The Catalog Findability domain is responsible for managing the systems that determine which products can be displayed to Wayfair customers. The organization is focused on maximizing findable selection on all of our branded sites, minimizing legal risk and liability by always having accurate findability evaluation for products with clear resolution paths for supplier and internal teams.
Wayfair has high standards and requirements for all products to ensure a trustworthy customer experience. There are currently 500+ reasons why a particular product may not be shown to a customer, which include factors such as legal compliance, pricing, shipping restrictions, product descriptions, imagery, localization, and more. All these validations and data points live in different Wayfair domains. The role of the Catalog Findability is to be a gatekeeper for a catalog allowing to enter products only when they are in a great merchandising state.
A year ago, we set an objective to greatly transform Findability systems towards ambitious goals to [1] reduce the number of incorrectly unfindable products from >15% to below 1%, [2] improve supplier experience by providing solutions to easily understand product issues, and how to effectively resolve them, [3] migrate 100% of legacy systems to modern future proven solutions.
Problem Space
One great challenge was to be effective and precise about resolving product issues and accelerating product addition processes in regards of supplier experience and Wayfair operations. Suppliers and operations need to know "what a problem with a product", "how it can be fixed", and "who can resolve it" (Supplier or Wayfair). There was a lack of clarity about the product issues and resolutions from different technology teams. It was impossible to achieve our goals without getting all required information, establishing accountability and responsibilities.
Prior to this transformation, Findability systems were deeply coupled with logic, data and legacy processes owned by many domains. For instance, if the system needed to know that a product has compliance issues, it would directly run SQL queries on a database managed by Legal Eng teams, omitting any logic encapsulation. It was partly due to historical monolithic applications, and legacy error-prone processes that were also hard to maintain, troubleshoot, and enhance without major changes. Imagine, if the Legal Eng introduced a new validation to manage restrictions, or lifted some of those. It was very difficult to synchronize and update such logic on the Findability end respectively, without saying that there was no mechanism to inform suppliers how to react to resolve issues.
Furthermore, there was no comprehensive overview of all existing product issues. Wayfair's operations teams and suppliers worked on getting products listed by addressing problems sequentially (e.g., first fixing imagery, then identifying legal issues that needed resolution, and so on) rather than tackling all issues in parallel. This approach also often failed to exclude products that would remain unfindable due to unresolvable restrictions that must not be tackled causing operational inefficiency.
To conclude, there was a world where hundreds of business and technical rules were implemented and maintained by the Catalog Findability team. It reached a point of nightmare to tell which exactly products should and should not be on a site and why, relying on best guesses, feelings and assumptions.
Solution
The engineering team proposed and executed Distributed Findability initiative, the strategy to completely change the approach by empowering tech and biz domains to manage related Findability rules as a self service. Each and every biz and domain became truly in charge of their specific rules that impact product findability. For instance, if the Media domain started requiring higher quality images for new products, they would implement such rules to block new products from being on site communicating via APIs which products, what the issue is and how to resolve.
The Findability Barrier Platform was introduced to streamline communication between Wayfair domains and Findability about any issues of the product, or its absence. The platform provides capabilities to define and employ barrier types that describe issues of a product, resolution path, and accountability.
As shown on the chart, each barrier type (a product issue) is managed by a specific domain that sets and removes it for a product, respectively if the issue exists or is resolved.
All these barriers then are aggregated to determine a product findability, and exposed to all necessary downstream consumers to understand how to resolve issues. For instance, if there is any barrier (e.g., missing image, price, inventory), the product cannot be offered to a customer, while suppliers and operations know what exactly needs to be done to solve it. At the moment when a product does not have any barrier, it can be shown to a customer, otherwise Suppliers and Wayfair Operations will continue to work on its resolution.
It addressed main problems such as [1] clearly indicating which products can be offered to customers, [2] providing all necessary information about what problems a product has, [3] answering who needs to fix this problem (Suppliers versus Wayfair Operations).
On the simplified version of the architecture diagram you can see two core Findability Platform services that are responsible for [1] Barrier Platform - managing barriers, [2] Findability Service determining product findability (by consuming barriers information). Upstream clients set and remove barriers indicating the state of the product for a particular barrier type. Barrier Platform acts as a system for inputs, while Findability Service aggregates information and computes findability state (e.g., checks if there is at least one barrier that should block findability, and determines on which countries a product can be offered) serving downstream clients. The set of operational and analytical tooling helps domain teams manage their data, monitor large catalog changes, proactively detect issues, analyze catalog health and make data driven decisions.
Setup & Manage Barriers
Each domain sets up a barrier type by providing a description, resolution path, and all necessary information that helps understand the problem and how to resolve it. On the sample of the database schema below, you can see multiple attributes that specify owner (ultimately responsible for setting and removing barriers), accountability, intent, level, granularity, resolution description, and others.
Once a barrier type is set up, clients can use automatic and manual workflows to impose and remove a "barrier" when a product issue arises (e.g., a missing image). A barrier automatically blocks the product, making it unfindable on the site. In other words, the product becomes invisible to customers. At the moment an issue is resolved (e.g., an image is added), the barrier is removed. The Findability Service then checks for any remaining issues, and if none are found, the product is marked as findable, allowing it to be shown to customers.
Accountability
Each barrier type defines accountability for resolving product issues, helping us determine whether Wayfair Operations or Suppliers should take action. For example, if a supplier has entered an incorrect manufacturer part number, the responsibility lies with the supplier, and the barrier information will indicate this.
Wayfair is committed to ensuring that products are properly merchandised, described, and localized for the best customer experience. As a result, products may be blocked for Wayfair-specific reasons, such as missing lead images, incomplete localization and others. In these cases, the issues are addressed by Wayfair teams.
Barrier Intent
Barrier Intent is a concept that allows us to understand if we should continue to invest into attempting to resolve particular issues. We defined “Temporary", and "Permanent Removal" intents:
- Temporary: products that are temporarily taken off the website, so customers are not able to find them until an issue is resolved.
- Permanent Removal: products that are no longer planned to be a part of the catalog. Think about scenarios where a product is discontinued by a supplier, and not going to be manufactured or supplied, such a product stays out of our catalog permanently.
Having such information, Wayfair understands where to set focus for merchandising, striving to address as quickly as possible all issues for products that have “temporary” intent, while not touching other products with “permanent removal” intent.
Product Level & Market Granularity
The platform allows barriers to be set at various product levels, such as SKU (e.g., green couch), Option Combination (e.g., large green couch), Option (e.g., green color), or Supplier Part (e.g., a manufacturer part of a supplier). For example, a scenario might arise where the overall product, such as a sofa, is findable, but only one option like leather upholstery can be offered, while other fabrics remain unfindable due to specific issues (e.g., fire safety regulations).
Additionally, the platform enables restricting products by market (e.g., country, brand, B2B/B2C segment) for merchandising, legal compliance, or other business needs. For instance, a product might meet regulations in the United States, but not in Canada, requiring it to be restricted from being sold in certain regions.
Overall Success
The success of the Distributed Findability initiative is evident in the improved precision and accuracy of catalog state and problem resolution. By expediting issue resolution and streamlining processes, Wayfair has made significant progress in increasing the number of findable products in our catalog and improving resolution time.
The Distributed Findability initiative improved the accuracy of product findability and laid out the groundwork for future enhancements supporting new use-cases (e.g., physical retail).
In conclusion, Wayfair has effectively addressed the challenges of product findability and issue resolution, resulting in a more reliable and efficient system for managing the product catalog. This has positively impacted both the customer and supplier experience, as well as the company’s overall operational efficiency.
