#3 Mastering E-Commerce Search

Deep Dive: SAP Commerce Cloud Solr Search & Interview with HOFMANNs

In the previous articles of our Mastering E-Commerce Search series, we covered the evolution of e-commerce search and different search solutions and their functions, as well as how to evaluate the best-suited search solution for you.

Now we want to go even deeper and introduce you to individual search solutions and their range of functions and special features. Our deep dives include practical examples from our customers in the end. Let’s start with the SAP Commerce Cloud (SAP CC) solr search, which is based on Apache Solr:

1. Features and Benefits of the SAP CC Solr search
2. SAP CC Solr Search solution at a glance: Short Profile
3. The Adaptive Search Modul of the SAP CC Solr Search
4. Interview: Ralf Warncke, HOFMANNs – Use-Case about the SAP CC Solr Search

Deep Dive SAP CC Solr Search

Solr has been specially adapted by SAP and is seamlessly integrated into the SAP CC. The SAP CC search is therefore based on Apache Solr, an open source search project that is maintained, enriched and further developed by the community of the open source project. Apache Solr and the SAP Commerce Cloud Solr search are separate systems that can have different functional scopes.

1. The main features and advantages of the SAP CC Solr search:

A powerful search is a key success factor in e-commerce because it provides your customers with relevant results and a seamless shopping experience. The SAP Commerce Cloud Solr search offers you a variety of functions and advantages that help you to optimize your search results, increase customer satisfaction and ultimately increase your sales. The deep integration of Solr into the SAP CC is certainly an essential point that distinguishes this search solution from others. With the corresponding advantages and disadvantages:

1.Integration into the SAP Commerce Cloud:

As just mentioned – this is probably one of the most important reasons why many SAP Commerce Cloud customers choose this variant in the first place. SAP has seamlessly integrated Apache Solr into the Commerce Cloud. This means that data can be exchanged efficiently between the two systems. The result is a fast search time, which leads to a good CX.

2. Costs

Since the SAP Commerce Cloud already has Solr integrated, no additional solution needs to be time-consumingly evaluated. There are no further contracts to conclude, nor are there any additional license costs. Only if individual adjustments are made, further costs are incurred. Setting up and configuring the Solr search also involves only a small (specific) effort.

3. Support and maintenance:

Another important advantage that comes with the integration into the SAP Commerce Cloud is the support and maintenance by SAP itself. In case of problems or questions about the search, detailed documentation is available. Further developments and updates of Solr from the open source project are regularly transferred to the SAP Commerce Cloud.

4. Extensibility & Customisations:

The Commerce Cloud largely frees up the interface to Solr, so that individual extensions – which require Solr know-how – can be made in the project. Additional features and integrations can be supported and implemented via APIs and extensions. Open source allows extensive customization and flexibility. Companies have the ability to customize and expand the search results, filter options, ranking rules, and other search parameters according to their specific business needs.

5. Performance:

Since the SAP integrated Solr search can retrieve all data directly, it offers excellent performance. It is specially optimized for handling large amounts of data and fast search queries. The scalable and distributed architecture thus enables fast search results, regardless of the amount of data or the number of simultaneous users.

6. User friendliness:

With the Adaptive Search Module, SAP provides a user-friendly interface for adapting the search functions. Business users can thus intuitively configure the search. The platform offers extensive documentation and an active community, which contributes to quick familiarization and effective use.

7. Relevance Tuning: 

Also very important for business users is that SAP CC Solr enables extensive control of the relevance evaluation of the search results. Admins have the ability to customize the ranking rules, set the weights and use the filtering features to improve the order and accuracy of the search results. The flexibility and accuracy of the relevance control allows for precise adjustment to the individual needs of the company.

8. Personalization:

For a good customer experience, SAP CC Solr offers the possibility to adapt the search results and product recommendations to the individual preferences and needs of the end customer. “Classic” personalizations such as customer segmentation, taking into account previous searches, visited or purchased items, or taking promotions into account can be carried out.

9. Language support:

Another strength of Solr is the support of different languages: The indexed information, e.g. an article name, is analyzed and broken down into components by language-dependent “tokenizers” in order to then use this information again in the search. This is based on clearly structured sequences that can be expanded through in-house developments.

10. Analytics and Reporting:

An additional benefit that speaks in favor of the SAP CC Solr solution is the existing analysis functions and reporting to gain insights into the search behavior of the users and to evaluate the performance of the search solution.

11. Where does the SAP CC Solr search have its limits?

To be fair, we have to mention that the SAP Solr solution is not a specialized search solution. The SAP Commerce Cloud is a high-performance, adaptable and flexible e-commerce solution that has its right to exist, especially in B2B scenarios, thanks to the simplified integration into other SAP systems. SAP provides a good search with Solr search, which is also regularly optimized.

If you want to provide your customers with the best possible search results, personalize many or all areas of your shop, or even expect machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) for your search, you have to look for other solutions. For this reason, SAP has announced the search solution Coveo as an “Endorsed Partner for Search”. We will also do a deep dive on this in our next articles of our “Mastering E-Commerce Search” series. stay tuned 😉

2. SAP CC Solr at a glance: The SAP CC Solr Search Short Profile

Taking these advantages into account, the SAP CC SOLR search can still be classified at level three of our pyramid (see Article 2). For a higher level, the solution lacks advanced personalization functions or AI and ML functions. However, it must also be mentioned here that all functions in the SAP Commerce Cloud – and thus also the search – can be optimized. In this context, SAP customers have to ask themselves the classic “make or buy” question.

In addition, optimized e-commerce and business adjustments are developed by SAP itself. These are integrated into each new release. If your team, internal or external, also has the appropriate Solr know-how, you can further develop the search and your functions individually and also take specific requirements into account.

Overall, as shown, the SAP CC Solr search already offers advanced search functions and enables companies to offer their customers fast search times for their e-commerce websites as well as an optimized customer experience.

3. The Adaptive Search Modul of the SAP CC Solr Search

As soon as it comes to creating and organizing search profiles, e.g. to “boost” certain articles, the SAP Adaptive Search Module comes into play. In the following we would like to introduce the Adaptive Search Module with the help of two small examples:

1. Example: configuration of search profiles

An e-commerce specialist can set up and manage different search profiles to more easily manage the creation of search configurations for faceting, boosting and sorting settings. The search profile configuration can be used to define the following settings to be displayed on the storefront:

• Facets and their order
• Sorting the results
• Promoted items or collections

All of these settings are configurable under the SAP Adaptive Search module.

2. Example: Target group-based search profile

A marketing manager can create different search profiles for specific customer groups. When configuring the target group in the SmartEdit personalization module, he assigns a specific search profile to a target group. As a result, the customers belonging to the target group can receive search results tailored specifically to them. For example, fans of a certain brand (here Burton in the screenshots below) will see the brand-related products first because it was previously configured that way in the search profile.

Characteristics:

Using search profiles in Adaptive Search provides a smooth integration between the search profiles available in Adaptive Search with the Commerce customization feature in Personalization (based on SmartEdit)

Regular Customer

Burton Lover Customer

The campaigns are created using target group-based search profiles logically along the customer journey. This ensures suitable search results and high customer satisfaction:

User Journey:

4. Interview: Ralf Warncke, HOFMANNs – Use-Case about SAP CC Solr Search

Our customer HOFMANNs uses Solr of the SAP CC in a B2B2C scenario and continuously develops it further.

Ralf Warncke, head of IT customer support at HOFMANNs, was available for our interview. Since the requirements for the search always depend on the respective business requirements, we start with a small introduction to HOFMANNs business model:

Hofmann Menü Manufaktur is headquartered in Boxberg-Schweigern and is one of the leading German suppliers of tailor-made catering systems with freshly frozen menus for community, sick and social catering as well as day-care centers. Coming from community catering, the company is expanding its sales channels to reach business customers and end consumers via the online shop menuelounge.com. The supply specialist prepares its dishes with a team of over 100 chefs and butchers in master quality with mostly regional products – around 64% of the raw materials are sourced from the region. The menus are without flavor enhancers, without artificial coloring or flavorings and without nature-identical flavorings. Spices are prepared in our own spice kitchen, meat and sausage products come from our own butcher’s shop. At a total of four production sites in Germany and Austria with around 1,200 employees, up to 250,000 menus are made by hand every day. In addition to craftsmanship and quality, sustainability is also very important. With our own fleet of vehicles, unnecessary transport routes are avoided and the cellulose-based packaging is 100% free of plastic and PET.

HOFMANNs profile about E-Commerce Search (B2B2C-Case):

Responsible: Ralf Warncke, Head of IT-Customer Support, B2B

E-Commerce solution in B2B: SAP Commerce Cloud (SAP CC), former Hybris

Search solution: SAP CC Solr

Interviewer: Despina Hatzigrigoriou, Marketing Specialist, Codeitlabs

Despina: “Hello Mr. Warncke, thank you very much for your time and for agreeing to do this interview about e-commerce search. Maybe we’ll start with the selection of your search solution: How did you evaluate your search solution at HOFMANNs?”

Ralf Warncke: “Thank you very much for the invitation! We decided to implement SAP Hybris/SAP CC based on our findings with our previous software. Thanks to these learnings, we already had a detailed picture of our core requirements. The commerce suite of SAP has the Solr search as an integrated component. And our requirements can be well covered with this “suite”. SAP CC with Solr gave us the opportunity to further develop our business model right from the start. This enabled us to achieve greater involvement of the people dining at each canteen.”

Despina: “How complex is the operation of the SAP CC Solr search?”

Ralf Warncke: “We are convinced that the implementation of the SAP Commerce Cloud with the integrated Solr search works smoothly. Due to the good integration, we have no additional technical effort during operation. For new customers, we import the customer and item data and adjust the settings for the customer. A dedicated team trained by us is responsible for this customer-specific process.”

Despina: “What are the customizations you have made regarding the SAP CC Solr search solution for your company?”

Ralf Warncke: “An absolute must-have was to enable a pre-selection of the stock on site (of the respective canteen operator) as well as to set the prices for the different customer target groups and to display them at the right time.”

Despina: “How is the search used by your customers and end customers? Is the search present, offensive or rather seamlessly integrated and intuitive?”

Ralf Warncke: “Our customers use the website intuitively, including the search function. It is important to us that our customers can interact with a self-explanatory system. A “smooth” CX is very important to us. At this point, we were influenced by the previous software.”

Despina: “How did the cooperation with Codeitlabs as an implementation partner work in relation to Solr?”

Ralf Warncke: “For a successful cooperation, the partner must understand the business instead of just implementing things technically. When we started the project, Codeitlabs contributed hints. Specialized teams on both sides coordinate the communicative interface, which works well. In the beginning there was a very intensive exchange, but after a relatively short time a platform developed on an equal footing. We are well positioned and satisfied with SAP and Codeitlabs.”

Despina: “How will you expand or further develop the SAP CC Solr search in the future?”

Ralf Warncke: “We started out as a small butcher’s shop, we still manufacture by hand and pay great attention to sustainability and regionality. At HOFMANNs, every employee is proud of the products and our comprehensive understanding of quality. Transporting this emotion is a challenge. We must continue to advance search as a tool. Above all, the function of recommendations in connection with new trends still offer a lot of potential for our company in our opinion. That remains a learning process.”

Despina: “Great, thank you for your answers and the insights into HOFMANNs business.”

Ralf Warncke: “No problem. Thank you for the interview!”

Summary of the opportunities and challenges of SAP CC Solr for HOFMANNs business:

 

Opportunities:

• Support for the further development of the business model: SAP CC & Solr offer opportunities to involve the diners more and to further develop the business model accordingly
• Filtering and Sorting Capabilities: SAP CC Solr allows the implementation of filtering capabilities and sorting orders, for improved user experience and CX
• Order suggestions: The search solution enables order suggestions to be displayed in order to support the customer with the selection
• Discreet and clear to use: SAP CC Solr is used unobtrusively to provide filtering, sorting, and ordering suggestions without impacting the user experience
• Integration with SAP Hybris/SAP CC: Solr is already integrated with SAP Hybris/SAP CC

Challenges:

• Search capabilities could be enhanced: The search solution could be further developed to better meet users’ needs
• Challenges when implementing the complexity: Due to the complexity in the background, such as the own inventory for each customer and specific prices, the implementation of the filter and sorting functions was more difficult than with other solutions
• Sensitivity to personalization and recommendations: Personalization and the display of recommendations also require precise knowledge and sensitivity with regard to data protection restrictions, as customers could turn away if they feel patronized

Conclusion about the SAP CC Solr Search Solution

By providing a seamless search experience, businesses can increase revenue and differentiate themselves from the competition. The Solr-based search solution of the SAP Commerce Cloud is far more than a good basis here. On the one hand, it convinces with the deep and high-performance integration into the SAP CC and its adaptability to your requirements. In addition to the expected functions such as autocomplete/autosuggest, it also already offers good options for improving search results, e.g. through personalization. SAP CC customers who do not need a specialized search solution with AI functions make a good choice here.

If you are not yet using all the functionalities of the SAP CC Solr search, we will be happy to support you. We are also available for a talk any time you have general questions about the search.

Also stay tuned about our MASTERING E-COMMERCE SEARCH series. In the next Deep Dive, you can learn more about a use case where one of our customers uses Algolia as a SaaS search solution with AI functionalities. For this case, we interviewed our customer MANOR. Read this Deep Dive and Interview here.