Mark’s Plumbing Case Study
How Mark’s Plumbing SKUs Finally Got Found by Their Buyers
“What a difference CSS Commerce made to our business and in such a short time! We saw the impact right away.”
Project Manager, Mark’s Plumbing
Challenge
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Creating an Advanced Ranked & Weighted Search Tool – Find the right search tool depends on your product descriptions and building a good toolset that will allow elastic search. We had to consider if the search tool would 1) work with their current PIM and 2) was the search tool considerate of industry standards?
- The right search solution had to work in conjunction with and integrate with their PIM system. The PIM was designed to have enhanced product descriptions. With an enriched product description, it would make it easier to find what a buyer was looking for with exactitude.
- The second consideration was that the current search tool being used did not take into account any of the normal symbols or acronyms common in the plumbing industry (such as quotation marks for inches, single quote mark for feet).
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Enhancing the Buyer Experience – Buyers were searching by part numbers and being served just the part number they had requested. Ideally, you want to give the buyer more than one possible product in the search results as opposed to the exact return.
- It also gives you the opportunity to present the buyer with complementary products, kitted items, replacement parts, etc. It is a mix of cross-selling and upselling opportunities.
- By creating a ranked Search system with SOLR Search, the buyer’s search delivers not just the part they requested but we also display, as an alternative, the part or product that had the highest margin for Mark’s, most often their own OEM brand. It was usually less expensive to the buyer, but offered a higher margin to Mark’s.
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PIM Product Description Harvesting – By enhancing the product descriptions, the product search would be further enhanced. By adding details such as chrome, pewter or plastic materials, diameter and the technical specifications of each product, SOLR would be able to provide an enhanced search.
- To add to the PIM, we used artificial intelligence to visit aggregator and manufacturers’ websites to collect as much information as possible.
- Secondly, we used data already inside of Mark’s PIMs’ system to complement one similar product to another, taking information from one product and adjusting it a little to apply the information and description to the other product.
Solution
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- Mark’s experienced an increase in their margins just because of the way search results were served up to the buyer. By giving them options, the client was better able to showcase their higher margin OEM brand, giving them higher shopping cart values.
Results
Product Availability with Findability
Initial goal reached of a quarter million SKUs – and they can all be found by buyers, not just by part number or SKU. Descriptions coming from their PIM are so enhanced that a buyer can find not just the product he/she was searching for but also any complementary products as well as products he/she might have missed.
Customized Search Tool that Delivers
With the elastic SOLR Search, we were able to give Mark’s a tool that will continue to grow with them as they continue to scale their product SKUs. Its adaptability and flexibility with AI is incorporated for long term growth.
Increased Sales Margin & ROI
Mark’s experienced an increase in their margins just because of the way search results were served up to the buyer. By giving them options, the client was better able to showcase their higher margin OEM brand, giving them higher shopping cart values.
About Mark’s Plumbing
