Algolia’s Search & Discovery Delivers 382% 3-year ROI, According to Forrester TEI Study

Significant Developer and Merchandiser Time-Savings Accrued through AI-based Automation

May 31, 2022 at 12:00 AM Coordinated Universal Time

SAN FRANCISCO, May 31, 2022 Algolia, the leading API Platform for Search & Discovery, today unveiled the findings of a commissioned Total Economic Impact (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting, an independent and objective research-based consulting group. The TEI study examines the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying Algolia’s Search and Discovery platform – according to the study, Algolia’s platform can deliver a 382% ROI.

“Search and Discovery are critical components of any eCommerce site and omnichannel strategy, and the big platform vendors haven’t cracked the code with search believe it or not,” said Bernadette Nixon, chief executive officer, Algolia. “We believe the Forrester TEI study demonstrates that there’s a significant loss of revenue associated with relying on the bare minimum search functionality that generic ecommerce platforms or open-source solutions provide. With Algolia’s API-first approach and usage-based pricing model, retailers can modernize their search capabilities while only paying for what they need to drive their desired outcomes.”

Forrester compiled the TEI study based on interviews with four Algolia retail customers that, prior to using Algolia, had previously used a legacy search solution or had built their own. The characteristics and experiences from each company were aggregated to create a single $1 billion revenue composite organization, which was then used to analyze the costs, benefits, and risks of Algolia’s platform.

When interviewed by Forrester, a product manager of a fitness apparel company noted that “on the product pages alone, Algolia outperforms the previous solution to the tune of about $8.5 million [£7 million] a year. There was no change in UI. It was visually identical. It was just based on the quality of the recommendation.”

Forrester’s analysis of the interviewed organizations uncovered incremental revenue uplift from re-ranking search and upselling recommendations, as well as merchandiser and developer time savings from automation:

  • Algolia’s ranking algorithm improved the relevance of search results with measured increases of 40% to 50%, especially by mobile customers
  • Algolia’s dynamic re-ranking functionality measured a 10% increase in conversions
  • On interviewee of a retailer introduced Algolia’s recommendations solution on its products pages ahead of Black Friday and generated a revenue uplift of $8.5 million [£7 million] compared to their previous solution
  • Time saved through automation freed up merchandisers to work on other initiatives to drive sales – one retailer noted that they reduced manual intervention from five days to one day
  • Using Algolia, major projects building new apps that typically take 10 months to complete are now being finished in weeks

Decision-makers from the companies interviewed for Forrester’s study also noted the following benefits when using Algolia:

  • User-friendly analytics provided insights more immediately
  • Reduced workload on other systems and merchandisers are able to complete tasks formerly done by development teams
  • Fast search results improved hybrid retail, in-store and mobile experiences as well as holding up during peak times

“Algolia is able to simultaneously create a better experience for a retailer’s consumers and its developers and merchandisers that operate behind-the-scenes,” added Nixon. “The TEI study from Forrester demonstrates, in our opinion, just how multi-faceted and important search can be for an organization’s bricks and clicks or omnichannel strategy. It’s an element that touches all aspects of the shopping experience, which is why it is so effective in generating a strong ROI.”

For more information about Algolia, visit www.Algolia.com. To view the full findings of the study, visit: https://www.algolia.com/dg/forrester-tei-report/p/1 

About Algolia
Algolia is an API-First Search and Discovery platform that empowers builders to compose experiences at Internet scale to predict what customers want with blazing fast search and the best application browse experience leading to more remarkable Discovery. More than 11,000 companies including Under Armour, Lacoste, Birchbox, Stripe, Slack, Medium, and Zendesk rely on Algolia to manage over 1.5 trillion search queries a year. Algolia is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Atlanta, Austin, Paris, London, and Bucharest. To learn more, visit www.algolia.com.