AI search that protects revenue when traffic peaks

A leading gifts retailer brought in Valtech to replace their ageing search technology with Google’s AI-powered search built for commerce. The result: Shoppers find what they want faster, fewer visits end in dead ends, and the platform now carries all live traffic, even on the retailer's highest-stakes selling days.

Legacy search’s revenue and reputation problem

For gift retailers, there are certain days on the calendar — like Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day — where everything needs to go right. It’s a bottom-line disaster when traffic spikes overwhelm key sales channels.

For this client, search was breaking on peak days. Customers would search for products the retailer absolutely sold but would get no results. The company maintains a large, constantlyshifting catalog, so search was impacting relevance, and zeroresults pages would undercut conversions at the exact moments that mattered most.

The cost was more than missed sales. Customers were leaving with a worse impression of the brand at the busiest, most visible times of the year.

Protect peak-season performance with AI Commerce Search

Valtech partnered with the retailer to replace its legacy search tooling with Google Cloud's AI Commerce Search, the same technology powering Google-grade product discovery. This was a full replacement. We rebuilt how the platform understands intent, matches products and personalizes results across a fast-changing catalog.

The rollout was specifically designed to hold up under real world pressure. Valtech worked directly alongside the retailer's engineering and analytics teams to migrate the full product catalog, tune relevance and stress-test the system ahead of peak trading periods, when search has to work hardest and failure is most expensive.

The platform was also designed with headroom. AI Commerce Search gives this client a foundation to build on for guided and conversational shopping experiences without another ground up rebuild.

The new search platform now powers 100% of production traffic. Customers are finding what they're looking for more often, with fewer zero-result searches and higher engagement across sessions. That means fewer abandoned visits during the moments that carry the most revenue risk, and a search experience the retailer can keep improving rather than keep patching.

As a Google Cloud Premier Partner, Valtech has introduced AI Commerce Search to dozens of retailers, including Dunelm and Not On The High Street. We know exactly where the "wow" moments hide, and we know how to get a retailer's search working to Google's own standard quickly.

See how we create AI-powered retail experiences with Google Cloud ➔