The Forrester Wave™: Commerce Search And Product Discovery, Q3 2023

Commerce Search And Product Discovery Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

Key features and pros and cons of top Commerce Search And Product Discovery products:

Bloomreach - Leaders

Pros:

Balances broad functionality with modular architecture
Strong vision that puts the merchandiser at the center of strategic decisions
Strong community and supporting services and offerings
Strengths in usability and tooling, manual search and merchandising configuration, and personalization for product discovery
Detailed roadmap through 2024 prioritizing AI-enabled functionality, deeper customization of algorithms, and advanced tooling

Cons:

Weaker partner ecosystem as it performs all implementations with its own professional services
Weaker in guided search and quizzes, and image and visual search
Reference customers would like speedier delivery of promised features and more innovation around product discovery

Netcore - Leaders

Pros:

Amplifies value of acquired Unbxd product with improved tooling and service
Delivered short-term improvements to usability and customer service
Strategic strengths in innovation (highest marks from customer references), roadmap, and adoption
Strong in usability and tooling, testing and analytics, and dynamic categorization and landing pages
Meaningful enterprise market share and poised to increase market hold

Cons:

Not as widely recognized in the market
Weaker in partner ecosystem with limited preintegrations to products from other vendors
Weaker in guided search and quizzes, and data enhancement and modeling
Reference customers would like opportunity to connect with other customers, stronger intent-based search, and more automation to improve search results

Algolia - Strong Performers

Pros:

One of the longer-standing and better-known solutions in commerce search market
Recent acquisition of search.io and creation of NeuralSearch broadens vector search capabilities
Strong partner ecosystem
Functional strengths in both manual and automated search and merchandising configuration, image and visual search, and delivery model and scale

Cons:

Product serves technical users but has made advancements in merchandiser-focused user experience
Struggling with innovation, focused on meeting existing market expectations rather than leading
Weaker in personalization for product discovery, type-ahead, and testing and analytics
Reference customers would like broader analytics and more community and support for merchandisers

Constructor - Strong Performers

Pros:

Innovative disruptor with superior vision to enable customers to test product on their site before purchase
Outcome-driven functionality launched in 2019
Strategic strengths in innovation and adoption
Strengths in usability and tooling, manual search and merchandising configuration, and guided search and quizzes
Reference customers feel they had impact on innovation and appreciate proactive approach

Cons:

Still working on reaching feature parity
Weaker in community and supporting services and offerings as vendor provides only this solution
Weaker in automated search and merchandising configuration, image and visual search, and testing and analytics
Reference customers would like vendor to focus on more innovation around AI and personalization

Coveo - Strong Performers

Pros:

One of the longest-standing products in search space
Supports noncommerce and mixed-use cases (content plus commerce)
Strong partner ecosystem
Functional strengths in automated search and merchandising configuration, personalization for product discovery, and content search

Cons:

Newer to commerce search
Weaker in adoption
Roadmap provides very limited information
Weaker in usability and tooling, automated search and merchandising configuration, and facets for sorting and filtering
Reference customers want vendor to innovate around commerce-specific use cases and tooling for merchandisers, solicit more customer feedback, and bring more proactive innovation

Algonomy - Contenders

Pros:

Product of multiple mergers and acquisitions including RichRelevance
Customers often use alongside other Algonomy products (CDP, marketing platform)
On-par score in supporting services and offerings
Functional strengths in personalization for product discovery, content search, and guided search and quizzes

Cons:

Combined products resulted in redundancy requiring streamlining
Weaker in vision and innovation as newly merged product catches up to market
On par in roadmap and partner ecosystem
Weaker in usability and tooling, facets for sorting and filtering, and product badging
Reference customers provided mixed responses about how well vendor delivers promised features

Crownpeak - Contenders

Pros:

Strong in community, hosting events that customers attend
Functional strengths in facets for sorting and filtering, product recommendations beyond search, and internationalization
Recent changes have resulted in successful support relationships per reference customers

Cons:

Commerce search solution is result of acquisition of Attraqt in 2022
Vast majority of Fredhopper customers use FHR without XO
Weaker in adoption
Weaker in guided search and quizzes, data enhancement and modeling, and delivery model and scale
Reference customers would like more input into roadmap, deeper innovation, improvements in analytics and reporting, and personalization functionality included in core FHR product

FactFinder - Contenders

Pros:

Strong roadmap with clear path forward for AI-led Infinity product
On par in usability and tooling, and automated search and merchandising configuration
Reference customers feel very positive about the relationship

Cons:

Built Infinity on acquired Loop54 product - still early days
Relies heavily on manual intervention during implementation and for certain changes
Much of the AI is opaque to the user
Weaker in innovation with smaller R&D budget than others evaluated
Lags in community, supporting services and offerings, and partner ecosystem
Weaker in manual search and merchandising configuration, facets for sorting and filtering, and type-ahead
Reference customers would like deeper support in features like synonym management and reporting

Lucidworks - Contenders

Pros:

Extremely flexible for technical users who can manipulate models and work with data sources
On par in community, supporting offerings and services, and innovation
Functional strengths in conversational search and data enhancement and modeling
Reference customers appreciate positive relationship with vendor

Cons:

Provides comparatively few purpose-built, out-of-the-box controls for nontechnical practitioners
More difficult to learn
Weaker in partner ecosystem and adoption
Recent growth slower than others in evaluation
Weaker in usability and tooling, automated search and merchandising configuration, and personalization for product discovery
Reference customers would like improved upgrade processes, error reporting, and support for intent-based search functionality

GroupBy - Challengers

Pros:

Built on Google's Discovery AI framework with added user interfaces and services
On par in supporting services and offerings with implementation services and security practices
Strong in internationalization driven by Google's powerful translation abilities

Cons:

Exposes some controls in UI but reserves others in console for internal use
Weaker in vision, roadmap, partner ecosystem, adoption, community, and innovation as product is limited by underlying technology
Weaker in usability and tooling, manual search and merchandising configuration, and testing and analytics
Reference customers would like better testing of new features, faster issue resolution, stronger data enrichment functionality, and more transparency in engine decisions
Some customers wish for more transparency while others prefer hands-off approach

FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2023?

A: Bloomreach, Netcore

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

A: Leaders in the Forrester Wave have the highest combined scores for current offering and strategy. Leaders demonstrate strong vision, innovation, and execution in the commerce search and product discovery market. They balance broad functionality with strategic direction and show strong capabilities across evaluation criteria including usability, manual and automated search configuration, personalization, and supporting services. Leaders are well-positioned to meet current customer needs while driving future market innovation.

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

A: https://www.forrester.com/policies/forrester-wave-methodology/

Report:

Top Vendor Products for Commerce Search And Product Discovery in 2023

Commerce Search And Product Discovery Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

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FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2023?

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

Reference