Product Search vs. Product Discovery: What’s the Difference?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Understanding the difference between product search and product discovery starts with what each one is actually doing for the shopper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Is Product Search?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
When it comes to ecommerce specifically, the core of product search lies in understanding and fulfilling the shopper’s intent. When a shopper types a query into the search bar<\/a>, they intend to find a specific product or service. The role of product search is to comprehend this intent and provide results that accurately match it. It not only meets the immediate needs of the customer but also enhances their overall experience on the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Product discovery can be defined as the process of finding and exploring products in an online store without necessarily having a specific intent to purchase. Unlike product search, where users have a clear goal in mind, product discovery allows users to browse and stumble upon items they may not have known they wanted or needed. So, product discovery teams want to optimize for this customer, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just think of product discovery as an expanded version of product search; it’s another essential aspect of the ecommerce industry that adds to the personalized shopping experience<\/a>. Product discovery extends traditional search functionalities to include category navigation, product taxonomy<\/a>, merchandising, and recommendations<\/a>. It plays a crucial role in attracting and retaining customers, fostering a positive brand perception, and, of course, driving revenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, product discovery recognizes that customers enjoy the process of browsing and discovering new products to solve their wants, desires, and pain points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The process of product search can be broken down into three key components:<\/p>\n\n\n\n While smarter search is undoubtedly a part of product discovery, other crucial components are involved. These include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Improving product discovery isn’t a single project \u2014 it’s a set of connected bets across search, navigation, personalization, and merchandising. Here are five areas where focused investment produces measurable results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plain keyword matching misses intent. When a shopper searches “running shoes for wide feet,” a semantic system understands the shape requirement as well as the words. AI-powered search intelligence<\/a> learns from real transaction data (what shoppers clicked, ignored, and bought) and continuously improves ranking based on those signals. This is the foundation that everything else in product discovery builds on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If your category hierarchy doesn’t match how shoppers think about products, it\u2019ll lead to navigation fails. Audit your top-level categories against actual search queries. Do shoppers search “women’s athletic tops” but land in “activewear > tops > women’s”? That vocabulary gap can cost you conversions. Invest in product taxonomy<\/a> work to align catalog structure with shopper language. The goal is a hierarchy that feels intuitive to the person browsing, not one that mirrors your internal catalog logic. Even modest improvements here, like clearer labels, better nesting, and fewer dead-end categories, keep shoppers moving toward a purchase rather than bouncing off a dead end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Personalization shouldn’t stop at the homepage hero banner. The biggest gains come from personalizing search results ranking, category page ordering, and recommendation widget content for each shopper. Even anonymous shoppers leave behavioral signals, such as session clicks, dwell time, and add-to-cart events, that a good discovery platform can act on in real time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Vitamin Shoppe<\/a> used Loomi’s product discovery tools to deliver personalized product discovery at scale, including for shoppers still early in the browsing process, increasing its add-to-cart rate by 11% and its search RPV by 5.69%. Loomi’s ability to act on in-session behavior meant that even first-time visitors got a more relevant experience as they moved through the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Merchandising rules let your team control what the algorithm surfaces \u2014 it can promote high-margin items, new launches, or seasonal inventory, or it can bury out-of-stock or discontinued products. The best discovery platforms let merchandisers set these rules globally or at the query level, all without writing code. Done right, merchandising aligns algorithmic ranking with business priorities so that what’s best for the shopper and what’s best for the business point in the same direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More and more shoppers don’t search with keywords anymore \u2014 they ask questions, describe what they need, or upload an image of what they’re looking for. Conversational shopping experiences and image search are quickly becoming the expectation. Building these into your site experience prepares you for how AI is changing how shoppers find products. Bloomreach supports both conversational shopping<\/a> and image search<\/a>, giving shoppers multiple paths to find the right product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every gap in your discovery experience eventually shows up in your revenue. Here are five ways product discovery moves the numbers that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Product discovery has the potential to give your business a serious boost in profitability. By guiding customers toward relevant products, you not only increase conversion rates but also encourage them to spend more. It all starts with algorithms that identify which products are relevant based on user behavior for each query, rather than just the broad product type or category. This query-level semantic understanding constantly optimizes search results for what your customers are most likely to buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The right search tool will include AI<\/a> (or prioritize it on its product roadmap) and machine learning (ML), and can understand what a customer is trying to find, no matter how they type into the search bar (e.g., misspellings, unexpected synonyms, or brands you don’t carry). After the recall algorithm does its magic, a dynamic ranking algorithm will order the results in a way that boosts RPV and AOV. Keep in mind that improved product discovery and profitability will also help procurement workflows and the future product development process since you have the finger on the pulse of your customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Canadian Tire, for example, increased conversions over 20%<\/a> across multiple brands after implementing Bloomreach’s search and product discovery tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gone are the days of tedious manual processes. With an AI-powered search and merchandising tool, you can work smarter and faster. AI can analyze vast amounts of data in real time, providing valuable insights and recommendations for optimizing search results and product collections. The combination of technology and human expertise empowers your team to curate captivating collections, optimize search results, and deliver personalized experiences that set you apart from the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plus, search and merchandising solutions allow your team to focus on strategic decision-making rather than getting caught up in repetitive manual tasks. With automation taking care of mundane processes (like product categorization, tagging, and inventory updates), your team can allocate their time and resources toward more creative and impactful initiatives, like usability testing, customer education, and promotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By implementing a product discovery solution, you can significantly reduce the total cost of ownership for your IT team. No more building complex algorithms from scratch and maintaining them over time. The best search solutions come equipped with user-friendly interfaces that even business users can navigate with ease and make important changes without a support ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Product discovery solutions take these burdens (and more) off your IT team, allowing them to focus on their strategic initiatives. By using prebuilt algorithms and intuitive, user-friendly interfaces, a search and merchandising vendor lets your team bypass years of building and refining your own search tool. With reduced development time and costs, you can allocate your IT team’s resources to higher-value projects that propel your business forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Speed matters. That’s why integrating product discovery into your website produces a meaningful improvement in site experience for your customers. By harnessing the power of intelligent algorithms, an ecommerce search solution makes the product discovery process faster and more accurate for your customers, helping the user feedback around your ecommerce website improve exponentially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, your site can deliver lightning-fast search results and recommendations<\/a>, ensuring that your customers find what they’re looking for in a matter of seconds. In other words, AI-powered algorithms analyze shopper behavior, preferences, and historical data to provide highly relevant and personalized product suggestions. This improves the overall user experience, boosts customer satisfaction, and drives more revenue. Of course, you can always take an active role in any of these testing assumptions generated by AI with an interactive dashboard that allows you to intervene as needed. For a closer look at how better discovery experiences build long-term loyalty, see how teams use discovery to heighten customer loyalty with product discovery<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, we come to one of the most crucial impacts of product discovery: a healthier perception of your brand. When customers have a personalized shopping experience, they develop a stronger connection with your brand. They’ll see you as a trusted guide, providing them with exactly what they need, when they need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Satisfied customers can become brand advocates, engaging in positive, word-of-mouth marketing and attracting new shoppers to your business. With product discovery shaping a strong customer journey, it’ll set you apart from the competition, prove that you’re a trusted brand in product delivery, and secure both short- and long-term success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don’t have to come up with your own product discovery process. With Loomi<\/a> at the helm of your approach, you’ll have everything you need to be successful, whether you’re a Head of Ecommerce, Ecommerce Merchandiser, or Search\/Product Manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’ve spent over 15 years developing a massive data set, so our search engine already knows how to adapt to your customers’ behavior. This means you will see an immediate impact on the quality of your search relevance, recommendation widgets, and more because you don’t have to wait around for a pixel to learn your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take your product discovery to the next level with Loomi. Explore our search and product discovery solutions<\/a> today.<\/p>\n\n\n What is ecommerce product discovery?<\/p>\n What Is Product Discovery?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Ecommerce-Product-Discovery_frequently-bought-together-1024x630.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHow Product Search Works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How Ecommerce Product Discovery Works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How To Improve Ecommerce Product Discovery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Invest in Semantic and AI-Powered Search<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Example](\"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Ecommerce-Product-Discovery_personalized-search-results-1024x630.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFix Your Category Navigation and Taxonomy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Personalize at Every Touchpoint<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Optimize Merchandising Rules and Boost and Bury Logic<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Explore Conversational and AI-Guided Discovery<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image-1-1024x742.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n5 Ways Product Discovery Impacts Your Business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Better Profitability<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Increased Productivity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Decrease in Total Cost of Ownership for the IT Team<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Improved Site Experience for Your Customers<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Shopper](\"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Ecommerce-Product-Discovery_product-recs-1024x630.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nA Healthier Perception of Your Brand<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How Bloomreach Powers Better Product Discovery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Frequently Asked Questions<\/h3>\n\n