Introduction

PPD Performance, a leading Australian retailer of aftermarket performance car parts, faced a common challenge for e-commerce businesses: optimizing their online experience to drive revenue per visitor. Despite offering some of Australia's most sought-after parts on Shopify, their previous search solution, Boost, wasn't delivering the conversion rates to justify its cost. You could say their conversions were a bit bogged down! That's when Nimstrata and Google Cloud stepped in, revving up PPD Performance's online store with cutting-edge AI, ready to hit the red dirt track of e-commerce success.

Boosting Conversions Without Getting Stuck in a Rut

PPD Performance knew the power of personalization. Their customers are passionate about their vehicles, and finding the right part for a specific make and model is essential – especially when you're planning to tackle some gnarly Australian terrain. While Boost claimed to offer some personalization, its impact on their bottom line wasn't living up to expectations. It was time to get their conversion rates out of the low range and into the high range! PPD needed a solution that could provide truly relevant, individualized experiences, driving higher conversions without incurring excessive costs.

Vertex AI Search for Commerce and Recommendations AI

Working hand-in-hand, Nimstrata and Google Cloud implemented a robust AI strategy for PPD Performance, leveraging the power of Vertex AI Search for Commerce. The key steps included:

• Training Vertex AI Search for Commerce: Live PPD Performance traffic provided a wealth of user event data to train Vertex AI Search for Commerce. This extensive training allowed the system to understand individual customer preferences and browsing behavior, enabling it to return highly personalized search and collection page results to each visitor.

• Implementing Recommendations Models: To further enhance personalization, two distinct recommendations models were trained and deployed:

  • Recommended For You: This model leverages the individual visitor’s history and preferences to suggest products they are most likely to be interested in.

  • Others You May Like: This model uses the context of the currently viewed item and the visitor’s behavior to offer complementary or alternative products, expanding their options and encouraging further exploration.

Both models were meticulously designed to factor in vehicle compatibility, ensuring that recommendations were not just personalized but also practical and ready for any track, trail, or outback adventure the customer had in mind.

Taking the Scenic Route to Profit

The impact was immediate and impressive. The enhanced personalization provided by Vertex AI Search for Commerce and Recommendations AI led to a generous uplift in conversion rates for PPD Performance. Customers and staff members alike experienced a more intuitive and relevant shopping journey, making it easier to find exactly what they needed. It was smoother than a freshly graded gravel road!

The founders of PPD Performance were so impressed with the results that they asked Nimstrata to implement Retail Cloud Connect on six other Shopify stores, a testament to the success and scalability of Google’s Vertex AI solutions.