Algolia Search & Discovery Platform Integration
Built a modern search experience that improved product discovery through faceted filtering, intelligent query rules, and seamless integration with our SFCC ecommerce platform.
Technologies
Challenge:
The existing legacy search experience was slow, limited in functionality, and couldn't support the merchandising team's needs for relevance tuning, faceted navigation, and promotional query rules. We needed a modern search solution that could:
- Deliver fast, relevant results with complex filtering
- Enable merchandisers to tune search relevance without engineering
- Support advanced features like synonyms, query rules, and promoted results
- Integrate cleanly with our React PWA and SFCC backend
Approach:
- Implemented Algolia's React InstantSearch library with custom UI components
- Built reusable search widgets (refinement lists, numeric filters, range sliders)
- Created custom hooks for search state management and analytics tracking
- Designed data flows between SFCC product catalog and Algolia indices
- Collaborated with merchandising to set up initial facets, sorting, and query rules
- Integrated analytics events for search behavior tracking and experimentation
Skills Demonstrated:
- Modern frontend architecture (React hooks, context, custom components)
- API integration and data flow design
- UX-focused interface development
- Cross-functional collaboration (merchandising, product, design)
- Performance optimization for search-heavy interactions
Impact: (TODO)*
(You can fill this in once you get the metrics - might include:)
- Improved click-through rates to product detail pages
- Reduced zero-result query rates
- Increased conversion from search
- Enabled merchandising team to independently manage search relevance