Beyond home page personalization, search engines have also been customized according to customer types. The vertical segmentation implemented at the end of 2018 greatly facilitates product searches among the 1.6 million SKUs offered by Rexel.
Depending on the industry customers operate in — residential, commercial or industrial — their searches based on identical key words direct them to different product categories. Since March 2018, online customers can also review and rate products, which is a rare feature on professional websites.
Searching for a product has also been improved in cases where the customer doesn't know the exact SKU number, when a new product replaces an old one, for suggesting similar products, or when the customer is looking for a brand that is not sold on the website.
Content enrichment has also helped improve the efficiency of the search engine's filters. Manufacturers' product names are more clearly labeled, technical specifications are more explicit, and photos and videos illustrate product characteristics. The Data team is continuously working on this, in particular in order to better manage products that enter and exit the catalogue.
