In the ever-evolving landscape of ecommerce, product discovery and merchandising solutions that connect customers with the right products effortlessly are not just a convenience—they’re table stakes.
The digital era, especially following COVID-19, has elevated customer expectations, and product discovery must be seamless, intuitive, and, above all, effective.
Recognizing this need, Nimstrata has developed a new Shopify app that bridges the gap between Shopify stores and Google’s search and recommendations algorithms. Their new app connects Shopify stores directly to Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, allowing Shopify merchants to add Google-quality search and recommendations to their online storefront.
For Shopify ecommerce managers, the challenge of ensuring that their vast array of products is easily and accurately discoverable by customers can be overwhelming. Traditional search functionalities often need to be revised to understand the nuances of customer queries and intent, leading to missed opportunities and unsatisfactory shopping experiences. Google has spent decades honing its search algorithms and has long been the gold standard in search, and they’re now publicly available for the first time.
Understanding the Product Discovery Challenge
In the digital marketplace, where competition is fierce and consumer attention spans are short, the ability to quickly and accurately showcase the right products to the right customers is paramount – significantly if your products are commoditized. Once a store hits about 1,000 SKUs, Shopify store managers often find themselves at a crossroads, struggling to optimize their product discovery process with a convoluted market of apps and expectations. This struggle stems from several key issues:
Volume vs. Visibility
As inventory sizes grow, ensuring each product is visible and easily discoverable by potential buyers becomes increasingly complex. Shopify’s native search does not always capture the nuances of user search intent, leading to overlooked products and frustrated customers. Several other product discovery apps have entered the Shopify app store aiming to solve this problem, but several key challenges remain.
Search Result Accuracy
Customers expect search results to be relevant and tailored to their needs. However, many Shopify product discovery apps need help delivering search results that accurately match query intentions, resulting in higher bounce rates and lost sales opportunities.
Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Search for retail, formerly Discovery AI, allows Shopify merchants to provide Google-quality search and merchandising solutions on their online stores.
Smart Merchandising for Collection Pages
Most Shopify product discovery apps focus on returning the best search results to customers. However, customers browsing e-commerce sites using navigation links are technically searching for products, just not with typed words. Nimstrata’s app also delivers smart merchandising techniques to offload the burden of merchandising teams and organize product listing pages (PLPs) automatically.
Personalized Recommendations
For high-value customers, personalization is not just a preference; it’s a requirement. The capability to suggest products tailored to an individual’s browsing habits, purchase history, and preferences is essential for enhancing the shopping experience. However, developing the sophisticated algorithms required for this level of personalization is a difficult challenge that most ecommerce brands can’t tackle on their own.
These obstacles compromise not only the customer experience but also the financial performance of businesses. Poor product discovery can lead to reduced engagement, lower customer satisfaction, and, ultimately, a decline in sales.
While large retailers have tried to develop in-house recommendation systems using machine learning algorithms, they still need help understanding customer behavior, managing omnichannel interactions, and dealing with stock-keeping unit (SKU) challenges, including unstructured metadata. Google Cloud leverages its world-class recommendation expertise, honed through applications like Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Shopping, which billions of people use globally.
Vertex AI Recommendations harnesses this expertise to decode the subtleties of customer behavior by utilizing comprehensive data, tailoring algorithms to meet specific business needs, and implementing these solutions at various points in the customer journey. Shopify ecommerce managers can update AI models daily, continuously refining and enhancing recommendations to reflect actual user interactions.
Google Search by Nimstrata
Nimstrata’s Shopify app goes beyond typical product discovery tools by offering a comprehensive solution directly integrating Shopify stores with Google’s advanced search and recommendation technologies. This integration significantly improves how Shopify store owners manage and present product recommendations and searches to customers.
Overview and Primary Features
- Seamless Integration: The app connects Shopify stores directly to Google Cloud, enabling full access to the Vertex AI portfolio, specifically the advanced search and machine learning algorithms that create personalized recommendations
- Enhanced Search Capabilities: Powered by Google.com’s sophisticated search technology, the app ensures that search queries return accurate, relevant results, significantly improving product visibility and discoverability
- Intelligent Recommendations: Leveraging Google Cloud’s machine learning models, the app offers personalized product recommendations, enhancing the shopping experience for each customer
Benefits for Shopify Store Owners & Customers
- Improved Search Accuracy and Speed: Customers can find what they’re looking for quickly and with greater precision, reducing frustration and enhancing user experience
- Personalized Shopping Experiences: By offering tailored recommendations, Google Cloud Vertex AI helps increase customer engagement and loyalty, encouraging repeat visits and purchases
- Case Studies: Nimstrata’s first beta customer, LOZURI, was using Boost Commerce, a leading product discovery app until they saw the
impact of Google’s algorithms on their store. Following a 50,000+ visitor A/B test over two weeks with a 97.5% confidence level, LOZURI achieved a +38% Increase in Overall Conversion Rate and a +40% increase in Revenue per Visitor.
Previously, integrating Google Cloud Vertex AI solutions with Shopify was a costly and time-consuming endeavor requiring Google Cloud expertise and software engineers. Still, it has now been streamlined into a process that an ecommerce or marketing manager can complete in just one day.
Conclusion
Nimstrata’s new app was built to integrate Shopify stores directly with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI search and recommendation algorithms. This integration can dramatically improve search capabilities and recommendations for online merchants and offer personalized guidance to individual shoppers.
This fully-managed app aims to enhance the user experience and increase conversion rates for merchants who leverage Shopify to drive their online business. By allowing merchants to harness Google-quality search results and personalized recommendations, Nimstrata is democratizing AI and improving product discovery efficiency and accuracy.
