Intro to Sitecore Discover: Personalized Ecommerce Search

For over a decade, Americaneagle.com has been committed to providing high-quality Sitecore support and website development services. We understand the importance of delivering personalized content to users, and that’s where Sitecore Discover comes in. This product seamlessly brings artificial intelligence (AI) and user-centric experiences together to create ecommerce platforms specifically designed with intuitive integration methods and features. The result? A game-changing solution for ecommerce businesses. As a Sitecore Platinum Implementation and Hosting Partner, Americaneagle.com’s Sitecore development services include the expertise and proficiency to build customer-rich experiences.

Person using a smartphone and tablet with digital shopping and business icons floating above, symbolizing e-commerce and online shopping solutions.

What is Sitecore Discover?

Sitecore Discover is a product discovery optimization engine that enables intelligent product search powered by Sitecore AI.

This headless platform excels in enriching customer experiences across a range of digital channels, including mobile, web, email, and in-store displays. Sitecore Discover's AI-driven capabilities offer advanced search functionalities, allowing for a more intuitive and responsive product discovery journey. By intelligently analyzing user behavior and preferences, it delivers personalized and relevant search results, thereby improving customer engagement and conversions.

“Sitecore Discover drives an API-first way of thinking when it comes to development, allowing us to think outside of the box while generating a seamless product search experience.”

-James Gregory, Sitecore Solutions Architect

Key Benefits of Sitecore Discover

Enhanced Conversion Rates

Through the Sitecore Discover tool, you can create advanced search and merchandising methodologies. Not only will this improve your business overall by providing deep insight, but it also helps drive conversions significantly.

Personalized Real-time Merchandising

This feature enables you to create tailored search results and product recommendations for users on your website. Implementing a feature like this helps to elevate user engagement by showing users the products they are most likely to purchase based on their search and engagement history.

Data-Driven Decisions

Sitecore Discover offers in-depth analytics for businesses, giving you the opportunity to refine and strengthen your merchandising strategies. By making data-driven decisions, your business is provided with an opportunity to make meaningful changes.

Sitecore Discover Features

Product Information Management

The product information management feature offered by Sitecore Discover allows businesses to preload and make continuous updates to product data within the platform. Through automated feed schedules and real-time updates via the Incremental Feed API, you can effortlessly keep your product information up to date.

Visitor Information Tracking

Visitor information tracking is an essential tool in Sitecore Discover in order to utilize AI-driven personalization. This feature collects anonymous data for targeted rules, analytics, and personal experiences, giving you in-depth insight into user behavior on your website.

AI-Powered Personalization Experiences

Sitecore Discover offers a wide variety of personalized experiences that have been designed to engage users. These features range from visual autocomplete functionality in the search field to email recommendations and everything in between. Discover is committed to created a seamless user experience.

Widget and Funnel Events Analytics

The widget and funnel events analytics in Sitecore Discover provides valuable user interaction data, giving you the opportunity to learn more about your website visitors. Some of the data includes visitor behaviors, preferences, and affinities, enabling you to learn more about those who visit your website and what they’re looking for when interacting with your business.

Integration Options for Sitecore Discover

There are multiple ways to integrate Sitecore Discover based on your specific needs that also work alongside OrderCloud for the Sitecore Commerce Cloud Solution, a Sitecore ecommerce integration.

Direct API Integration

The direct API integration requires a high level of developer effort because they are responsible for building all the components required for a site, as well as directly calling the Sitecore Discover API to integrate the required functionality. Once the site has been integrated, the marketers and merchandisers have access to the full feature set that Sitecore Discover offers.

JavaScript SDK

The JavaScript SDK has React components that are designed to enable developers to quickly integrate a new or existing React application with Sitecore Discover. It enables the developer to communicate with Sitecore Discover API, embed personalized product widgets on any page they are required, and track user experience by reporting events. This method requires medium developer efforts, as they must integrate the components but aren’t required to build them. Once a site has been integrated, marketers and merchandisers have access to the entire feature set offered by the Sitecore search feature.

Hosted Pages

The hosted pages method of integration requires a low amount of development effort because the product listing pages and product detail pages are hosted by Discover. This is typically handled either via a content delivery network (CDN) redirect or a reverse proxy that is configured by the customer to direct URLs to the Discover servers. Through this approach, merchandisers can build and publish pages directly in the Customer Engagement Console (CEC), as well as auto-generate SEO tailored landing pages. It’s important to remember that this approach limits the different onsite experiences that Discover can deliver as well as the control that the marketer and merchandiser have over the UX of those pages.

Sitecore Discover and OrderCloud Integration

With Sitecore Commerce Cloud, OrderCloud, and Discover are a part of the environment, Sitecore OrderCloud offers the platform’s most robust and sophisticated ecommerce and order management solutions through API, cloud-native solutions. 

Sitecore Customer Engagement Console (CEC)

The Sitecore Customer Engagement Console (CEC) is generally used by merchandisers to build out their ideal digital experience, but it can also be used by developers as a resource. The CEC is a vital component to the Sitecore Discover ecosystem, making it the epitome of developer-centric design and assisting with ensuring seamless API integrations, real-time testing, and event simulations.

Key Features of the Customer Engagement Console (CEC)

API Access

 

The API Access panel gives you all the details you need to manage how and where your application will interact with the Discover APIs. Through this feature, you can streamline API integration by offering credentials, first-party URLs, and other essential details.

API Explorer

The API Explorer gives you the user interface (UI) to simulate runtime experience requests and understand the search and recommendation API. This feature gives you the opportunity to build out a JSON object that is highly detailed, including the experience you want to simulate and the user you want to simulate for. Then, you will be able to see which data would have been used to build the experience given to the user.

Event Builder

The Event Builder allows you to craft and validate precise digital events, giving you the opportunity to gather insights on user interactions. Through this panel, you can choose the page the experience will be running on, the widget you want to test, the user initiating the experience, and more.

Event Monitor & AI Monitor

 

The Event Monitor and AI Monitor monitors the accuracy of implemented experiences, as well as provide AI-driven feedback on how user actions are interpreted. With this feature, you can enter your UIUD into the panel, and as you browse through the site, you can see all the data being served to deliver your experiences.

 

Pages and Widgets

 

Pages act as containers for dynamic widgets that are linked with specific URLs or patterns, and you can facilitate the configuration of the experiences on your site. This allows you to ensure that your site flows seamlessly and provides your users with a fluid digital experience.

 

Domain Settings

 

The domain setting gives you the opportunity to customize the digital experience you offer to users. This feature provides tabs such as ‘attributes,’ which allows you to define and configure product or category entities and ‘feature configuration,’ where you can tailor various features within the implementation.  

 

Catalog

 

The catalog is a centralized area where you can view and manage data about your website’s products, categories, and site visitors.

 

Developer Resources

 

Sitecore Discover offers dedicated tools that can be used to assist developers in understanding, testing, and refining their services.

 

Global Resources

 

Global resources provides you with access to information about the configuration of rules or assets that occur consistently across all Discover experiences. This ensures that you can stay informed and have access to all the information you need to create a robust user experience.

 

Analytics

 

Through the analytics offered by Sitecore Discover, you are granted access to comprehensive reports that enhance insights into website performance, visitor behavior, and more.

 

Administration


Sitecore Discover also offers tools that have been designed to maintain implementation, user management, and configuration changes.

 

With its diverse and precise features, the CEC reiterates Sitecore’s commitment to empowering developers and enabling them to effortlessly craft unparalleled digital experiences.

 

Save Time and Improve Ecommerce Conversions with Sitecore Discover

By incorporating AI-driven capabilities, Sitecore Discover encapsulates the future ecommerce personalized search. Through understanding user behavior, optimizing search functionalities, and delivering individualized experiences, it offers a pathway to a more engaging and conversion-driven digital journey.

When you’re looking to integrate new technology into your existing setup, it’s important to have an experienced and skilled team to work with. Schedule a Sitecore search product demo today and learn more about how we can help you boost your ecommerce business.

Sitecore Discover FAQs

How Does Sitecore Discover Use Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

The platform leverages Sitecore AI and machine learning to enhance the capabilities of the platform by analyzing user behavior, refining search results over time, and delivering ecommerce personalized search content to users.

What is the significance of Sitecore acquiring Reflektion?

When Sitecore acquired Reflektion, they were able to use the technology to strengthen Sitecore’s ecommerce features. This allows Sitecore Discover to provide real time intelligence for merchandising and search for users.

How often should I update my product data in Sitecore Discover?

When it comes to updating product data in Sitecore Discover, it’s recommended to schedule an automated full product data feed at least one a day. However, more frequent updates should be done based on specific business requirements.

Can I integrate Sitecore Discover with any ecommerce platform?

Yes, Sitecore Discover is designed to be integrated over any ecommerce experience and enhance it with its feature set.

What is the primary purpose of the Customer Engagement Console (CEC)?

The CEC is a hub of information for developers and merchandisers to access tools, resources, and analytics in order to have successful integrations and optimizations. 


About Author

staff at americaneagle.com
Americaneagle.com has a dedicated team of strategists, technologists, and content writers to help you stay up to date with the latest and greatest trends in the technology industry. We cover a wide variety of topics on a regular basis, some of which include website design, website development, digital marketing services, ecommerce, accessibility, website hosting and security, and so much more. Educating our clients, prospects, and readers is very important to us and we appreciate the opportunity to be an authoritative voice in the industry.


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