Constructor.io To Brilliantly “Deconstruct” Search Experience – AI in Action

The e-commerce industry has been phenomenally expanding, with increasing consumer demand for online shopping, marked advancements in technology, and ever-changing consumer preferences. By the end of 2023, global e-commerce sales are expected to reach $6.1 trillion, representing a significant growth opportunity for e-commerce retailers.

With a shared vision of optimizing product discovery for online retailers, Eli Finkelshteyn and Dan McCormick, founded Constructor.io. They recognized that traditional keyword-based search engines often produce irrelevant or incomplete results, leading to frustration and poor user experience.

They aimed to leverage cutting-edge technologies to deliver dynamic personalization and powerful user experiences across all facets of product discovery, including search, browse, recommendations, collections, and quizzes.

Since its founding, Constructor.io has experienced impressive growth, serving as a trusted partner for major e-commerce brands and generating consistent $10M+ lifts for its customers. Their mission is to transform how businesses approach product discovery and empower online retailers to deliver exceptional customer experiences in the fast-growing e-commerce industry. Keep reading.

From a “Weekend Project” to Striking Industry Disruptor

Prior to co-founding Constructor.io, Eli Finkelshteyn had a background in search infrastructure and relevance from his experience at Etsy, where he led the search infrastructure team and worked on improving search relevance and performance on the platform. This experience gave him valuable insights into the limitations and challenges of traditional search engines, which inspired him to explore new ways to enhance product discovery for online retailers.

“Constructor.io was born out of a passion for revolutionizing product discovery in the e-commerce industry,” shared Finkelshteyn. “As someone with a background in search infrastructure and relevance, I recognized the limitations of traditional search engines and saw an opportunity to use advanced technologies like natural language processing and machine learning to create more personalized and relevant experiences for online shoppers.”

“Along with my co-founder Dan McCormick, we started Constructor.io as a weekend project, but it quickly gained traction as we saw the impact it could have on improving the customer experience for online retailers.” – he added.

As their weekend project gained momentum and received positive feedback, Eli Finkelshteyn and Dan McCormick decided to turn it into a full-fledged startup. They founded Constructor.io with the goal of providing cloud-based solutions that use dynamic personalization and powerful user experiences to optimize product discovery across various facets, including search, browse, recommendations, collections, and quizzes.

Since then, Constructor.io has become a trusted partner for major e-commerce brands, generating significant lifts in revenue for its customers and continuing to innovate in the field of product discovery, driven by their shared vision and deep expertise in search technology.

Constructor.io serves a wide range of businesses, regardless of their size and industry, that have a digital presence and require advanced search functionality on their websites, mobile apps, and other digital channels.

With a strong presence in the e-commerce sphere, Constructor.io serves major brands such as Sephora, Bonobos, Birkenstock, and Backcountry, enabling them to improve their product discovery experiences and boost revenue.

In addition, its solutions are well leveraged by online marketplaces like Target Australia, content publishers like Serena & Lily, job boards like Indeed and Glassdoor, classified websites like Craigslist and OLX, media companies like NBC Universal and Hearst Communications, educational platforms like Udemy and Coursera, healthcare providers like Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic, and financial institutions like Capital One and Charles Schwab.

Constructor.io’s technology has been trusted by businesses across a wide range of industries, demonstrating its versatility and effectiveness in improving search functionality and enhancing user experiences.

Whether it’s a small online store or a large enterprise, Constructor.io’s expertise in AI-powered search and discovery can be tailored to fit the requirements of businesses in different industries. For example, e-commerce retailers can benefit from better search functionality to help customers find products more easily, while content publishers can enhance content discovery for their readers. Online travel agencies can provide more relevant search results for travel destinations and accommodations, and job boards can offer improved search functionality for job seekers and employers.

Unlocking Success in Search and Discovery: Winning Strategies

Undoubtedly, Constructor.io has positioned itself as a leading player in the search and discovery space, offering a highly customizable and scalable platform.

One of the key factors behind Constructor.io’s achievement is its team of experienced engineers and data scientists who bring expertise from such top technology companies as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. This indicates that the company has been successful in attracting top talent, which is essential for product development, innovation, and staying competitive in the market.

The company’s ability to recruit talent from renowned companies speaks to the potential of their platform and the industry’s recognition of their expertise. Having a team with a strong technological background can be a significant advantage in developing a cutting-edge product that meets the evolving needs of the market.

Furthermore, Constructor.io’s highly customizable and scalable platform has allowed them to expand into new markets, such as e-commerce and media, where search and discovery are critical for customer engagement and retention.

For example, in the e-commerce industry, Constructor.io’s platform can be customized to incorporate specific product attributes, filters, and ranking algorithms that are relevant to the business’s product catalog. This level of customization ensures that customers receive accurate search results and relevant product recommendations, resulting in enhanced user experience and higher conversion rates.

Similarly, in the media industry, where content discovery is a key component of user engagement, Constructor.io’s platform can be customized to incorporate metadata, tags, and other content attributes that are relevant to the media platform’s content library. This allows users to search for and discover relevant content based on their interests and preferences, resulting in increased user engagement and retention.

The scalability of Constructor.io’s platform is another crucial aspect that serves as a powerful enabler for its expansion. Their platform is designed to handle large volumes of data and search queries, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. This scalability ensures that their platform can accommodate the growing data and search query demands of businesses as they scale and expand their operations.

More remarkably, the company’s funding journey showcases the confidence and interest of investors in their product and business model. With a total funding of $61.1 million raised over 4 rounds, Constructor.io has been able to attract substantial investments to fuel its growth and development.

Securing funding can be a challenging process, particularly for technology startups, as it requires demonstrating the viability of the product or solution, the potential for market demand, and the ability to generate sustainable revenue. Constructor.io’s ability to raise significant funding speaks to the positive perception and validation of their search technology solution by investors.

The most recent funding round, a Series A round on September 15, 2021, included investments from notable investors such as Cap Table Coalition and Silversmith Capital Partners. These investors are known for their expertise and experience in backing promising technology companies, further underscoring the confidence in Constructor.io’s potential.

The substantial funding obtained by Constructor.io is expected to provide the necessary resources to support their product development efforts, enhance their technology, and expand their market reach. It may also signify the scalability and growth potential of Constructor.io’s product, which is aimed at addressing the search challenges faced by e-commerce businesses with large catalogs of products.

Advancing Voice Search: Challenges and Opportunities for the Future

Constructor.io’s search and discovery platform deploys a combination of advanced algorithms and machine learning to enhance the customer experience. The platform dynamically analyzes user behavior, preferences, and intent to deliver highly relevant search results in real-time.

This helps customers find what they are looking for quickly and easily, reducing frustration and improving their overall satisfaction. Besides, Constructor.io provides features such as typo tolerance, autocomplete suggestions, and personalized recommendations, which further enhance the search experience for users.

Speaking of it, Eli Finkelshteyn stated: “Customers have limited time, and they don’t want to wade through hundreds of unwanted products before finding what they want. Using machine learning and personalization to refine and rerank search results to surface the products a particular customer is most interested in provides a much better experience.”

“If a customer always buys all-natural products, and one retailer surfaces all-natural products to them first, while another has them buried between a bunch of artificially-flavored ones, the first retailer is providing a better experience and the customer will prefer them.” – he added

One example of how the company has improved customer experience is demonstrated by the case study of online retailer GetOlympus. After implementing Constructor.io’s search functionality, GetOlympus reported a 20% increase in conversion rate and a 10% increase in revenue, as evidenced in the case study conducted by Constructor.io. This indicates that the improved search experience provided by Constructor.io positively impacted GetOlympus’ business metrics, leading to higher customer engagement and increased sales.

Additionally, Constructor.io leads the charge in the voice search revolution with its advanced platform that can be tailored to suit individual needs and scaled to accommodate varying business requirements.

However, challenges exist as the supernova strives to stay ahead in this dynamic field.

Eli Finkelshteyn highlights two major challenges that also serve as opportunities for voice search technology. The first challenge is that people tend to use longer, more natural language queries when searching via voice compared to text. This poses a challenge for search systems that are traditionally built on statistical algorithms relying on keywords. However, it also presents an opportunity, as users provide more information about their search intent, which can lead to better results if properly understood.

Finkelshteyn gives an example of someone using Sephora’s iOS app with voice search and saying, “show me the cheapest lipsticks.” This type of query is less likely to be typed into a text search system but is more common in voice search. If the system understands that “cheapest” refers to sorting by price from low to high, like Sephora’s app does, the user can have a better experience with more relevant results.

The second challenge and opportunity with voice search is its hands-free nature, as enabled by smart speakers. While this allows for easy interaction in various contexts, such as cooking or lounging on the couch, it also makes interaction and correction more difficult. If users receive incorrect results from voice search on a smart speaker, it can be frustrating and challenging to correct.

“This is the biggest challenge holding voice search back: the right interface for it doesn’t exist yet.” – Finkelshteyn said.

However, Finkelshteyn notes that companies are constantly iterating and exploring new ways to enhance the interface for voice search, including adding screens and other interactive elements. Once the right interface is developed, it is expected that voice search usage will explode, unlocking its full potential as a convenient and powerful search medium.

“For now, the major challenge for brands is just finding the right voice search partner, and the right interface before their competitors do.” – he said.

Bottom Lines

As Finkelshteyn once stated, “Retailers can change the search mindset outside of e-commerce by bringing the search experience into their stores. Don’t make customers hunt down an employee and ask about some product the employee might have never heard of. Give them a way to search for what they want in-store technologically, via an app or a kiosk.”

As the e-commerce industry continues to evolve in no time, Constructor.io is well-positioned to drive non-stop innovation and further architect its growth journey to a new level.