Improved site search, powered by Lucidworks on Google Cloud, contributes to a more enjoyable shopping experience for Crate and Barrel’s online customers. crate and barrel near me are well-known for the high-quality home furniture that it sells, all of which are available in a variety of color options to accommodate any space.
Substantial Number of Sku’s for the Shopping Experience
Its substantial number of SKUs is proportional to the breadth of its product offering, which encompasses everything from waffle irons to couches, and outdoor dining tables to ornaments for Christmas trees. Each year, more than 22 million consumers visit crate and barrel near me shops, and an additional 100 million customers visit the company’s website, looking among the store’s thousands of stock-keeping units (SKUs) for, for example, the ideal magnet board to complement their newly renovated home office.
Crate And Barrel Search Engine for the Shopping experience
The issue that crates and barrels near me had was that the search engine on their website did not make it simple or obvious how to find the magnet board they were looking for. Even when Crate and Barrel possessed the exact product that customers were seeking, such as the magnet board, shoppers’ searches frequently yielded irrelevant results or none at all for a good Shopping Experience. This presented a challenge for Crate and Barrel’s merchandisers, who also faced difficulties.
Director Of Digital Product Management
Aaron Veit, crate and barrel near me Director of Digital Product Management, stated that “it is challenging for the merchant team to be able to stay on top of merchandising, being so granular and manually updating search terms along the way.” This presents a significant challenge for the merchant team. “Because we have product categories for both indoor and outdoor spaces, as well as for all areas of the home, it places pressure on our merchandising staff to be consistently making updates, additions, and changes to search results,”
Improve The Shopping Experience
crate and barrel near me realized that machine learning (ML) could provide the support it required to improve the shopping experience for both its consumers and its merchandisers as the number of SKUs it carried continued to increase. ML had the potential to enhance and direct the connection that a company’s online customers made with products that were a good fit for them, while also easing the burdensome workloads that buried the company’s merchandisers.
However, the machine-learning capabilities of its search platform were restricted. It was not possible to personalize the shopping experience, and there were no merchandising tools available to assist its merchandisers in making more efficient use of their skills and time.
The Digital Product Team at Crate & Barrel
The Digital Product team at crate and barrel near me enlisted Lucidworks’ assistance to bring the quality-of-service excellence that is characteristic of the company to its online shopping experience. The team concluded that the Lucid works commerce solution, with its sophisticated machine learning, personalization capabilities, and Predictive Merchandiser tool, was a good fit for the company’s goals.
The Use of Containerized Deployments
Lucidworks uses Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), which is hosted on Google Cloud, to assist in the management of the crate and barrel near me search engine at scale through the use of containerized deployments. Lucidworks can rapidly create, test, and deliver new features as well as separate workloads as a result of this. Accessibility, stability, and a solid foundation of security were three of the most important factors for Crate and Barrel, and they were all given by Google Cloud, which Lucidworks customers received by proxy.
Why Do You Need a Merchandising Tool in The First Place
If you’re going to use ML, then why do you need a merchandising tool in the first place? You might be wondering why crate and barrel near me even needed merchandisers or a merchandising tool if advanced machine learning could utilize customer behavior data to decide what products to offer to customers. It was stated by Peter Curran, the General Manager of Digital Commerce for Lucidworks, that “I wouldn’t get into a self-driving car that didn’t have a steering wheel and brakes.” Well, I wouldn’t either.
Indications From Customer’s Enjoyable Shopping Experience
Merchandisers are in a position unlike any other to ensure that the decisions that are being made by machine learning are not just intelligent but also appropriate. There are instances when the machine needs to be overruled, even though machine learning can take on the responsibility of adding synonyms to the database to make searches more successful or organizing search results based on clicks and other indications from customers.
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Great Number of Seasonal Products
For instance, crate and barrel near me sell a great number of seasonal products, all of which should be prioritized toward the top of search results pages at the appropriate times throughout the year. In addition, once new collections are introduced, they need to take center stage to draw attention to the recent additions to the inventory.
The Retail Industry Leader
The assistance of a merchandiser is required for this, and the merchandising features of Lucidworks make the process straightforward. Crate and Barrel is a retail industry leader in terms of setting new trends. It was the first company to use the vignette display method, in which products are arranged to look as though they are in a real-life setting such as a living room or bedroom.
Consequently, while machine learning can automate some of the repetitive work, there are still points in the customer journey where conscious decisions need to be made. When compared to the time-consuming jobs that crate and barrel near me can execute well, this work that requires calculation makes much greater use of a merchandiser’s talents.
Get An Early Start and Never Look Back
Crate and Barrel had an aggressive strategy to implement its brand-new search solution on its website in a very short amount of time. To accomplish its objective, it gathered all of the necessary resources, developed a strategy with great care, and maintained consistent contact with Lucidworks to monitor its crate and barrel coupon progress and ensure that it was on track.
After only three months of preparation, the shopping experience was ready to be implemented on the website. On the day of the launch, the teams from Crate & Barrel and Lucidworks worked together to ensure that any problems were resolved as quickly as possible, and as a result, everything went off.
