Zilo wanted to bring effortless, intelligent discovery to their growing catalog. But rapid expansion exposed the limits of Shopify's default tools. Manual tagging, irrelevant search results, and random recommendations held them back from delivering shoppers the seamless fashion experience they expected.

The team partnered with YesPlz AI to build an AI fashion model tailored to their unique catalog, shoppers, and market. Within weeks, the customized AI model transformed Zilo's entire shopping experience. Search is now faster. Recommendations are smarter. And the overall shopping experience is more personalized. This positions Zilo as India’s leader in AI-powered fashion retail.

Challenges

• Shoppers searched but got irrelevant results: Zilo used Shopify's default search function, which had no understanding of fashion context or shopper intent. It only matched literal keywords. Unrelated products showed up, shoppers felt frustrated, and many gave up searching.

• Every new product sat waiting while the team manually added tags: The labeling work never ended and kept piling up, leading to inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and scalability issues. The Zilo team was stuck doing this repetitive task instead of working on what actually grows their business.

• When shoppers viewed a product page, the recommendations made no sense for what they were looking at: The Shopify recommendation engine displayed random products without understanding style matching, brand preferences, or shopping context. There was no way for shoppers to see similar items. Neither could they find products that helped them complete the look. Nor could they discover more products from brands that they liked. 

  Key Results:

  • 2x higher search sales attribution vs Shopify site search

  • 3.4x higher search ATC vs the industry benchmark

  • 2.8x higher More by Brands recommendations ATC vs. industry benchmark

  • Fully automated AEO workflow setup & integration

  • 5 YesPlz AI Tools Leveraged

  YesPlz AI quickly adapted their AI model to our needs and delivered measurable improvements to our search experience. Their speed, technical precision, and collaborative approach made them an invaluable partner for Zilo.

  

  Nishant Shetty

  Deputy Director - Revenue, Zilo

  Solutions: 

• Custom Hybrid AI Search Tailored to Zilo only: Zilo shoppers now find what they're looking for, even when their exact search term isn’t in the product titles or tags. YesPlz built a custom hybrid AI search, trained specifically on Zilo's catalog and how their shoppers actually search. 

• Scalable Catalog: Every product gets accurate, consistent tags the moment it's uploaded. AI tagging technology analyzes product images and applies labels for every detailed attribute - trained on Zilo's multi-brand catalog and actual shopper behavior.

• Personalized Recommendations and AI Stylist: In each Zilo product page, shoppers see various suggestions that actually match their interests. They discover items that complete their outfits. They find more products from brands they love. The AI Stylist further enhanced their shopping experience by offering interactive, conversational styling advice tailored to each question.

AI Site Search: Before and After (e.g., "Formal Dresses")

Before

After

Automated Product Tagging: Before and After

Before

After

AI-Powered Curation: Before and After

Before

After

From Zero to AI Stylist: Tailored Success with Zilo

Before

After

Lesson Learned

• Fine-Tuning for Site Search: Optimizing site search at a detailed level significantly improves search accuracy and sales. Fine-tuning involves adjusting settings for brand, size, custom keywords, and shopper behavior. This ensures that search results match what your customers actually look for. For example, training AI to understand common terms, synonyms, and shopper intent can reduce irrelevant results and keep users engaged. Continuous analysis of search data helps refine and improve performance over time, making the shopping experience smoother and more relevant.

• Custom Tagging: Custom tagging is essential for effective product discovery in fashion retail. It helps connect the language your shoppers use to your product catalog. For instance, we helped Zilo map the term “blouse” to “Saree top,” a phrase more familiar to Indian shoppers. We also trained AI to recognize the vibe and occasions related to sarees, which enhances search and recommendation accuracy. With AI, fine-tuning tagging to your customer preferences becomes easier over time—simply feed the AI your specific inputs, and it learns to adapt the data to suit your unique needs.

Behind the Curtain

• AI Solutions for Fashion Retailers: Zilo’s eCommerce Success Story

• Trying Zilo AI Stylist: My Honest Out-of-the-Box Experience as a Fashion Non-Expert