Gartner defines search and product discovery as applications that augment digital commerce solutions to facilitate navigation, filtering, comparisons and, ultimately, selection of products. They provide search (keyword, semantic and visual), merchandising (automation, configuration and curation of business rules) and product recommendations. These applications also provide catalog navigation (including SEO keyword automation and guided selling assistants). Personalization, optimization and analytics capabilities should also be available. Platforms are deployed as SaaS. They provide administrative tooling to enable digital commerce roles (merchandisers, content managers and search specialists) to support customer experiences via no-code. With the emergence of generative AI, conversational search and guided selling assistants are now appearing.
Search and product discovery applications can provide the digital customer journey from landing on a website or app to finding the correct product and adding to basket. Search results can be highly visual, using engaging layouts and multimedia. Content other than product information, such as educational information, compliance materials, customer reviews and related news may also be included in search results to engage customers and further support buying decisions.
Elastic Search is a software that enables full-text search, structured search, and analytics across diverse data types. It is designed to index, search, and analyze large volumes of data quickly and in near real time. The software supports a distributed architecture for handling data across multiple servers and provides RESTful APIs for integration with other applications. Elastic Search addresses business needs such as log and event data analysis, enterprise search, and operational monitoring by supporting scalable queries, aggregation, filtering, and data visualization. Its schema-free design allows for flexible data ingestion from various sources, making it suitable for varied use cases including search engines, application performance monitoring, and security analytics.
Algolia is a software solution that provides search and discovery capabilities for websites and applications. The software enables users to implement real-time search functionality with features such as typo-tolerance, filtering, faceting, ranking, and advanced analytics. Algolia’s search engine processes queries quickly to deliver relevant results, supporting both textual and structured data. The software is designed to assist businesses in improving user experience by making large volumes of information easily accessible and navigable. Additionally, its API-driven architecture allows for integration with various technology stacks, offering customization options to tailor the search experience to specific needs.
Luigi’s Box is an e-commerce product search & discovery solution that helps e-commerce businesses and other websites improve the shopping and browsing experience. The ultimate goal of Luigi’s Box is to improve customer satisfaction, and in turn bring higher conversion rates and more sales to the business. Luigi’s Box products include advanced Luigi’s Box Search for accurate and personalized search results, efficient Luigi’s Box Recommender for suggesting the right products outside of searches, organized Luigi’s Box Product Listing to personalize product lists for each customer, a smart Luigi’s Box Shopping Assistant that helps customers choose the right products, and comprehensive Luigi’s Box Analytics that gather all important customer shopping data. Every Luigi’s Box product is supported by its own set of features.
Vertex AI Search for commerce is a software designed to enhance product search and discovery within digital commerce platforms. It utilizes machine learning to interpret user queries and deliver relevant product results by understanding contextual and semantic meanings behind searches. The software enables personalized recommendations, advanced filtering, and product categorization, aiming to streamline the shopping experience and facilitate efficient navigation through extensive catalogs. Vertex AI Search for commerce integrates with existing e commerce systems and supports product catalog indexing, real time search ranking, and analytics to help businesses identify trending products and optimize inventory management. This software contributes to addressing common challenges in e commerce search, such as misspellings, synonyms, and ambiguous terms, and supports multiple languages to accommodate a global user base.
Leverage Bloomreach's e-commerce AI, Loomi, to eliminate null results pages, generate synonyms, make intuitive autosuggestions, provide relevant search results, and enhance the overall search experience.
With Bloomreach's dataset, you don’t have to wait for a pixel to learn or for your merchandising team to diagnose and test rules. Our AI-powered search tool can handle as much (or as little) as you like.
Our insights dashboard will allow you to adjust and tweak manually as needed, empowering you to combine your merchandising expertise with our AI-powered enterprise search system.
Use behavioral data feature to identify, target, and customize the entirety of a customer’s shopping experience from their first visit. Personalize search results, boost products, and craft customer rules.
FactFinder empowers eCommerce businesses to achieve more – driving higher conversion rates, revenue and customer loyalty through AI-powered product discovery and search. Trusted by more than 2,000 B2B and B2C online shops worldwide, we help millions of shoppers quickly find the most relevant products every day.
With transparent AI and the ability to fine-tune product positioning across search, recommendations, merchandising and more, business users have the control they need to optimize results and create personalized experiences that meet both consumer and business needs.
Backed by a committed and responsive local team, FactFinder delivers flexible, customized solutions to tackle today’s challenges and prepare for tomorrow’s growth. With offices across Europe, we are dedicated to your success.
Constructor is a software designed to enhance search and product discovery experiences for e-commerce platforms. The software leverages data-driven algorithms and artificial intelligence to deliver relevant and personalized search results, autocomplete suggestions, and product recommendations. Its features include dynamic filtering, merchandising controls, real-time analytics, and A/B testing capabilities. Constructor addresses challenges related to product search accuracy and discoverability, helping e-commerce businesses optimize conversion rates and user engagement by improving the relevancy and ranking of search results. The software supports integration with various e-commerce systems and offers tools for managing and tuning search functionalities to meet specific business requirements without relying on manual rule-setting.
Azure AI Search is a cloud-based software providing search-as-a-service capabilities that allow users to create, manage, and scale search experiences for web and enterprise applications. The software enables integration of search functionality with artificial intelligence features such as language understanding, image recognition, and natural language processing, aiding in extracting relevant information from a variety of data sources including documents, databases, and media. Azure AI Search supports indexing and querying unstructured and structured data, provides cognitive skills to enrich content, and offers features for filtering, sorting, and faceting results. This software addresses business challenges related to information retrieval, content discovery, and knowledge management, facilitating efficient access to data across diverse datasets.
Coveo AI‑Relevance Platform is a software designed to enhance search, recommendation, and personalization capabilities across digital experiences. The software utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze user interactions, delivering relevant content and insights in real time. It integrates with various data sources and business applications, allowing organizations to unify information and optimize access to knowledge. The platform addresses challenges related to information retrieval, supporting use cases such as website search, customer service, and workplace productivity. It aims to improve efficiency by enabling users to find accurate information quickly and supporting decision-making processes based on contextual understanding.
Netcore Unbxd Search is a software solution designed to enhance product discovery and search capabilities for ecommerce platforms. The software leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver relevant search results and personalized recommendations, aiming to optimize the shopping experience and increase conversion rates. It provides features such as semantic search, autosuggest, faceted navigation, and real-time indexing to help users find products efficiently. Netcore Unbxd Search addresses the business challenge of improving search relevance and reducing search abandonment, assisting ecommerce businesses in connecting shoppers with products that match their preferences and intent.
Fredhopper is a software designed to enhance ecommerce experiences by providing search, navigation, and merchandising functionalities for online retailers. The software enables businesses to manage product discovery by optimizing search results and product recommendations based on user behavior and data-driven insights. It supports personalized content delivery and visual merchandising, assisting in increased conversion rates by making product catalogs easier to browse. Fredhopper integrates with various ecommerce platforms to address the challenge of managing large product assortments and ensuring relevant product visibility to users. It offers tools for business users to configure campaigns and promotions without requiring extensive technical knowledge, improving operational efficiency in online retail environments.
Lucidworks Platform is a software designed to manage, search, and analyze large volumes of data from diverse digital sources. The software provides organizations with tools to build search and discovery applications that enable users to access relevant information efficiently. It integrates capabilities such as data ingestion, indexing, natural language processing, and real-time analytics. Lucidworks Platform offers features for customizing search relevance and applies machine learning to optimize search results based on user interactions. The software supports deployments on cloud or on-premises environments and is used to address business challenges related to data discovery, knowledge management, and information retrieval in complex data ecosystems.
AddSearch is a software designed to provide customizable site search functionality for websites and web applications. The software delivers real-time search capabilities, indexing site content to enable fast and relevant results for users. AddSearch features include adjustable ranking, analytics for search performance, filtering, and multilingual support. The software integrates into various content management systems, offering tools for layout customization and responsive design. It helps organizations address the business problem of enabling users to efficiently locate information on their websites, improving navigation and access to digital content. AddSearch also provides developers with APIs for advanced configurations and automation within existing workflows.
BatteryIncluded specializes in Data Discovery and AI-powered Business Intelligence solutions tailored for online stores. With a foundation of over 25 years in the e-commerce sector, BatteryIncluded has created a unique AI framework that enables real-time, highly relevant user experiences. This framework is characterized by its modular design, centered around three core components, and prioritizes a privacy-first approach. It is entirely hosted in Germany, adhering to local data protection standards, and delivers efficient performance with response times under 50 milliseconds.
BatteryIncluded's offerings are particularly beneficial for digital companies with intricate operations and diverse product ranges, allowing them to present relevant product and content lists in a flexible and efficient manner. The company's solutions provide a balanced combination of automation and customizable settings, enabling businesses to utilize their data effectively.
HawkSearch is a search software designed to enhance the search and information retrieval experience for websites and online platforms across various industries. The software provides features such as faceted navigation, content enrichment, relevance-based search results, and personalization capabilities. HawkSearch assists businesses in solving the challenge of helping users locate relevant data, products, or content efficiently within large volumes of digital information. The software integrates with content management and eCommerce systems, offering analytics and reporting tools to support ongoing optimization. HawkSearch enables organizations to deliver tailored search experiences that can increase user engagement and improve the accuracy and speed of information discovery.
Sensefuel is a software designed to enhance product search and discovery on ecommerce platforms. It utilizes intelligent search algorithms to deliver relevant results and personalized suggestions to users based on their onsite behavior and preferences. The software supports features such as natural language processing, dynamic filtering, and real-time refinement of search queries, aiming to simplify the process of finding products in extensive online catalogs. Sensefuel addresses the business problem of low conversion rates due to inefficient search experiences by enabling merchants to present products more efficiently and align the results with customer intent. The software integrates with ecommerce infrastructures to streamline setup and operation, providing retailers with insights into search performance and opportunities for improvement.
The Athos Commerce platform is a software designed to enhance ecommerce site search, merchandising, and product discovery for online retailers. The software enables businesses to optimize product search results, create merchandising rules, and deliver personalized shopping experiences. It supports features such as autocomplete, faceted navigation, dynamic filtering, and product recommendations. Athos addresses the challenge of helping shoppers find relevant products efficiently, thereby improving conversion rates and streamlining the browsing process. The software integrates with various ecommerce platforms and provides analytics to inform merchandising decisions, aiming to improve user engagement and support business growth through effective site search management.
GroupBy’s AI-first eCommerce Search and Product Discovery platform offers a comprehensive suite of Data Enrichment, Search & Recommendations, Merchandising, and Reporting & Analytics, empowering merchants to elevate their digital customer experiences. Powered by Google Cloud Vertex AI Search for Retail, GroupBy delivers advanced machine learning and AI capabilities for superior search and recommendations, optimized not just for relevance, but also for revenue generation. Its sophisticated merchandising tool strikes a balance between AI-led optimization and manual control, offering the option to go completely ruleless. This flexibility allows merchandising teams to focus on revenue strategies, enhancing both productivity and efficiency. With its API-first, composable architecture, GroupBy seamlessly supports omnichannel experiences, reduces time to market from years to weeks, and is designed to maximize revenue for retailers, wholesalers, and distributors.
Zoovu is a software designed to facilitate digital product discovery and configuration for businesses seeking to improve online customer interactions. The software leverages artificial intelligence to interpret consumer intent, guide users through product selection processes, and deliver personalized recommendations. By integrating with e-commerce and digital sales channels, Zoovu helps organizations address challenges such as product complexity and decision fatigue, supporting users in identifying suitable options from broad or technical catalogs. Its features include conversational search, guided selling, and analytics for insight into customer behaviors, enabling businesses to streamline the purchase journey and enhance user satisfaction through tailored experiences.
Yext Search is a hosted search engine that uses AI and natural language understanding to provide business answers for users in real time. Yext Search provides the tools businesses need to answer users’ questions on your website, in your app, or anywhere else people are searching. Yext Search has three components: Yext Content, the index that stores data; the Search backend, which configures how the Search algorithms determine which results are returned; and the Search frontend, which structures how the results are displayed. Yext Search has capabilities around generative answers - effectively using the content to do a RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) step off LLM-generated answers. This means businesses can use LLMs, but the scope is constrained to a set of controlled and approved content - eliminating hallucinations such as recommending products or features that do not exist. Yext Search is ideally suited for corporate environments where response accuracy.
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Features of Search and Product Discovery
Updated July 2025
Mandatory Features:
Search analytics
Product search (keyword)
Semantic search support (natural language processing [NLP] and/or vector)
Results personalization
Catalog navigation (browse) replacing a static taxonomy up to (but not including) product detail pages (PDPs)
Peer Lessons Learned for Search and Product Discovery
Published November 2024
These lessons focuses on the responses to the questions: “If you could start over, what would your organization do differently?” and “What one piece of advice would you give other prospective customers?”