Using Product Discovery to Create a Better Shopping Experience and Drive Growth with Next’s Jay O’Neill

Jay O’Neill was Product Manager of Product Discovery at Next, one of the UK’s most successful high street retailers focused on fashion and homewares. Jay specialises in growth through digital marketing, CRO, and tech stack optimisation. He scaled soak.com from £2 to £80million, drove digital growth at Holland & Barrett, and took Bathroom Mountain from £0 to £40million in 18 months.

In this episode, returning guest Jay shares what he learned from leading Product Discovery at Next, from getting the foundations of product data right to using AI and search insights to uncover new growth opportunities. He also explains how eCommerce teams can make product discovery work harder across SEO, PPC, onsite search and the wider customer journey.

Hit PLAY to hear:

🔎 Why product discovery is now much bigger than onsite search 📊 The 20% of product attributes that deserve your attention 🤖 How AI can uncover valuable insights hidden in search data 🛍️ Why better product data should come before better tech 📈 How to turn emerging product trends into SEO and sales opportunities 🧹 The surprising reason you should regularly clean up your search rules

Key timestamps to dive straight in:

[03:09] AI in product discovery

[06:16] Dealing with data silos

[10:34] Using AI to analyze search data

[14:42] Improving search and utilizing chatbots

[16:27] Choosing the right chatbot provider

[19:26] Leveraging domain authority for SEO

[23:33] Listen to Jay’s Top Tips!