SAN FRANCISCO July 22, 2025 – Algolia, the AI-native search and discovery platform trusted by 18,000 businesses and millions of developers worldwide is excited to announce that Shoe Carnival, one of America's largest footwear retailers, has integrated Algolia's AI-powered search with Amplience's Commerce Experience platform to redefine its digital shopping experience. Shoe Carnival, with over 400 retail locations across the Shoe Carnival and Shoe Station banners, as well as a dynamic online presence (www.shoecarnival.com and www.shoestation.com), offers a unique shopping experience, competitive pricing, and a vast selection of brand and private label footwear for women, men, and children.

Shoe Carnival is constantly updating product assortments and dropping new styles, so speed and agility are necessities to achieving its remarkable digital customer experience. As part of their shift to a compassable strategy, Shoe Carnival turned to Algolia and Amplience as vital components of their user experience.

Bernadette Nixon, chief executive officer, Algolia remarked: “Recognizing the limitations from the solution it first tried, Shoe Carnival embraced a new composable, headless commerce strategy, seeking robust solutions for content and search. The company identified Algolia and Amplience as the ideal partners to meet its evolving needs and underpin its new strategy.”

By combining Algolia’s AI-powered Search & Discovery platform with Amplience’s Commerce Experience Platform comprising a content management system (CMS) and digital asset management (DAM), Shoe Carnival has significantly improved both agility and efficiency. This approach empowers the merchandising team to experiment and apply changes swiftly using Algolia’s Merchandising Studio, without relying on developer intervention, streamlining processes and enabling rapid response to market dynamics. Since its implementation, Shoe Carnival experienced exceptional growth in revenue, conversion rates, and team productivity.

The team now stores more than one million assets in Amplience’s Content Hub, allowing them to index, search and find assets almost instantly using Algolia’s AI Search. This eliminates the manual work involved in re-ranking and delivers tailored search results to customers through natural language processing and automation, simplifying workflows.

Ned Moore, Director of eCommerce and Product Technology, at Shoe Carnival, shared insight on Algolia's breakthrough features and the influence they have had on the retailer's ecommerce site: "We’ve always wanted to deliver unique digital shopping experiences to our customers, but, before Algolia, we struggled to get big ideas off the ground. Thanks to Algolia's ease of use, the changes we dream up can be on the website in just the blink of an eye. This has doubled the productivity of our team and provided the automation needed to enact changes for high-peak shopping. Algolia provides unparalleled speed and personalization across our massive product catalog – ensuring our customers can find exactly what they're looking for instantly."  

During the first Cyber Weekend post-implementation, conversion rates rose by 4.5%. Dynamic Re-Ranking also boosted a key shoe style, helping it sell out in just 48 hours. These capabilities proved invaluable during other peak campaigns, such as the back-to-school season – when shoes are at the top of the list for 94% of shoppers. 

Courtney Grishman, Director of e-Commerce at Shoe Carnival said: "With insights from Algolia's analytics, we have more granular control over our campaigns and can make smarter, data-driven decisions to drive impactful results and achieve our business goals. Algolia AI Search has empowered us to learn more about our customers' needs, what is resonating with them, and what converts them." 

Courtney Grishman commented: “We’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s possible. With Algolia and Amplience, we’re poised to create even more impactful, personalized experiences for our customers, driving growth and satisfaction across all our brands.”

Discover how Algolia and Amplience’s AI search and content technologies have propelled Shoe Carnival into a new era of digital merchandising, read the full case study. To see how Algolia’s AI search platform can deliver exceptional customer experience for a retail site, schedule a demo.

About Algolia
Algolia is a leading provider of AI search solutions, serving over 18,000 businesses and 500,000 developers globally. Renowned for its user-friendly API-First platform and the fastest AI search technology, Algolia is the largest hosted search engine, trusted by businesses and developers for 1.75 trillion searches per year. Backed by a decade of innovation, expertise, and growth, Algolia continuously redefines the search landscape with its commitment to user-friendly solutions, significant scalability, and unmatched speed. Learn more: www.algolia.com. 

About Shoe Carnival
Shoe Carnival, Inc. is one of the nation’s largest family footwear retailers, offering a broad assortment of dress, casual and athletic footwear for men, women and children with emphasis on national name brands. As of March 21, 2024, the Company operates 429 stores in 36 states and Puerto Rico under its Shoe Carnival and Shoe Station banners and offers shopping at www.shoecarnival.com and www.shoestation.com. Headquartered in Evansville, IN, Shoe Carnival, Inc. trades on The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC under the symbol SCVL. Press releases and annual reports are available on the Company's website at www.shoecarnival.com.

About Amplience
Amplience, the AI Content company, brings together data, performance insights, and generative AI that helps merchants and developers deliver persuasive content for every shopping context that fuels truly personalized, connected experiences. More than 400 of the world's leading brands use Amplience including Crate & Barrel, Ulta Beauty, Coach, OTTO Group, GAP, Currys, and The Very Group. Amplience is backed by investors Farview Equity Partners, Sixth Street and Octopus Ventures. For more information on Amplience's vision for AI-based content, and its platform, including Dynamic Content and Dynamic Media, please visit www.amplience.com.