Rugs Direct Boosts Conversions With Automatic, Machine-Learned Merchandising Rules
About Rugs Direct
Rugs Direct is the nation's leading source for area rugs.
It boasts a vast assortment of premier rugs for both consumers and trade professionals.
Rugs Direct and Constructor have worked closely together since 2020 to drive considerable increases in RPV and AOV.
It boasts a vast assortment of premier rugs for both consumers and trade professionals.
Rugs Direct and Constructor have worked closely together since 2020 to drive considerable increases in RPV and AOV.
The Challenge
Recently, Rugs Direct began to notice strange decreases in conversions.
In the weeks before the decrease, Rugs Direct had begun pushing a few new brands to the top of their search results across different queries and browse pages.
Lacking insights on the potential impact of their manual merchandising, the team was flying blind on making adjustments to the search experience - and until now, this was common practice. The merchandising team at Rugs Direct was still accustomed to the manual approach of optimizing their product discovery experience in traditional search/browse platforms. They didn’t fully trust an algorithmic approach to merchandising.
The Solution
Led by Sharon Gautschi, SVP of Merchandising at Rugs Direct, manual merchandising rules were removed and Constructor’s algorithm was allowed to automate the process.
Almost immediately, AOV and Conversions recovered. Constructor’s algorithms were able to use Rugs Direct’s clickstream data to find the right products to slot across queries/browse pages for maximum value, as well as where to slot their newer brands to test performance.
By putting trust in Constructor, Sharon was able to kill two birds with one stone: she confirmed Constructor’s capabilities, as well as allowed her merchant team to focus on more impactful tasks. More importantly, she was able to apply a smarter strategy across the search and browse experience for the site.
The Results