WARDOW Case Study

Introduction

WARDOW, founded in 2005, distributes premium products from over 130 brands in 30 European countries. Since launching, they’ve served over three million satisfied customers.

Danny Wardow started the company because he believed that a high-quality, expertly crafted branded product could bring joy for years after purchase. When we started Nimstrata, it’s because we believed that every Shopify merchant should have access to the same best-in-class technology that used to only be available to the biggest brands with the biggest budgets.

So what values do WARDOW and Nimstrata share? A passion for perfection.

From day one, both companies worked together to implement Google Cloud’s AI Commerce Search solution in a thoughtful, methodical, and intuitive way across WARDOW’s Search and Collection pages in dozens of languages.

Following three weeks of deep collaboration, WARDOW and Nimstrata delivered a product listing page experience to be proud of. The detail-oriented teams at both organizations scrutinized each filter interaction, product card component, and pixel to not just offer an AI-powered, personalized merchandising experience, but also a delightful one.

Show me the numbers…

We can talk about passion and the quality of our craft all day, but it was also essential that the solution delivered a positive return on investment for WARDOW given the additional costs of a third-party search app. Over a multi-week AB test using Shopify Rollouts, the solution was proven:

For users who visited search or collection pages, revenue per visitor increased by +5.3% and conversion rate increased by 49 basis points, offering a lift of +8.1%.

For users who only used the search bar, revenue per visitor increased by +26.3%, demonstrating why it’s essential that brands provide high-intent users with the tools to find exactly what they’re looking for. This is especially important on high-value purchases, like luxury baggage, that often require several days of consideration.

Notable Features

Personalized Product Listing Pages

Google Cloud's AI Commerce Search offers four distinct tiers of search model quality, ultimately arriving at a model optimized for “Personalized Revenue” to show individual users the products most likely to convert based on their search and browsing behavior.

To maximize effectiveness, WARDOW’s catalog was fully trained to the “Tier 4” ranking model prior to the AB test. Nimstrata’s Shopify App, Retail Cloud Connect, is designed to train Google Cloud’s models in “dark mode” prior to deploying the solution to production to ensure the best results on day one.

Dynamic Faceting

Shopify’s native search struggles to show filters on collection pages with over 5,000 products, which was a pain point on WARDOW’s largest collections. Google Cloud’s AI Commerce Search not only handles a nearly unlimited number of attributes for sorting and filtering, but also dynamically learns when to show the best filters in the best order.

For example, if a “Size” or “Color” option is often selected following a specific search term, Google’s AI will re-rank the order of the facets to ensure the filtering remains intuitive and seamless over time.

Quick Filters

In addition to dynamic facets, a subset of top filters are shown as dynamic buttons above the product grid. This allows users to see and select the most relevant filters without needing to open the full filter sidebar.

The filters have a second layer of logic, so attributes can be hidden or shown based on other relevant attributes. For example, the attribute “Series” is only displayed when a single “Brand” value is also selected. This eliminates mixing brand-specific terms in sub-filters. 

Next Steps

Nimstrata and WARDOW have quickly become trusted partners. The two companies share feedback on product roadmaps and are focused on developing innovative solutions that address traditional search and merchandising challenges across the Shopify ecosystem.

Following the successful implementation on Search and Collection pages, WARDOW and Nimstrata are now collaborating on a new Dynamic Autocomplete experience. As it stands today, Google Cloud AI Commerce Search only returns keyword-based queries as suggestions. However, users are often interested in other site content, such as specific collection pages or blog posts.

Delivering a dynamic autocomplete experience that offers all of the benefits of the Shopify ecosystem while still being powered by Google’s best-in-class AI is a shared goal that all of Nimstrata’s customers will benefit from.