In today’s fast-paced e-commerce landscape, standing out means more than just having the right products—it’s about delivering curated, dynamic, and visually engaging shopping experiences that drive both sales and customer loyalty. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of Smart Groups, a powerful new feature from Algolia designed to give merchandisers unprecedented control over product placement and curation.

The challenge: manual pinning can’t keep up

Retailers and merchandisers face pressure to showcase products in ways that maximize visibility, revenue, and customer engagement. Traditional search and discovery tools often fall short, requiring time-consuming manual pinning of individual products and constant rule updates as inventory and promotions change. This approach is not only inefficient but also limits the ability to respond quickly to market trends and business priorities.

Meanwhile, industry leaders like Amazon and Walmart have set a new standard: their search and category pages feature dynamic, real-time groupings—sponsored products, trending collections, seasonal picks—strategically placed to capture attention and drive sales. Replicating this level of sophistication has, until now, been out of reach for most retailers.

Introducing Smart Groups: curate, control, and convert

Smart Groups empowers merchandisers to define and place specific groups of products—filtered by attributes like brand, color, inventory status, and more—at precise positions on search and category pages. No more tedious manual pinning. No more static, outdated product grids. With Smart Groups, you can:

• Monetize your product grid: Unlock new revenue streams with sponsored placements

• Maximize revenue impact: Place high-margin or promotional items where they can have the most opportunity for conversion

• Promote new, trending, or on-sale items: Instantly spotlight high-margin or promotional products, such as featuring four “on sale” dresses, by placing them at strategically important positions in the results grid

• Create visually engaging experiences: Group products by color, style, or theme to match seasonal trends or brand campaigns—like showcasing autumn colors at the top of the Women’s category

• Drive dynamic content curation: Enable content teams to feature priority content (e.g., articles, courses, TV series etc.) based on business goals—without requiring help from engineers

• Reduce manual effort: Provide an alternative to pinning, and free up time to focus on more strategic tasks to get to market faster

If an item in a group goes out of stock or no longer meets your criteria, Smart Groups automatically fills the spot with the next qualifying product—keeping your pages fresh and relevant without manual intervention. What’s more, the items will be optimally ranked using Algolia’s AI Ranking to ensure the best order and relevance for accomplishing business goals.

Why now? The market demands it

Smart Groups addresses one of the most requested features from our customers and fills a critical gap in the market. As retail media and personalized shopping experiences become central to e-commerce success, the ability to curate and control product groupings—dynamically and at scale—has never been more important. With Smart Groups, Algolia customers can now offer experiences that rival those of industry giants.

How to Get Started

Smart Groups is now available to all Algolia customers. To learn more, check out our docs, see the hands-on training in Algolia Academy, or schedule a call with one of our merchandising experts.