HawkSearch: Advancing B2B Search, Personalization, and Product Discovery for Manufacturers and Distributors

B2B digital transformation keeps surfacing the same pattern. Teams invest heavily in platforms, design, and data, yet buyers still struggle to find the right product. Search becomes the bottleneck. Product discovery becomes a guessing game. And merchandising teams spend their time responding to problems rather than shaping the experience. That is the gap HawkSearch was built to solve.

HawkSearch brings an AI-driven approach to search, recommendations, and personalization for manufacturers and distributors with complex catalogs. Instead of treating search as a functional component of an eCommerce platform, HawkSearch positions it as a core capability that improves customer experience, reduces friction, and supports revenue growth across digital channels.

About HawkSearch

HawkSearch is an artificial intelligence powered search and recommendations platform supporting organizations with large, data-rich catalogs. Their work spans more than 800 implementations across industries, giving them a deep view into how B2B buyers navigate complex product information, technical attributes, and varying purchase rules. Their approach reflects a principle familiar to B2BEA members: simplifying how customers get their job done.

The platform is known for blending machine learning, business logic, and marketer-controlled merchandising. This combination allows digital teams to keep strategic control while offloading reactive monitoring and tuning to automated intelligence. Their conversion analyzer, for example, interprets the real language buyers use and maps it to product data, reducing the dependency on long lists of synonyms or unit-of-measure variations.

What Differentiates HawkSearch for B2B eCommerce

Manufacturers and distributors operate in a world shaped by complex catalogs, entitlement rules, regulatory requirements, and customer-specific variations. HawkSearch addresses these realities directly. Their platform supports:

AI-Powered Site Search Built for Real B2B Buyers

Buyers often search by part numbers, specs, applications, or plain-language problems. HawkSearch blends semantic, keyword, and attribute-based logic to accommodate messy data, incomplete inputs, and real-world search behavior. It enables search outcomes that prioritize in-stock items, higher-margin products, or contract-specific assortments based on business rules.

Personalized Recommendations and Product Discovery

Because personalization is part of the search layer, HawkSearch tailors results using browsing behavior, past purchases, and account-specific data. This creates a more intuitive buyer experience while supporting distributor goals around margin, availability, and customer entitlements.

Business-Friendly Merchandising Controls

Merchandisers, marketers, and product teams can adjust relevance, run campaigns, pin or bury products, and configure rules without developer involvement. This flexibility supports ongoing optimization of the digital branch—something our training programs often highlight as a critical part of customer adoption.

Compatibility with Complex B2B Environments

HawkSearch integrates with commerce platforms, CMS tools, PIMs, ERPs, and other underlying systems. This approach avoids heavy rebuilds and allows teams to expand from search into broader personalization initiatives as their maturity grows.

How HawkSearch Helps Manufacturers and Distributors Improve Digital Experience

In our work with manufacturers and distributors, we consistently see search as a high-impact area. When search results miss the mark, customers call support lines or abandon digital channels entirely. The cost-to-serve rises and trust erodes. HawkSearch provides capabilities that address those common challenges:

• Improving product findability for large, technical catalogs
• Reducing “no results” queries and surfacing relevant alternatives
• Personalizing assortments by customer role, segment, or agreement
• Enhancing category navigation and filtering for detailed attributes
• Supporting product comparison and compatibility workflows
• Allowing business teams to manage digital merchandising directly

These areas align closely with key components of the B2B eCommerce Foundations and Executive Series courses: customer experience, product data, buyer workflows, and digital capability building. HawkSearch’s focus helps organizations move from simply having a site to delivering a digital branch that supports real work—research, selection, configuration, and repurchasing.

B2B eCommerce Insights from HawkSearch

HawkSearch: eCommerce Personalization and B2B Search

This article highlights how personalization and search work together to influence revenue, reduce friction, and guide buyers through complex selection paths. It outlines how search logic, recommendation zones, and behavioral insights shape a more intuitive B2B buying experience.

HawkSearch Joins the B2B eCommerce Association as a Premium Partner

We are pleased to welcome HawkSearch as a Premium Partner of the B2B eCommerce Association. Their work aligns closely with our mission of helping manufacturers and distributors build stronger digital capabilities, improve customer experience, and accelerate adoption across the digital branch.

In joining the Association, HawkSearch is contributing to a broader effort to improve education, training, and shared understanding within the industry. Their experience across hundreds of complex B2B implementations brings valuable perspective to our community of practitioners, leaders, and vendors working to build high-performing digital channels.