Challenge
Originally, A.L.C. was utilizing a search function which had more of a one-size-fits-all approach, and tailoring it was time consuming and reactive. The brand was looking to go beyond those limitations, and wanted a search solution that was more customizable, such as adjusting product sorting on search page results during specific seasons.
This flexibility would help because as a premium brand, A.L.C. mainly promotes new, full-price items throughout the year, which makes discounted items hard to uncover during sale periods. The lack of customization within Shopify’s native search function made it difficult for shoppers to discover the deals they were looking for during those times.
Other pain points A.L.C. faced were slow site speed and poor relevancy, which would entail manual fixing. “Our old search feature was more work than we were willing to put in on a day-to-day basis, and the results weren’t necessarily fantastic. For example, we would receive questions about why certain items were displayed in the results. Also, there were delays in results, which affects shopper retention,” says Hilary.
Similarly to the challenges above, their teams’ limited bandwidth meant they needed a search product they could implement easily for a quick turnaround, knowing that an updated search feature was crucial to their on-site strategy.
In short, A.L.C. needed an easily implementable search solution that could scale with the brand, and powerful automation to ensure out-of-the-box relevancy while taking out the manual check-ins that exceeded the capacity of their smaller team.
