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Nuts.com sees a 3X conversion rate increase with users who search

At Nuts.com, we believe in delivering a modern experience that puts the customer first. Search is core to delivering the experience that customers expect. And, since adopting Algolia as our search platform, we’ve seen that customers searching on our website tend to convert three times more than those who don’t.

David Lerner

Head of Digital Product @ Nuts.com
Nuts
Use case

D2C E-commerce website (6 warehouses / distribution centers)

Headquarters

New Jersey, NJ

Customer since

since 2019

Feature usage

Rules, Visual Editor, Analytics, Query Suggestion, Dynamic Synonyms

Key results
  • 3X conversion rate increase

  • 15% increase in average order value per session

  • 23.5M searches

The challenges

  • 1.

    Homegrown website solutions that couldn’t scale with the business

  • 2.

    Disparate platforms hosting the website

  • 3.

    Disjointed customer experience

The solution

  • 1.

    Open APIs and robust features easily allowed developers to innovate and scale

  • 2.

    Faster and more relevant search results for customers

  • 3.

    Enhanced experience for an optimal customer experience

The result

  • 1.

    Three times higher conversion rates

  • 2.

    15 percent increase in average order value per session

  • 3.

    Simplified and faster product search and discovery for customers who know what they want and those that don’t

Nuts.com Leverages Search to Extend Its Customer-First Approach to the Digital Experience

Nuts.com likely isn’t the first company you think of when it comes to being an early adopter of the modern digital experience. But this family-owned, 93-year-old company that dates back to the Great Depression went all-in on ecommerce in 1999 when it launched NutsOnline. 

And while the company began by selling in an open-air market in 1929, added countless new products over the decades, and has seen rapid growth through its ecommerce focus — its customer-first approach hasn’t changed at all. 

For Nuts.com, search simplifies and speeds up product discovery for customers that know what they want and can even help deliver relevant content to those customers that don't. It’s a powerful tool that guarantees shoppers can navigate Nuts.com’s deep selection of products on their journey to find that special something. 

The company also recognized the need to ensure that their search and navigation capabilities could scale to meet its growing demand. This led Nuts.com to implement Algolia in order to speed up and simplify the development process, empower merchants to own their platform and, ultimately, continue delivering an exceptional experience for their customers.

Nuts.com Needed to Upgrade Its Homegrown Website and Platform

The original iteration of Nuts.com was launched by CEO Jeff Braverman with the help of the company’s then-only developer, Ben Shakal. Its original website continued to evolve as the company grew over the years. 

Nuts.com knew it would be challenging to scale for ongoing success without an effective way to categorize and deliver relevant results, especially as its catalog of products continued to grow. It was crucial that they had a suitable solution to store product data — and one that would empower customers to search for the things that matter most to them. 

The company recognized the importance of updating its core platform in order to continue fulfilling its customer-first approach. They knew it was counterproductive to have two separate platforms powering key aspects of its website. When the company discovered Algolia, it made the decision to adopt a headless, API-based approach that much easier.

Nuts image 1

Algolia’s Enhanced Browse Paths, Unparalleled Search Accuracy, and User-Friendly Approach

Nuts.com saw the value in migrating its website to a more scalable platform that would empower its developers to continue creating an exceptional customer experience — while leaving complex aspects of search to a specialized platform like Algolia. 

The company also wanted to give its teams the tools they needed to work faster, smarter, and deliver better results — because they understood how important these teams were to its success. The idea to double down on search was part of a strategy that believed powerful search experiences would delight customers on the frontend of the website, offering them a progressive experience through a single-page application. 

Nuts.com saw Algolia as the ideal choice for powering its two-pronged approach to modernization. Algolia’s platform provided them with a robust set of features that its developers could use to build modern experiences that would allow them to continue innovating, growing its ecommerce business, and prioritizing its customer-first and team-based approaches. With Algolia, merchandisers are able to exercise more control over any listed products on the company’s website. 

Algolia is directly plugged into the customer experience, serving as an essential touchpoint that enhances both usability and discoverability. 

Algolia was selected to power site search, all category pages, and product listing pages in order to allow Nuts.com to cater to both direct and curated intent. They wanted a tool that could quickly direct customers that knew what products they wanted, while still helping undecided ones discover new products and options that may interest them across both their home page and category pages.

3X Conversions and a 15% Increase in Average Order Value from Customers Searching on Nuts.com

Since implementing Algolia, the conversion rate with customers that use search is three times higher compared to those who don’t use search. Among those same users, the average order value is 15% higher per session. 

Nuts.com believes this drastic increase in conversions is due to its site strategy that a great search experience is about convenience, discoverability, and relevancy for its customers. 

The detailed analytics dashboard and reports provided by Algolia give the company the insights it needs to make meaningful decisions when it comes to its products, how its users engage with them, and how demand for them evolves. 

Nuts image 2

During the high demand experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, Algolia enabled Nuts.com’s product and merchandising teams to control rank and sorting rules to increase the visibility of popular products that were in stock, so it was easier for customers to discover them. The net results of this enhanced control was an improved customer experience, as well as positive business outcomes that allowed the company to sell popular products for which they had inventory. 

“With Algolia, it’s exciting to have such a degree of visibility into the ranking and sorting algorithm. And that kind of transparency is what makes it a very powerful platform. I can see which specific products rank and why and then turn it over to their suite of management tools to optimize the search results and the whole of the customer experience”

Looking Ahead

A key pillar in Nuts.com’s customer experience revolves around an immersive and highly intuitive navigation – with search at its core. The company sees Algolia as both a partner and key driver in delivering this kind of experience. Leveraging Algolia’s algorithm to provide predictive capabilities that the company will use to continue innovating while prioritizing the customer experience.

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