AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Compare Metrics, the leading provider of Adaptive Commerce navigation and discovery tools, today announced that The Wasserstrom Company has launched Compare Product Discovery, its content curation and product discovery solution. The Wasserstrom Company rolled out the technology in October 2013, initially for its "rocks glasses" category and is currently rolling out the solution to additional product categories across its e-commerce site. The 110-year-old restaurant supplier provides a wide array of products including dinnerware, bakery equipment and catering supplies to dining institutions and individuals nationwide.

"We consciously made the decision to launch the Compare Metrics solution well before the start of the holiday shopping season allowing us to gather valuable merchandising intelligence and make optimizations pre-holiday," said Dale Edman, vice president, e-commerce and online marketing, The Wasserstrom Company. "This strategy will allow us to provide a more personalized and user-friendly shopping experience during one of our peak sales seasons."

Prior to launching the Compare Product Discovery solution, Wasserstrom customers could only sort via default criteria such as "price," "relevance," and "product name." Now they can customize their navigation and refine views of the entire product category by using a richer set of filters, including glass volume, color, brand, weight and height. Additionally, shoppers can view side-by-side product comparisons based on their selected preferences, as well as shop by scenarios, such as "Bar service", "Dining room" or "Table service". The Compare Metrics navigation tools create a completely differentiated and customized product discovery experience on the Wasserstrom e-commerce site.

"We are excited to report that engagement data shows that our shoppers are highly connected to the new flexible and tailored product discovery experience," said Edman. "Using the Compare Metrics filter functionality, over one-third of our shoppers in this category are interacting and refining their experience to match their personal preferences. Additionally, over 20% have engaged with the use case navigation tool and 12% have utilized the customized comparison functionality."

Fueling the Experience - Content Curation
A core element to Compare Metric's product discovery technology is a dedicated content curation team that manually searches for more "human-centric" product criteria, adding a whole new layer of merchandising data tied to each product. The content curation team mines Wasserstrom's structured and unstructured content to identify and interpret all the ways shoppers think about and naturally shop for products. The team then utilizes first-to-market curation technology to quickly tag products with the new merchandising criteria, and then assess which are having the greatest impact on engagement and conversion.

On average, the content curation team's product discovery process results in a four times increase in new possible product attributes for discovery, expanding the ability of consumers to find exactly what they are looking for online.

"Retailers are constantly looking for ways to not only make their products easier to find in the online world, but to also differentiate their brand to a more demanding and diverse shopper base," said Garrett Eastham, CEO, Compare Metrics. "We look forward to continue helping The Wasserstrom Company increase its online customer engagement through highly personalized discovery experiences, leading to higher conversion rates and ongoing shopper loyalty."

About Compare Metrics
Compare Metrics' Adaptive Commerce solution offers a more "humanized" approach to online product discovery, allowing consumers to use their own natural language to express personal preferences and style, rather than terminology driven by standardized merchandising categories and keywords. Adaptive Commerce solutions from Compare Metrics understand and react to what consumers want, resulting in increased shopper engagement and conversion, as well as improved relevancy and efficiency in demand generation and marketing strategies. The company is led by a team that combines extensive experience in retail technology with disruptive innovations that push the boundaries of machine learning and natural language processing. For more information, visit www.comparemetrics.com.

Media Contact
Catherine Seeds
Ketner Group (for Compare Metrics)
catherine@ketnergroup.com
1.512.794.8876

SOURCE Compare Metrics