With a target consumer base that largely consists of Millennials, La Jolla Group CEO Daniel Neukomm is tasked with the challenge of not only understanding these elusive shoppers, but also creating highly relevant and compelling experiences across all channels.
To address this business imperative, La Jolla Group has implemented Personalized and Visual Site Search for its O’Neill and Metal Mulisha e-Commerce sites. The solution, developed by Reflektion, is designed to add a layer of personalization and real-time product imagery to e-Commerce site search results.
Rather than blasting out search results based on entered keywords, the Reflektion solution integrates its personalization abilities into site search, so La Jolla Group can prioritize results based on consumer behaviors.
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“Our overall appetite for this new visual search function was due to our need for an enhanced consumer experience,” Neukomm said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “We wanted results that were more relevant and visually appealing as we predicted they would lead to increased conversions.”
Personalized, visual search results are generated based on consumers’ past and present site engagements, including search terms, their clicks, product views and even past purchases. Machine-learning algorithms leverage that data to prioritize product images as consumers enter search terms.
The solution takes consumers’ personal style preferences, as well as their gender, size and other factors into account. As a result, the online search experience evolves from static to highly dynamic.
Although La Jolla Group is currently focusing on delivering search results based on specific product categories, the retailer is trying to understand consumers’ affinity for other relevant or complementary products.
“We want to be able to make assumptions,” Neukomm explained. “So for example, if someone is buying board shorts and flip flops, do they want a backpack, too?”
Millennials are extremely connected and tech-savvy, Neukomm added. They expect content and stimulation across a variety of channels and touch points.
Millennials also expect to be wowed. “They’re looking for a fun, cool tool because we’re playing into that mantra of serving aspirational content and experiences.”
To that end, La Jolla Group is looking to extend the personalized search experience to include both products and relevant content.
“Search is just the beginning,” Neukomm said. “Instead of just merchandising products we want to merchandise as well. We also want to bring some of our lessons learned thus far into other marketing channels such as email.”
