Report:
The Forrester Wave™: Commerce Search And Product Discovery Solutions, Q3 2025
How does Forrester define the Commerce Search And Product Discovery Solutions market in 2025?
The commerce search and product discovery solutions market has continued its rapid evolution, accelerating around the promises of genAI and automation, although functional generative experiences are still immature. Most of the market is still using commerce search functionality embedded in their commerce solution or legacy systems like Endeca. However, modern, standalone solutions are gaining visibility with massive first-time adoption expected in the next couple of years. Only two reference customers selected their current solution to replace another commerce search solution - for all the rest, this was their first modern, enterprise commerce/site search and product discovery solution.
Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Commerce Search And Product Discovery Solutions, Q3 2025 in 2025
- Publication Date: 09-Sep-2025
- Document ID: 11899ef9
- Summary: In our evaluation of commerce search and product discovery solutions providers, we identified the most significant ones and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps you select the right one for your needs.
- Authors: Emily Pfeiffer
How did the Commerce Search And Product Discovery Solutions market evolve in 2025?
- The commerce search and product discovery solutions market has continued rapid evolution since the last evaluation
- Innovation is accelerating around the promises of genAI and automation, though functional generative experiences are still immature
- Most of the market still uses commerce search functionality embedded in their commerce solution or legacy systems like Endeca
- Modern, standalone solutions are gaining visibility with massive first-time adoption expected in the next couple of years
- Only two reference customers selected their current solution to replace another commerce search solution
- For all other reference customers, this was their first modern, enterprise commerce/site search and product discovery solution
- Nine vendors were evaluated in this Forrester Wave
- Vendors are classified as Leaders, Strong Performers, and Contenders
- Full functionality often requires purchasing a combination of modules and products from vendors
- Support tiers may determine guaranteed uptime for solutions
What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?
- The vendor natively provides all core functions of this category, including support for personalized search results and product listing pages, configurable facets for customers to filter products, and tooling and functionality to enable nontechnical practitioners to configure, manage, and review the results of search and product discovery controls
- The product and all evaluated functionality are generally available as of May 9, 2025 (none is in beta/pilot status, and the product[s]/functionality is in active use by customers, including customer references)
- The vendor has at least $20 million in revenue from its commerce search and product discovery product in the last four quarters
- The product has recent and ongoing adoption among large enterprise customers
What are the common features of top products in the Commerce Search And Product Discovery Solutions space?
No common features specified.
Scope Exclusions
- Products not generally available as of May 9, 2025
- Beta or pilot status functionality
- Vendors with less than $20 million in product revenue in last four quarters
- Solutions without strong enterprise support
- Products that don't natively provide all core commerce search functions
- Vendors without substantial mindshare among Forrester's enterprise clients
Inclusion Criteria
Vendors must, among other requirements:
- Strong enterprise support for commerce search and product discovery functionality
- A generally available standalone product for purchase, frequently adopted
- Substantial revenue for the product (at least $20 million in last four quarters)
- Mindshare and adoption among Forrester's enterprise clients
Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting
- Usability and tooling — 5%
- Basic search configuration — 5%
- Automated search and merchandising configuration — 7%
- Visual merchandising — 7%
- Attributes and facets — 5%
- Segmentation for personalization — 5%
- Personalization limitations — 3%
- In-session personalization — 5%
- Known user personalization — 5%
- Optimization to business metrics — 4%
- Technical configuration — 5%
- Dynamic categorization and landing pages — 5%
- Guided selling — 3%
- Agentic or conversational product discovery — 5%
- Testing and analytics — 5%
- Type-ahead and suggestions — 5%
- Product recommendations beyond search — 2%
- Image and visual search — 3%
- Content search — 3%
- Product data enhancement — 3%
- Product badging — 3%
- Internationalization — 4%
- Delivery model and scale — 3%
Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting
- Vision — 15%
- Innovation — 15%
- Roadmap — 15%
- Pricing flexibility and transparency — 10%
- Community — 10%
- Supporting services and offerings — 10%
FAQs
Q: What does this research cover?
A: This research covers an evaluation of the nine most significant commerce search and product discovery solutions providers. It analyzes and scores vendors based on their current offering capabilities and strategy, including vision, innovation, adoption, partner ecosystem, pricing, and supporting services. The evaluation examines functionality across usability, search configuration, personalization, merchandising, product discovery, internationalization, and delivery models.
Q: Who should use this research?
A: Commerce search and product discovery solutions customers should use this research to inform purchasing decisions by: (1) meticulously reviewing vendors' portfolios and agreements to understand required modules and support tiers; (2) exploring whether incremental adoption can bring short-term relief and long-term gains; and (3) identifying functionality priorities based on specific business problems, such as B2B requirements for guided selling and known user personalization, or fashion retail needs for image/visual search and product badging.
Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?
A: Vendors must natively provide all core functions including: personalized search results and product listing pages, configurable facets for customers to filter products, and tooling/functionality to enable nontechnical practitioners to configure, manage, and review search and product discovery controls. All functionality must be generally available (not beta/pilot) and in active use by customers including reference customers.
Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?
A:
- Revenue below $20 million threshold for commerce search and product discovery product
- Lack of strong enterprise support for commerce search functionality
- Product not generally available or still in beta/pilot status
- Insufficient mindshare and adoption among Forrester's enterprise clients
- Does not natively provide all core commerce search functions
- Limited recent adoption among large enterprise customers
- Vendors not frequently mentioned by customers, prospects, or competitors
Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?
A:
- Meticulously review vendors' portfolios and agreements to understand full functionality requires purchasing combination of modules and products
- Review support tier levels as they might determine guaranteed uptime for the solution
- Create apples-to-apples comparison by carefully reviewing each vendor's components, included functionality, and guarantees
- Push vendors to align their definitions for features and functions as many use their own terminology
- Explore whether incremental adoption will bring short-term relief and long-term gains
- Build an incremental plan as results don't come immediately - it takes time to implement, integrate data sources, and train models
- Identify functionality priorities based on the specific business problems that need to be solved
- Focus on criteria that serve required technical functions (e.g., B2B businesses need guided selling, product data enhancement, known user personalization)
- Focus on differentiating features among vendors to expose targeted shortlist
Q: How has the Commerce Search And Product Discovery Solutions market evolved in 2025?
A:
- Hyper innovation around genAI and automation promises
- Transition from embedded commerce search to modern standalone solutions
- Massive first-time adoption expected in next couple of years
- Evolution from legacy systems (Endeca) to modern solutions
- Immature but emerging functional generative experiences
- Increasing visibility of modern, standalone commerce search solutions
Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?
A: Strength of Offering focuses on current product capabilities and features including usability, search configuration, personalization, merchandising tools, and technical functionality. It evaluates what the solution can do today across 23 weighted criteria. Strength of Strategy evaluates the vendor's future direction and market approach across 6 criteria including vision, innovation, roadmap clarity, pricing transparency, community engagement, and supporting services. Offering measures current product maturity while Strategy assesses the vendor's ability to evolve and support customers over time.
Reference
- Forrester, The Forrester Wave™: Commerce Search And Product Discovery Solutions, Q3 2025, 09-Sep-2025, ID 11899ef9
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