences. Key accomplishments included automation tools, improved visual merchandising features, and smart product boosting rules, which allow retailers to optimize product promotion efficiently. Upcoming plans involve further enhancements to boosting rules, personalization strategies, and product recommendations to meet diverse merchant needs.

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Mid-2017 Product Update Webinar

2. Agenda
1.) Introduction
2.) What We've Accomplished
3.) What's Coming Next
4.) SearchSpring & You
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3. Product Leadership Team
Gareth - CEO, Product Vision
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Julia - Product UI Designer
Adam - Jr. Product Manager

4. Introduction

5. Mid-2017 SearchSpring Product Updates
● Merchandising: Putting retailers in the driver's seat
● Personalization: Present products tailored to shopper’s individual
preferences
● Product Recommendations: Increase AOV and Conversion through
cross-selling and up-selling
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6. ● Increase gross margin
○ Automatically boost items based on item-level gross margin
○ Promote house brands
○ Gain pricing leverage with manufacturers/brands by promoting their product
○ Attract “Full Price” shoppers by showcasing higher quality brands
● More automation (save time)
○ Automate the ordering of products on search, category and brand pages
○ Use metrics to continually optimize product placement
■ CTR, conversion, revenue-per-visit, etc
○ “Set it and forget it” rules
● Tools for fast fashion and high-turn retailers
○ Easier control of in-stock vs out-of-stock items
○ Showcase new and in-season items
Intro: Merchandising
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7. Intro: Personalization
● Create the traditional in-store experience online
● Know your customers
● Adapt product listings pages and widgets to the shopper
● Easier & faster shopping for customers
○ Less clicks to get to product pages
○ More engagement at the product level
● Consumers want:
○ To be personally greated
○ Feel like retailers know them (without being creepy)
○ Adapt the online experience to their needs
● Marketers want:
○ To richly target consumers with relevant offers (need rich customer profiles)
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8. Intro: Product Recommendations
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● Increases Average Order Value / Margin
○ Cross-selling / up-selling
○ Associated items, complementary items, similar items.
● Increases Conversion rates
○ Item discovery lengthens shopper journey, reduces abandon rates
● Background
○ Provided since 2010
○ Intelligently elevated boosting based on associated views and sales

9. What We've
Accomplished
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10. Visual Merchandising
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What We’ve Accomplished:

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● Easier to import and promote products.
● Preview your items before committing.
What We’ve Accomplished
Visual Merchandising - Bulk Import

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● Allows more precise control over where products are promoted.
● Select any position in a product listing to insert or shuffle items
What We’ve Accomplished
Visual Merchandising - Placement Cursor

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● Sets the foundation for boosting rules across all pages
○ E.g. Promote in-house brands first, then best sellers
● Set banner content across all pages
What We’ve Accomplished
Visual Merchandising - Default Campaign

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● Edit the conditions for when a campaign appears to a shopper
What We’ve Accomplished
Visual Merchandising - Conditional Trigger Sets

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Much faster, more powerful, robust, and easier to use
1. Landing Pages
2. Promote up to 10,000 products
3. Products Toolbox
4. IntelliSuggest arrows
5. Improved Workflow
What We’ve Accomplished
Other Visual Merchandising Updates

16. Product Boosting Rules
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What We’ve Accomplished:

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● You create smart rules that dynamically update how your products are promoted
● Set up on Merchandising Campaigns or your entire store
What We’ve Accomplished
Product Boosting Rules (Beta)

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Powerful and easy to use
● Create groups of products to promote
based on matching, non-matching,
and number groups
● Preview boost effects in real-time
Example Uses
● Promote brands to increase gross margin and/or conversion
● Promote newest items for high turn
● Promote most-purchased products for higher conversion
What We’ve Accomplished
Product Boosting Rules (Beta)

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What We’ve Accomplished
What we’ve heard:
● Game changer, allowing merchants to scale merchandising efforts drastically
● Especially useful for seasons and occasions
● Do more in less time: Merchandise more items across more pages
● Spend more time focusing on strategy
Product Boosting Rules (Beta)
“In a word, awesome. We are counting on it for our
functionality and can’t afford to have it taken away!"
- Ryan Steinmetz, MidwestBoots
"We were able to have newest products
first available for our big trade show"
- Matt Lipstein, Chuck Levins
“It's saved us time and really it's made our site
better. Our buying team is trained on it, and we can
all contribute to making the site look the best that
we can.”
“It's a morale thing, our team is committed to making the
site look great, and they no longer have the limitations
they had before. It's a big deal.”
- Charlie Goyer, Saint Bernard

20. Other Projects
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What We’ve Accomplished

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● Login page redesign
● Google Analytics in Autocomplete
suggestions
● Product Insights beta
● Revenue Insights beta
● New fields from your feed
automatically added
● Background Filters in the
Zero-Results Report
● Synonyms Improvements
● Improved Search Relevancy
● Improved performance of Search
reports
What We’ve Accomplished
Other Projects

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● saluki-upgrade.css is still tracked in Git
● Set default Data Feed settings to include all custom fields, sku
options, everything (so Express sites generate all fields)
● BazaarVoice Doc Filter, NPE
● Copy link on search preview integration takes you to Google
Analytics setup
● Product Boosting on URLs does not appear to work
● Legacy Filters Report - "size" not working correctly in top chart
● Express 3dcart setup: should use "thumbnailfile" instead of
"ThumbnailFile"
● Data Feed admin config shows for Express and not otherwise
● Email Template Type-o
● Saluki Migration, Always Force
● Visual Merch trigger encoding issue
● Boosting on a category doesn't work
● Duplicate Regen Processes
● Product Import Email - missing site info
● Merch same-field triggering
● Visual merch removed products missing from GUI
● Shopify API returning "Bad Gateway", killing regen
● Visual merch boost drag-n-drop bug
● Express integration broken on IE
● Disable Redirects in Search for AC
● Visual merch search campaign w/ redirect missing promotions
● Prevent marketing site from taking down the SMC
● Field boosting script causes memory leak in elasticsearch
● Autocomplete Express integration broken on IE
● Category Insights pages have wrong column name ("Search
Query") and remove empty GA columns for category insights
● Platform Integration Defaults incorrect
● Product Importer - Recs Data
What We’ve Accomplished
● VM: Banners not saved with target URL (as link)
● Saluki: ExternalFieldsDocument filter should be non-strict
● Cannot delete VM banners
● Prevent saving if JS parse error in express/angular (AJAX v3
integration code)
● Activation: bring req timeout up to op timeout
● 3dCart: Ignore hidden options from REST API feeds
● Shopify Regen, More Retries
● Visual Merch: make the toolboxes toggleable
● Boosting rules treats Sales Rank as a discrete value instead of
sortable
● NetSuite regen doesn't fail correctly
● VM Trigger modal issue
● Live Indexing - Overwrites record metaData
● Visual Merchandising Improvements
● VM Removed Products don't lazy load
● IS Dashboard Widget shows OK when there's no IS results
● PHP Warning: Legacy Search Endpoint
● VM - Campaign compare score bug
● Boosting Rule "is not" broken for multi-values
● Product Typing: Number Terms; fix "w/Something"
● Saluki: exceptions for 500s should include message
● SMC cookie domain includes port
● SMC: Synonym subtype error message/log
● Visual Merchandising Improvements
● VM Removed Products "temporarily unavailable"
● VM shouldn't show promoted products that don't apply to that
filter
● NPE in new experimental indexing logic
● ES should stem possessive/plural nouns
● Insights conversion incorrectly calculated
60+ Bugs Squashed

23. What’s Coming Next
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24. ● Q3: Boosting Rules
● Q3: Personalization
● Q3: Other Projects
● Q4: Product Recommendations
Mid-2017 Product Roadmap
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25. Q3: Product Boosting Rules
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● Beta: Finishing touches
● Boosting on Search, Category, and globally
● Public release begins soon
● Next week: Interface enhancements
What’s Coming Next
Product Boosting Rules

27. Q3: Personalization
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28. Guides shoppers to the products that are best fit for their personal preferences.
● Saves shoppers time
● Reduces frustration
● Increases customer confidence
● Personal trust for shoppers
Resulting in:
● Increased conversion
● More loyal / returning shoppers
● Accommodates different merchant needs
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What’s Coming Next
Personalization

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What’s Coming Next
Personalization Prototype

30. Q3: Other Upcoming Projects
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● Next week:
○ Smart Facet ordering
○ View your products’ field values in Search Preview
○ Improved indexing performance
● Beyond:
○ Search Algorithm
■ Easier to Merchandise and set boost rules on search queries
■ Faster, more powerful search API
○ Improvements to Synonyms
○ Increased reliability with our content delivery network
○ Richer Product Recommendations display
What’s Coming Next
Other Upcoming Projects

32. Q4: Product Recommendations
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What’s Coming Next
What are the most important features of
product recommendations?
Product Recommendations - Survey Results
Insights
Em
ailM
erchandising
W
idgets
Targeting
Personalized
N
on-ProductC
ontentC
ustom
D
esigns

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What’s Coming Next
How much control would you like over the
products that show up in recommendations?
Product Recommendations - Survey Results
Automated
Manual
Partial Automation

35. ● Potential projects:
○ Merchandising Control for Recommendations
○ Performance Insights
○ Recommendations Emails
○ Flexible Product widgets
○ Configurable Suggestions for Cross-selling
○ Device targeting
○ Personalized based on shopper needs
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What’s Coming Next
Product Recommendations

36. SearchSpring & You
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37. Lend Your Voice: Community Feedback
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help.searchspring.com

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● Exclusive early access to groundbreaking new features
● Your voice directly influences how we create our product
● Next beta: Personalization
Join the beta program: Adam@searchspring.com
Get Involved: Beta Program

39. Thank you.
Email me at:
adam@searchspring.com
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