Maximizing Profits: How a Business can achieve a better ROI using Hero Ranking and Boost rules in SAP Commerce Cloud

In the world of business, it is important to keep track of your progress and measure your success. This is where the concept of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) come in. It’s not enough to simply have goals, you need to have a way to measure whether you’re meeting those goals or not.

“What gets measured gets managed.”

-Peter Drucker, a renowned management consultant and author,

This quote highlights the importance of measuring and evaluating the return on investment (ROI) of a product for a business. Without measuring the ROI, a business owner cannot effectively manage their product’s profitability and growth potential. By understanding the ROI of their products, businesses can make informed decisions about where to invest resources and efforts to maximize their profits. Additionally, monitoring the ROI allows businesses to identify areas where they may need to make changes or improvements to increase profitability.

Return on investment(ROI) is a metric used to understand the profitability of an investment, it compares how much you paid for an investment to how much you earned to evaluate its efficiency.

Therefore, ROI is a critical metric for any business owner to consider when evaluating the success and potential of their products

Now, lets see how ROI of your business can be improved with the help of features like Boost Rules and Hero Ranking in SAP Commerce Cloud.

Using boost rules we can highlight the most sellable brands on the top. In addition to promoting several items at once[promoting a brand],we also can also promote a specific item to make it more visible for the customer or exclude it if it’s out of stock. For example, if a business sells different types of shoes, it can exclude the items that are out of stock, saving promotion costs and highlighting the best-selling items.

Lets understand this with a problem statement as below.

Problem Statement: A business owner wants to optimize the product ranking on their SAP Commerce Cloud based storefront to highlight the most sellable brands on the top using boost rules. They want to achieve this without having to manually update the product ranking on their storefront frequently.

Solution: To solve this problem, we can make use of the Adaptive Search feature in SAP Commerce Cloud. This feature allows businesses to configure search-related settings to optimize their product search results.

In this case, we can create a search profile that applies boost rules to products belonging to the most sellable brands.

A search profile is used to apply boost rules to the most sellable brands. The reason for using a search profile is that it allows us to apply boost rules to a specific set of products that meet certain criteria, rather than applying them to all products in the system. Remember, creating a search profile that applies boost rules to the most sellable brands is not mandatory, but it is a good practice as it helps to optimize the search results for the customers and can lead to increased sales.

The search profile can be set up to run at regular intervals using a Cron job, which automates the process of updating product ranking based on the latest sales data.

The following BeanShell script demonstrates how to create a search profile that applies boost rules to the most sellable brands:

public class MostSellableBrandBoostRuleSearchProfile implements IndexConfiguredSolrSearchProfile

{

    @Resource

    private FacetSearchService facetSearchService;

    @Override

    public void applyBoostRules(SearchQuery searchQuery, IndexedTypeConfig indexedTypeConfig, Map<String, String> context) throws SearchException 

    {

        String brandBoostRule = "recency^1.0, popularity^0.5";

        // Set the boost rules for the most sellable brands

        searchQuery.getFilterQueries().add("brand:sellable_brand");

        searchQuery.getBoostRules().put("brand", brandBoostRule);

    }

}

This BeanShell script defines a search profile that applies boost rules to the most sellable brands. The applyBoostRules() method specifies the brand filter query to match the sellable brands and applies the brandBoostRule to boost their product ranking.

NOTE: Here, the values of the recency and popularity factors depend on the business requirements and the nature of the products being sold. In the example code, we have increased the recency factor to 1.0 and popularity factor to 0.5 to emphasize the impact of these factors on the product ranking.

The initial and final values of these factors can vary depending on the business requirements. For example, if the business wants to prioritize newly added products, they may start with a recency factor of 0.8 and gradually increase it to 1.0 over time. Similarly, if the business wants to prioritize high-demand products, they may start with a popularity factor of 0.5 and gradually increase it to 1.0 based on the sales trends.

Overall, the values of these factors should be carefully chosen based on the business goals and the product performance data.

Once the search profile is defined, it can be scheduled to run at regular intervals using a Cron job. With this approach, businesses can optimize their product ranking based on the latest sales data without having to manually update the product ranking on their storefront frequently.

What else ?

Yes, Hero Ranking is another feature in SAP Commerce Cloud that can significantly impact ROI. It allows businesses to rank their products on the product listing pages based on certain conditions. Certain conditions like :

Number of views: Products that have a higher number of views can be ranked higher.

Number of sales: Products that have a higher number of sales can be ranked higher.

Availability: Products that are in stock and available for purchase can be ranked higher.

Profit margin: Products that have a higher profit margin can be ranked higher.

Seasonal demand: Products that have a higher demand during certain seasons or events can be ranked higher.

Customer reviews: Products that have higher customer reviews and ratings can be ranked higher.

By ranking the products according to their demand, businesses can attract more customers, increase sales, and improve customer satisfaction.

Let us understand Hero ranking with a simple problem statement

Problem Statement:

As a business owner, I want to implement Hero Ranking in SAP Commerce Cloud to rank my products on the product listing pages to increase sales and revenue.

Solution:

We can implement Hero Ranking in SAP Commerce Cloud by creating a search profile and adding the ranking rule to it. The ranking rule will define how products will be ranked on the product listing pages. The following is a simple beanshell code that demonstrates how to create a search profile and add a ranking rule to it:

// Create a search profile

SearchProfileModel searchProfile = modelService.create(SearchProfileModel.class);

searchProfile.setName("Hero Ranking");

// Add a ranking rule to the search profile

RankingRuleModel rankingRule = modelService.create(RankingRuleModel.class);

rankingRule.setName("Most Popular");

rankingRule.setCode("popularity_desc");

rankingRule.setSortingOrder(0);

rankingRule.setSearchProfile(searchProfile);

// Save the search profile and ranking rule

modelService.saveAll(searchProfile, rankingRule);

In this code, we are creating a new search profile named “Hero Ranking”. Then, we are adding a ranking rule to the search profile which will rank the products based on their popularity in a descending order. Finally, we are saving the search profile and the ranking rule.

Once the search profile is created with the ranking rule, we can use it to configure the product listing page to display products according to their popularity.

Now, One of the most common confusion that people encounter is…

Is Hero Ranking of a product and applying boost rule to the product mean same ?

No, Hero Ranking and Boost Rules are not the same in SAP Commerce Cloud. The major difference between the two is the purpose they serve in product ranking.

Hero Ranking is used to promote specific products or brands on the product listing pages. It is often used to showcase new products, bestsellers, or products that are on sale. For example, a business may use Hero Ranking to feature a new product that they want to introduce to their customers or to highlight a product that is currently on promotion.

On the other hand, Boost Rules are used to influence the search results for specific keywords or phrases. They are used to ensure that the most relevant products appear at the top of the search results. For example, a business may use Boost Rules to ensure that their best-selling products appear at the top of the search results when a customer searches for a specific product.

To illustrate the difference, let’s consider an example of an online book shop. The business may use Hero Ranking to feature a new book release on the homepage of the website to grab the attention of customers. They may also use Boost Rules to ensure that when a customer searches for a specific author, the most relevant books by that author appear at the top of the search results.

In conclusion, businesses can significantly improve their ROI by utilizing the powerful features of Hero Ranking and Boost Rules in SAP Commerce Cloud. These features help businesses to enhance the customer shopping experience, increase sales, and improve customer satisfaction, ultimately leading to better ROI. By understanding the use and implementation of these features in SAP Commerce Cloud, businesses can stay ahead of their competitors and make the most out of their online presence.

Co-Author | Sachi Tripathi | Associate Consultant at Infosys