Ecommerce ops · Production

Staples Canada uses Algolia AI Dynamic Re-Ranking, Rules, and Personalization to achieve 65% auto-resolution and double-digit conversion growth

The problem

Staples Canada's legacy search tools were either highly manual, requiring spreadsheets that were hard to keep current, or appeared modern but offered no transparency into why results changed, making it difficult to serve both frequent and exploratory shoppers across more than 200,000 SKUs.

First attempt

Legacy search tools required manual spreadsheet management to stay current, gave no transparency into result changes, and surfaced irrelevant product categories for straightforward queries.

Workflow diagram · grounded in source
1
Customer queries product catalog
trigger
“millions of people coming to the site doing multiple searches each”
2
Rules correct query mismatches
ai_action
“The team utilized Algolia Rules to fix this. The search query "Paper" is a good example: customers are looking for printer paper when they search for "Paper" — yet, before Rules were implemented, such a query would return "paper towels"”
3
Dynamic Re-Ranking boosts relevance
ai_action
“What really worked miracles for us was the dynamic re-ranking algorithm - that was a real game changer.”
4
Dynamic Synonym Suggestions automate vocabulary
ai_action
“Dynamic Synonym Suggestions to automate the work of increasing relevance”
5
Personalization tailors results
ai_action
“The team added Algolia Personalization to find the "sweet spot": balancing exploration with items the shopper had previously shown interest in”
6
No-click query feedback loop
feedback_loop
“visibility into queries with no clicks (providing visibility into potential problem areas on the site to look into)”
Reported outcome

Staples Canada achieved 65% of issues automatically solved and a double-digit increase in conversions, with improvements in add-to-cart rates, click-through rates, and revenue, while freeing engineering time for strategic initiatives.

Reported metrics
Issues automatically solved65%
ConversionsDouble Digit increase in conversions
Add-to-cart ratesincreases in key metrics such as add-to-cart rates
Click-through rates from resultsincreases in key metrics such as click-through-rates from results
Show all 7 reported metrics
issues automatically solved65%
conversionsDouble Digit increase in conversions
add-to-cart ratesincreases in key metrics such as add-to-cart rates
click-through rates from resultsincreases in key metrics such as click-through-rates from results
revenueincreases in key metrics such as revenue
engineering time freed for strategic initiativesfreeing up engineering time to work on more strategic initiatives, saving the company time and money
product SKUs200,000
Reported stack
AlgoliaAlgolia AIDynamic Re-RankingDynamic Synonym SuggestionsAlgolia RulesAlgolia PersonalizationAlgolia AI Recommendations
Source
https://www.algolia.com/customers/staples
Read source ↗

Frequently asked questions

What did this team achieve with this AI workflow?

Staples Canada achieved 65% of issues automatically solved and a double-digit increase in conversions, with improvements in add-to-cart rates, click-through rates, and revenue, while freeing engineering time for strat…

What tools did this team use?

Algolia, Algolia AI, Dynamic Re-Ranking, Dynamic Synonym Suggestions, Algolia Rules, Algolia Personalization, Algolia AI Recommendations.

What results were reported?

Issues automatically solved: 65%; Conversions: Double Digit increase in conversions; Add-to-cart rates: increases in key metrics such as add-to-cart rates; Click-through rates from results: increases in key metrics such as click-through-rates from results (source-reported, not independently verified).

What failed first in this deployment?

Legacy search tools required manual spreadsheet management to stay current, gave no transparency into result changes, and surfaced irrelevant product categories for straightforward queries.

How is this ecommerce ops AI workflow structured?

Customer queries product catalog → Rules correct query mismatches → Dynamic Re-Ranking boosts relevance → Dynamic Synonym Suggestions automate vocabulary → Personalization tailors results → No-click query feedback loop.

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