Apparel Retailer Cuts 1,700 Search Rules and Boosts Revenue per User by 12% with Cimulate’s AI-Native Discovery.
Before Cimulate
When this fashion retailer first met Cimulate, they weren’t looking for a vendor—they were exploring how generative AI could unlock smarter search and discovery. With no live customers yet, Cimulate began by enriching their product data using CommerceGPT, identifying missing but meaningful terms like “jorts” to improve results in their existing Algolia setup. Even that early effort drove a 3% lift in conversion.
But the deeper issues were hard to ignore. The team was manually managing over 1,700 search rules just to avoid shopper frustration. Legacy tools failed to understand natural language, returning irrelevant or no results for queries like “hoodies for women,” “neutral bodysuit for layering,” or even typos like “fry boots.” Their search engine couldn’t interpret Gen Z’s evolving language or intent. That’s when they invited Cimulate to go head-to-head with Algolia—and the results spoke for themselves.
Key Results
33%
Increase in clicks per visit
12%
Increase in revenue
17%
Increase in add to carts
Why Cimulate
This retailer didn’t need another bolt-on solution—they needed a platform purpose-built for modern commerce. Cimulate stood out as the clear choice because it was designed from the ground up to meet the expectations of today’s shoppers and the realities of today’s data.
As an AI-native platform, Cimulate delivers context-aware search and personalized product recommendations that understand intent—not just keywords. Its proprietary synthetic journey simulation generates the kind of rich behavioral data that most retailers lack, helping them overcome the “data disadvantage” that holds back many AI initiatives. Just as important, Cimulate was fast to implement and intuitive to use. From day one, their teams could explore results, test hypotheses, and fine-tune discovery—all without waiting months for ROI.
After Cimulate
With Cimulate powering product discovery, their search experience transformed—fast. Shoppers could finally express themselves in natural, nuanced ways and get relevant results instantly. Whether it was a query like “preppy tennis skirt with pockets” or “neutral bodysuit for layering,” Cimulate understood the intent behind the words, not just the words themselves.
That shift drove real business results. Search became not only more relevant—but more profitable. By optimizing results based on business objectives like revenue and margin, Cimulate delivered across the board.
Even more impressive? These gains came as PACSUN dramatically simplified their backend operations. The team reduced the number of manual rules from over 1,700 to just 84, a 95% decrease, thanks to Cimulate’s AI-native automation. Most of these rules were originally necessary to manually fix issues with their prior platform. These remaining rules are driving the critical merchant insights to promote the brand.
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