Case Study: a large North American B2B distributor of workplace essentials achieves 78% alternate product coverage with Ugam

Product Alternates Reduce Lost Sales And Improve Customer Experience

a large North American B2B distributor of workplace essentials faced a challenge after rationalizing its product range to reduce overstocking. This led to a poor customer experience and lost sales because neither customers nor the sales team could easily find alternate products for discontinued items. The company enlisted Ugam, a provider of data-driven solutions, to help build a system that could recommend product alternates.

Ugam implemented a technology and algorithm-enabled solution that blended data from multiple systems to identify equivalent, alternate, and substitute products. The process involved creating detailed category dictionaries, setting matching rules with input from category managers, and employing a human and machine-led validation process. As a result, product alternate coverage increased from 19% to 78%, the average number of matches per SKU jumped from 2 to 16, and product attribution fill ratios were significantly improved.