Product discovery explained
Put simply, product discovery is the process of guiding customers to their desired items and ranges consistently across all channels.
In the past, sites relied on contextual information like categories, keywords, and other metadata to achieve a scattergun but relatively reliable approach to selecting and displaying tempting new products. But as new technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning provide more efficient approaches to capturing and analysing data at scale, ecommerce retailers now have an array of product discovery tools at their disposal.
Artificial intelligence uses data to learn how to interpret users’ intent, preferences and behaviour to personalise the product discovery experience across multiple channels in real-time. The process involves collecting data at each of the many touchpoints from discovery to post-purchase. This includes browsing behaviour, cart events, search history and more. As the collection process continues over repeat visits, shopper profiles will come to incorporate more comprehensive data like demographic information, purchase history, style and brand preferences, reviews and more.