VAN GRAAF is an international fashion house, operating brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce sites in Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic and other countries across Europe.
CHALLENGE
The VAN GRAAF team realized the opportunity to improve their e-commerce site search functionality in order to guarantee the same digital quality standards as their physical locations. To do this, they turned to Epoq’s Intelligent Search to support customers in their journey to discover their desired product and improve the overall shopping experience.
IMPLEMENTATION
To facilitate the Intelligent Search, Epoq built a knowledge base enriched with product data, VAN GRAAF’s industry knowledge and customers’ purchase behavior (all data protection compliant). The team updated the product category structure to match this product data to ensure optimal performance of the search function and to enable quick and easy product discoverability for customers.
Epoq Intelligent Search added essential features to the site’s search functionality, such as error tolerance, a multi-faceted filter function for after-search navigation, intelligent product sorting and forwarding to specific landing pages. VAN GRAAF also placed heavy importance on matching synonyms in search results.
RESULTS
In order to compare the AI-powered search function with the site’s previous standard search function, KPIs such as orders via the search function, average order value, conversion rate, and share of sales from search were recorded over a four-month period and compared against the same metrics from the previous year.
Intelligent Search on the VAN GRAAF site had a positive effect on revenue. Additionally, the team no longer had to spend copious amounts of time managing synonym searches. The significantly reduced effort in the overall maintenance of the search functions enabled the VAN GRAAF team to focus more on other targeted optimizations.
Overall, targeted optimization on the site significantly increased KPIs across regions — even with language differences.
TAKEAWAYS
After successful integration, additional features are now planned as part of the Intelligent Search function. VAN GRAAF will also focus on scaling personalization in other phases of the customer journey.
The integration of the Epoq Intelligent Search not only optimized the search experience for our customers but also significantly reduced the maintenance effort.
— Christin Augustin, Online Product Manager
