Mercado IntuiFind

Platform: Windows NT/2000, Unix: Sun Solaris
Price: contact company

Features

Provides full-text search and parametric search for commerce sites with database back ends

Integrates with ODBC compliant databases including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, DB2, Sybase and Microsoft Access.

API toolkits available in COM, Perl, C++, JDBC Java Drivers, ATG, Broadvision and Vignette

Copes nicely with spelling errors

Multi-lingual and with industry-specific thesauri

Administrative control over results ranking

Integrates with external personalization systems

Articles & Reviews

When Searching Is No Longer Enough. Internet Retailer; April 2002 by Kurt Peters
Discusses online store search engines: Mercado, EasyAsk, Endeca, and Netrics, referring to the 2001 Forrester report. Describes customer needs for technology that allows both searching and browsing by category or product attribute. Includes evidence of the good results at Tower Records with Endeca, but finds few examples of faceted metadata usage. Includes additional references to studies of e-commerce search engine demands and limits, suggesting significant changes from the traditional "relevance ranking" approach. Changes include recognizing the problems of a long search result, redirecting searches for brands or products not carried to similar available products, sorting and drilling down on product attributes, spelling correction and synonyms.
Revving Up the Search Engines to Keep the E-Aisles Clear New York Times, February 28, 2001 by Lisa Guernsey (registration may be required to read this article)
Discusses the difficulty of locating items in online stores, referring to the Forrester report of last spring. Describes the use of thesaurus tools for synonym searching and taking advantage of database structure in online stores. Quotes the vendors Mercado, which provides search for WebVan and Tower Records, and EasyAsk, as well as the chief scientist at Verity.

In Search of Intelligent Search Interactive Week; November 6, 2000 by Charles Babcock
Excellent discussion of the problems with standard search engines, including short critiques of search engines on various sites, including REI, the FBI, the White House, Office Depot. Also covers how the webwide search engines deal with search relevance, how categories can help, the Forrester search report and future technologies.

E-commerce search engines get smarter Eweek; October 27 2000 by Grant DuBois
Short description of two search engines (Mercado IntuiFind and empolis orenge) which work with e-commerce catalogs to provide better results for searches.

Gartner WebLetter Analysis June 27, 2000
Descriptive and critical analysis of the features and issues involved in implementing this software.

Examples

Blockbuster Video online store

USOPNet procurement management system

Sears

Page Updated 2002-06-07

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Search Tools Consulting's principal analyst, Avi Rappoport, may be available to help you with selection, indexing and search log analysis, as well as relevance evaluation, user experience testing, and functional search engine work. Please contact us for more information.

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