How NavOut would modernize discovery for a curated marketplace
You can have an incredible catalog and still lose the session in the first minute.
As with many curated online marketplaces most visitors arrive with intent. They are not casually browsing. They want a gift that feels specific, something that fits a moment, something that arrives on time. The inventory is strong, but the first page often has to serve everyone at once. When discovery starts with broad collections and best sellers, the experience can feel impressive but not personal. People scroll, compare, second guess, and leave before they find a clear first best option.
That is the gap NavOut is built to close.
NavOut modernizes discovery by making the first session work the way a good guide works. It starts by understanding what the visitor is trying to do, then narrows the space quickly and confidently. Not through a long quiz, and not by asking users to master filters, but by capturing a few lightweight intent signals and using them to retrieve a tighter set of options that actually fit.
In practice, this changes three things:
First, onboarding becomes intent led. A new visitor gets a short moment of guidance, gift or for yourself, delivery timing, regional preference, constraints. The user feels helped. The marketplace gets immediate context that standard recsys usually only infer after many clicks.
Second, the experience stops defaulting to popularity as the primary answer. Popularity still matters, but it is no longer a substitute for relevance. NavOut personalizes at the user level, so two first time visitors can land on the same entry page and see different first best options based on what they are trying to do.
Third, sellers benefit because discovery becomes more consistent for inventory that is relevant but not already the top seller. Matching driven by intent surfaces the right product because it fits, not because it has momentum. NavOut helps surface long-tail products to the right user at the right time.
The result is a marketplace that feels easier. Buyers reach a meaningful match faster. Sellers see demand that is better aligned to what they offer. The platform converts more of the traffic it already has.
A simple pilot we could run
A good pilot stays narrow and measurable.
We would pick one high intent entry point, typically a top collection page, a broad category page, or onsite search for broad queries. That is where choice overload is most visible, and where improving first match quality has the biggest downstream impact.
A portion of new visitors would see a short guided start that captures a few intent signals. NavOut would use that context to present a small set of first best options plus a few alternates that cover adjacent intent. The rest of traffic stays on the current experience as the control.
Success is not more browsing. It is less work for the user and better outcomes for the marketplace.
We would measure time to a meaningful action, bounce rate from the entry point, new visitor conversion, and revenue per session for the test cohort. We would also look at how discovery distributes across sellers to make sure the lift is coming from better matching, not just pushing the same winners harder.
We are currently offering pilots for teams that want to test this in a low risk, measurable way, using existing data, without a large engineering or ML build.
