Search is a key component of companies’ product discovery and customer service strategy. Much more than simply avoiding the dreaded “null results” problem, sophisticated search programs provide contextually relevant products and content in real time, based on deriving intent from the customer and using that information deep into the customer interaction to serve their needs explicitly. Guest speaker and Forrester senior analyst, Scott Compton, is an expert in retail ecommerce and direct to consumer marketing. Scott advises companies on the strategies and technologies needed to serve the customer within today’s quickly – changing ecommerce environment. Lucidworks Digital Commerce General Manager, Peter Curran, will host a webinar on January 21 discussing: -The many ways companies can apply digital commerce search to drive onsite conversions, grow revenue and increase customer loyalty -How to extend the insights from your company’s search program to omnichannel customer service use cases -From Lucidworks, how Vector Search helped some of the world’s largest ecommerce companies address consumer goals over the 2020 holiday shopping season -How AI-powered product discovery enables retailers to understand and deliver on customer goals for higher customer satisfaction and engagement amplifying the impact on AOV and conversion Featuring -Scott Compton Senior Analyst Serving eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals, Forrester -Peter Curran General Manager, Digital Commerce, Lucidworks

1. The Case for Semantic-
Based Approaches to
Product Discovery
Guest Speakers:
Scott Compton, Senior Analyst, Forrester
Peter Curran, GM of Digital Commerce Lucidworks

2. Guest Speakers
SCOTT COMPTON
SENIOR ANALYST
PETER CURRAN
GM, DIGITAL COMMERCE

3. January 2021
The Case for Semantic-Based
Approaches to Product Discovery
Scott Compton
Senior Analyst

4. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
While global retail sales decline, online sales will
continue to grow

5. Base: 435 to 765 US online adults; Source: Forrester’s August 2020 US COVID-19 Retail Consumer Survey
One-third of online US adults note that items were out of
stock and that shipping times were longer than expected.

6. 24% percent of US online adults who started using curbside
pickup during the pandemic expect to continue after the
pandemic is over.
Base: 435-765 US Online Adults Source: Forrester’s Retail COVID-19 August 2020 Consumer Ad Hoc Survey

7. Digital Commerce Search Best
Practices
Matching customer intent with product information.

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© 2018 FORRESTER. REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED.
Visuals expedite the search and reduce incorrect selections.
Search and navigation: Visual product cues
Source: https://www.costco.com
+ Costco’s predictive search results
provide product information and
images in the search result. This may
help with product recognition,
allowing the customer to bypass the
search result page with confidence.

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© 2018 FORRESTER. REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED.
Predictive search provides product images and a call-to-action – reducing steps, speeding checkout.
Search and navigation: Shopping functionality
Source: https://www.ralphs.com
+ Ralphs provides a quick-link to add
to cart directly from the search menu
where the customer is even able to
adjust the quantity. For the product-
focused consumer, this reduces
steps and expedites check-out.

10. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Findability: Search filters, results
Search filters and results highlight price, product
ratings, fulfillment options. + Fulfilment
options
+ Detailed
product
filters
+ Ratings
and reviews
+ Strong
product details
including price
per unit

11. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Findability: Filtering
Deeper filtering helps customers find products that meet dietary and nutrition preferences, needs.
+ Dietary and
lifestyle filters

12. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Findability: Content search
+ Searchable
recipes
+ Searchable
ingredients
Content search helps customers find ideas and products. Don’t forget customer service content!

13. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Merchandising moments: Rich content
Deliver rich, meaningful content to help customers more deeply explore products.
+ Amazon has
extensive content
on the product
detail pages,
including product
benefits and video
+ Recipe/event
content helps to
expose multiple
product uses

14. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Merchandising moments: Comparison shopping content
Comparison functions as part of the eCom suite can be
employed as well as comparison content in the product
descriptions.
+ Amazon uses
comparison
content on the
product detail
page.
Convenience-focused customers need comparison shopping content to find the right product.

15. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Merchandising moments: Search “badging”
Use badging in navigation (including search filters), product results pages, and product detail pages.
+ Visual badges
highlight the items
in weekly circular
+ Content support
for badging
definitions
+ Lifestyle badging used
in nav and search filters

16. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Voice, Image and Scanning Search
New input expectations by the customer create new challenges for retailers
+ Voice, image,
and scanning
search

17. Behind the scenes of effective search
programs
Evolving the retailer’s search discipline to serve the best results.

18. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
What does ‘tuning’ search look like?
Start at global settings and work your way down to keyword / product settings
Field Mapping
& Weightings
Synonyms Boosting
Products
Redirects

19. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Cautions of using static rules
It is likely your tunings that are creating the customer experience hiccups
Static rules in a dynamic environment have their limitations.
Hard-coding products into the results doesn’t work very well with OOS situations.
Static rules can sometimes overlap creating search traps that are difficult to unravel.
Beware of multiple synonyms meanings – Example Khaki.
Beware of two-way synonyms – Red / Ruby.

20. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
Using search insights throughout the organization
Progressive retailers are using search data in new ways
Use keyword insights to
drive SEO pages for
converting products.
Customer
Service
B2B Customer
Retargeting
SEO
Historical searches can
be attached to the
account records.
Audiences can be built
from search activity.
If you have discovered
intent why not empower
your CS reps?

21. © 2020 Forrester. Reproduction Prohibited.
NLP And ML Enable Customer-Centric Search Architectures
For Future Conversational Engagement
Revamp site search to jumpstart AI, chat and personalization

22. Thank You.
Scott Compton
Senior Analyst
2

23. Semantic Vector Search
A deep-learning dense-vector based solution to low-performing queries
Peter Curran
GM, Digital Commerce
Lucidworks Inc.
January 21, 2021

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COVID Date Night!
My real life search experience last Saturday night

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Check out Palm Springs!

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I love horror movies, and this is my fave!
The VVitch, 2015, Robert Eggers, A24

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What to watch next?

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You can’t always get what you want!
But sometimes …. (you know the rest)

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Remember half marathons?!?!?
Suppose you had a great running top and you need a larger size a few years later.

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What happens when we fix this?
Utilization of search grew
Search utilization surge from 14-16% baseline to 31-34%.
Semantic vector search utilization dropped from 16% to 14%.
Semantic results convert at 2x to 3x true null results.
A few findings from a top-20 US retailer running Fusion & semantic vector search over Cyber 5 2020
Massive growth over cyber 5 last year
Clickthrough rates up 20%
Search-influenced orders up 30%
Reduction of nulls by 91%

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Let’s visualize semantic vector space

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A better visualization of vector space

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Frequency
Head: skirt, laptop, toilet paper
Torso: black merino wool cardigan, 13” laptop on sale
Tail: warm carbon shirt dress, white gold rose cut ruby ring
Lexical Search
Prevails
Vector Search
Prevails
Lexical vs. semantic vector search
Vector search isn’t a panacea. But it solves your hardest problem at scale.
Percentage of Total Query Volume
20-40% 20-40% 20-60%

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TRAINED ON POSITIVE RESULTS
What do people add to cart from search
results?
TRAINED ON ZERO RESULTS
What do people add to cart after zero results?
Two encoders, two opinions
Two separate vector spaces give us different opinions on the same query at runtime.
In this case, we trained purely on Adobe Analytics Clickstream data.

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IN STOCK / OUT OF STOCK
Train on a combination of what people cart in both situations. Favor non-zero results encoder (opinion 2).
PRODUCTS NOT CARRIED
Rely on the persistence of loyalists. What do they cart after zero results? Favor zero results encoder (opinion 1).
VOCABULARY
Rely on the persistence of loyalists. What do they cart after zero results? Favor zero results encoder (opinion 1).
MISSPELLING
Semantic similarity. Favor non-zero results encoder (opinion 2).
Four use case categories
Solved with absolutely zero curation (no synonyms) and existing training data from Analytics platform.

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Brands & collections not carried

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Expanding to new business problems
Superseded parts
”Kit” results for projects
Improvement of the existing solution
Improved embedding management
Training “forward”
That’s cool! What else can it do?
Solution areas we’re working on now

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ORGANIC LEMONADE
A very precise result
Could we do more?
IMPROVE SEARCH RESULTS VALUE

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ORGANIC LEMONADE
A less precise result
But a better experience
IMPROVE SEARCH RESULTS VALUE

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ORGANIC LEMONADE
A more precise result
Higher potential order value
FUTURE: COMBINE LEXICAL &
VECTOR SEARCH

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THE BALLAD OF
SONGBIRDS & SNAKES
A very precise query
An uninspiring result.
IMPROVE SEARCH RESULTS VALUE

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THE BALLAD OF
SONGBIRDS & SNAKES
Less precise, but better inspiration
The user has a goal, but they may
not be as satisfied with a literal
match as a semantically &
thematically useful match.
MERCHANDISING SEARCH
RESULTS

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Fusion for Commerce & Digital
ML-based product & content discovery. Operable at massive scale for key use cases.
Search
Type Ahead
Guided Navigation
Semantic LPQ/ZRP
Browse
Listing
Landing Pages
Classify & Enrich
Finders & Configurators
Personalization
Recommendations
Chatbots
Self-Service
Traffic
SEO: Sitemap
Expansion
SEM: Auction Buys

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Questions?
GUEST SPEAKER:
SCOTT COMPTON
SENIOR ANALYST
PETER CURRAN
GM, DIGITAL COMMERCE

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THANK YOU