Make Search Make Sense

Optimizing site search is hard—as is training staff, increasing conversion rates and maintaining retention. The good news is that with properly configured search support, we can gather and act on actual and trend information to better tailor the customer experience. We can also begin to source machine learning and AI to automate many (but not […]

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Facets, Facets, Who’s Got the Facets?

Product filters or “facets” are one of the most commonly used tools that online shoppers use to find specific products or discover products they might want based on product attributes such as color, brand, size, etc.

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Are Gender Filters Necessary to Search for Toys?

It was an interesting move when Toys R Us removed the gender filters from its UK website. There has been pressure for toy retailers to do this to stop reinforcing gender stereotypes and Toys R Us obviously decided that this is best for their company. It’s interesting because it is potentially damaging the user experience, […]

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2012: The Year of the Tablet (and Continuation of Social)

How about sharing your thoughts on what 2012 will bring? I’ll start – While 2011 could be called the year eRetailers got interested in mobile and social media, 2012 will likely be the year of the tablet, and … more social media. As retailers begin to understand how people search, shop, and consume content on […]

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Google Commerce Search – a Critique

Today Google announced Google Commerce Search. Strangely enough, we very rarely compete with Google and we have been expecting them to do this for years so I was very interested to see the new product’s capabilities. I see that the Google Store is provided as an example of their commerce search in action so I […]

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SLI is in a strong position

Well known venture capital firm Sequoia Capital made a now famous presentation to their portfolio companies titled “RIP: The Good Times”,  warning these companies about the seriousness of the economic crisis and the need for them to become cash flow positive before they need more capital. This has been widely circulated and cited and now potential […]

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Beyond the firewall…

A few weeks ago I was quoted in an interesting blog entry on Information World Review (http://blog.iwr.co.uk/2008/08/google-stakes-i.html) talking about enterprise search and, particularly how Google is, once again, putting pressure on the industry. I think it’s worth expanding on a couple of things, particularly what I mean by enterprise search going beyond “what’s behind the […]

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