Search and inventory integration
We connected customer search and internal procurement for Blackwoods through SAP Commerce Cloud, Coveo and BlackOps, helping teams work from shared product data.
Blackwoods needed search and inventory integration built on shared product data.
Blackwoods, a leading distributor in Australia's supply chain and industrial equipment sector, supports 400,000+ SKUs, more than 1.5 million annual orders, over 5,000 suppliers, 50+ branches, and six distribution centres, serving more than 200,000 customers across 77,000 sites (company figures via Australasian Mine Safety Journal). Eighty percent of customers began on the website with a search, and too many of those searches returned nothing even when the product was in stock. The same catalogue problem slowed the procurement teams internally. Both sides needed fixing, and they needed fixing against one set of product data.
So the work ran on both sides of the catalogue. On the customer side, the website was relaunched on SAP Commerce Cloud with Coveo AI for search relevance, recommendations and personalisation, plus an assisted service module so support teams could help buyers inside the platform. On the internal side, BlackOps gave procurement its own AI search, built on the same governed product data. One source of truth, two front doors.
What stood in the way.
Inefficient search
Manual searches across disconnected systems took more than 6 seconds per query, with no support for jargon-based searches or advanced filters.
Data fragmentation
Product data sat siloed across Stibo, MSSQL, and warehouse management systems, so no single system held the truth.
Inventory inaccuracy
Without real-time stock visibility, missed sales opportunities and supply chain inefficiencies compounded.
Poor user experience
No relevance feedback and no bulk search meant procurement teams worked around the tool instead of with it.
The solution, piece by piece.
AI-driven search engine
Coveo AI integrated with SAP Commerce Cloud on the storefront, and carried through to BlackOps internally: jargon recognition, personalised recommendations, intelligent filters, and a relevance feedback system that lets users upvote and refine results.
Real-time data synchronization
Automated daily ingestion of Stibo data into MSSQL and Coveo through Azure Data Factory pipelines, with delta updates that cut processing time by 83%.
Scalable, secure cloud architecture
Built on .NET 8 with Clean Architecture and EF Core, hosted on Azure, with Microsoft Entra role-based access control for security and compliance.
User-centric features
A copy-to-clipboard bulk search tool for procurement teams and Power BI dashboards for real-time inventory insight and search analytics.
What changed for the client.
The four figures below are Blackwoods' own, published in SAP's Innovation Awards entry, and they measure the customer storefront.
45%
Higher customer confidence
Net Promoter Score increased by 45%, reflecting a stronger buying experience and higher trust in search outcomes.
44%
Fewer dead-end searches
Null searches dropped by 44%, reducing search friction and helping customers find relevant products faster.
70%
Stronger search-to-buy conversion
Add-to-cart actions from search results rose to 70%, up from 29% before the program.
33% to 55%
Deeper digital adoption
Digital penetration increased from 33% to 55%, showing sustained channel adoption after the transformation.
The capabilities that carried this engagement.
Keep reading.
Your catalogue is only as good as the second it takes to search it.
Talk to the team that rebuilt search and inventory for one of Australia's largest industrial distributors.