Wayfair merchandisers currently spend thousands of hours each year manually naming the millions of products we sell. This unstructured data is costly to maintain and subject to human error as individuals currently update a free text field. With Formulaic Naming, Wayfair is transitioning to a structured solution for naming based on other questions we already ask our suppliers about their products. Once we have this structured information, we can pursue Dynamic Naming, where the product name will vary based on where the name is displayed and the customer who is viewing the product. This week, David Short, a Product Manager in Merchandising Systems at Wayfair, will discuss the work he's doing with Merchandising Engineering to automate this process.
David is a Product Manager in Merchandising Systems responsible for Wayfair's product descriptions and names. Prior to Wayfair, he spent most of his career as a specialist in Payments at a management consulting firm where he advised clients around the world on strategy and growth in the consumer payments industry. He has also worked in financial services market research and digital advertising research. David graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Economics and grew up in Dallas. Outside of Wayfair, he is the co-VP of the Dartmouth Club of Greater Boston, co-hosts a podcast Business Books & Co., and is an enthusiastic but moderately skilled skier and squash player.
