KICKS CREW Increases Revenue and Conversion with Marqo’s AI-Native Product Discovery
Company Overview
KICKS CREW is a leading global sneaker marketplace connecting enthusiasts with authentic footwear, apparel, and accessories. Specializing in streetwear and limited-edition releases, the platform offers over 400,000 unique styles from top brands like Nike, Adidas, and Jordan, serving a worldwide community of collectors and fashion-forward consumers.
Challenge
KICKS CREW previously relied on Algolia to power on-site search. As the company expanded its global catalog and shopper base, the team began to seek a solution that could evolve alongside its growing complexity. With thousands of SKUs constantly changing across regions, sizes, and release dates, KICKS CREW needed a search experience that could better understand intent and surface the most relevant products in real time.
The goal was to create a more adaptive discovery experience that reflected how sneaker enthusiasts actually search and shop. The team wanted to improve relevance for branded and model-specific queries, accurately interpret model numbers and product codes, prioritize new releases and trending products, and dynamically manage out-of-stock visibility without hurting SEO.
To continue delivering a best-in-class shopping experience, KICKS CREW set out to find a more intelligent and flexible search partner capable of supporting its next stage of growth.
Poor relevance on head (brand/model) queries
Running Shoes → Wrong variants surfacedInability to handle model number complexity
Buried new releases due to lack of proper boosting signals
Ignored inventory state with out of stock items cluttering search results
Lacked merchandising control and recommendations
KICKS CREW needed a smarter, more adaptive search experience that could increase conversion and average order size while reducing search friction.
Solution
KICKS CREW partnered with Marqo to power the next generation of its product discovery experience. By replacing its previous search setup with Marqo’s AI-native engine, the company introduced a smarter and more adaptive approach that aligns every search result with real-time behavior and intent.
Marqo enabled KICKS CREW to implement behavior-driven ranking that learns from clicks, add-to-cart activity, and purchase signals. The team gained dynamic inventory awareness, ensuring that out-of-stock items remained indexable for SEO while being deprioritized in live results. Through semantic understanding, Marqo accurately recognized model numbers, product codes, and brand-specific terminology. Merchandising teams could now feature trending products, launch new releases seamlessly, and maintain control over key queries with intuitive AI tools.
Together, these capabilities created a discovery experience that mirrored how sneaker fans think, search, and shop—clear, fast, and deeply personal.
The implementation focused on aligning search results with real-time shopper behavior and business goals. In a rapid rollout, the team:
Optimized ranking by leveraging first-click and add-to-cart signals to boost popular products
ClicksPurchasesRegional PreferencesImproved query handling with lexical boosting for model numbers, alternate codes, and brand-specific terms
Kept out-of-stock items indexable for SEO but dynamically deprioritized in live results
Added recommendations, trending queries, popular products, and merchandising controls for pinning products to key queries
This shift gave sneaker shoppers an intuitive way to search — by brand, style, release date, or model code — while significantly increasing engagement and driving higher cart values.
Results
After implementing Marqo for 100% of site traffic, KICKS CREW saw immediate and significant impact:
16%+
Increase in Revenue Added to Cart
17.7%+
Uplift in Sitewide Conversion Rate
Search-to-purchase lift +
More sessions moved from query to checkout — faster
What This Means
The shift to Marqo reshaped how KICKS CREW converts intent into revenue. Accurate model-number lookups, boosted new releases, and smarter ranking deliver exactly what customers expect — and more. Instead of losing shoppers to irrelevant results or buried inventory, KICKS CREW now drives bigger baskets and stronger loyalty from its core search experience.
The result:
New drops, model codes, and top sneakers surfaced instantly.
Out-of-stock handled smartly without hurting conversion.
Faster discovery turned searches into higher-value carts.
Moving Forward
Marqo and KICKS CREW continue to build on a shared vision: creating discovery experiences that feel effortless, relevant, and human. With intelligent search as a foundation, the teams are expanding their collaboration into new areas of personalization, merchandising, and customer engagement.
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