Everyone knows that modern eCommerce is all about convenience. And yet, online retailers, wholesalers and distributors still routinely struggle to deliver on this expectation. Despite advancements in eCommerce technology, truly frictionless omnichannel shopping experiences are actually still quite difficult to put together. With years of effort, experience and technological innovation now sunk into creating online experiences that improve customer loyalty and sales, why are B2B and B2C retailers still falling short?

Watch the full video on Google Cloud Marketplace

Today’s modern shoppers have evolved in both attitude and behavior. They want to find products easily, regardless of the platform they’re using, and they want the online shopping experience to be personalized to them. 80% of customers say they’re more likely to purchase from brands that personalize, according to Deloitte. And a staggering 56% of in-store shoppers used their smartphones to shop or research items while they were in a store in the past week, often to look up information like product location or store inventory levels.

These behavior changes are not random. They have arisen in response to changes in technology, such as the rise of mobile shopping. Technological changes have led to shifts in how customers buy online and the overall eCommerce customer journey.

However, despite the fact that 93% of all shopping journeys start online, customer experience scores are falling. Which means the gap between consumer and merchant is widening. So why are retailers still falling flat on this promise of delivering convenience and a frictionless shopping experience?

Despite its evolution, eCommerce is still plagued by legacy technology, especially in search and product discovery. Most eCommerce search engines run on legacy keyword-matching technology, which is decades old. Many providers layer AI over top to add relevance and handle more complex use cases, but the fundamental search experience has not changed in decades.

This is a problem as 69% of customers use the search function on an eCommerce website, making it the most common way to find products. Moreover, after an unsuccessful search, 3 out of 4 sales will be lost to the competition.

Search is a critical friction point on the eCommerce journey – and most companies are still relying on outdated technology to solve this problem. Fortunately, AI-powered eCommerce search and product discovery is revolutionizing the search experience.

Unlike legacy search technology, Google Cloud’s Retail Search Engine was custom built for eCommerce use cases from the ground up. It was completely re-coded to be AI-first, with no keyword matching technology anywhere in its code. It leverages the power of AI, ML, and Large Language Models to provide eCommerce retailers, wholesalers and distributors with a superior understanding of user intent and context.

Where legacy engines often require layers of AI and hundreds, if not thousands of manually curated search rules to deliver just relevant results, Google’s AI-first engine delivers results that are relevant, buyable, personalized, and optimized for revenue – every time! It’s capable of delivering the individually personalized experiences that customers are looking for, dynamically reordering and arranging products according to user preferences.

When coupled with GroupBy’s eCommerce Search and Product Discovery platform, this engine has the power to deliver unmatched results across every channel. Our all-in-one platform includes all vital product discovery functions every enterprise retailer needs, including Data Enrichment, Search and Browse, Recommendations, Merchandising, and Analytics and Reporting.

Our customers regularly see real revenue boosts of 10+%, and go from thousands of search rules to just a handful – often one or two. These huge gains for retailers help to close the gap between retailers and consumers on both sides of the digital divide. By leveraging an AI-first search engine, the customer search experience is greatly improved, leading to higher conversions, sales and more loyal customers.

On the back end, merchandisers used to spend the majority of their time curating and maintaining search rules. Given the dynamic, self-learning nature of Google Cloud’s Discovery AI, GroupBy’s platform can nearly eliminate search rules, freeing up that time for merchandisers to work on more strategic, revenue-generating initiatives and engaging customers more deeply.

By improving the customer experience and freeing up merchandisers so they can focus on that experience even more, GroupBy’s eCommerce Search and Product Discovery platform, powered by Google Cloud Vertex AI Search for Retail, helps retailers leverage next-generation technology to close the gap between merchant and consumer that has arisen due to changing customer shopping behavior.

Product Discovery has been seen as a cost of doing business for years, yet it holds the power to differentiate one online retail experience from another. Technology is the key to meeting the expectations of the modern consumer, and AI-first technology is the best choice for retailers to get – and stay – ahead of the market.

GroupBy is on a mission to provide retailers and wholesalers with next gen e-commerce search and product Discovery solutions that create extraordinary, revenue-optimized digital experiences. Through our platform you can leverage the same technology that powers Google.com and Google Shopping to achieve a fundamentally better eCommerce search and product discovery experience for your customers.

For more information on the partnership between GroupBy and Google Cloud, visit GroupBy’s Listing on the Google Cloud Marketplace to hear our Director of Product, Arv Natarajan, speak about how GroupBy and Google are helping retailers create the frictionless, omnichannel experiences customers want to see, closing the gap between merchant and consumer.