Smart Search and AI: which supplier website capabilities are most popular with businesses

A catalog with 2,000,000+ goods, works and services across over 110 categories is a key section of the supplier website used by customers and suppliers on a daily basis.

It helps customers from 39 Russian regions view supplier offerings arranged by price and delivery regions, while each product, service or work description includes a marketing name, average price, characteristics, and price changes for businesses to assess the market in real time and build effective procurement strategies.

“Users may avail themselves of the digital tools on the portal to effectively use the catalog. For example, smart search enables entrepreneurs to find goods and services faster, AI can identify item category when you are filling out the product profile, while public APIs help download the catalog for market analysis and spare users reporting routines. These and other tools can save time for customers and suppliers, allowing to handle a huge amounts of items, which are today available on the catalog, in a user-friendly manner,” says Roman Urnyshev, Deputy Head of the Moscow Department of Information Technologies.

The catalog of standard commodity units appeared on the portal in 2018, whereas suppliers had to post their products in the form of offers previously. Its functionality has been continuously evolving for five years; for example, in 2019 it was enhanced with AI technology for users to effectively use the catalog. It is an indispensable tool doing some routine operations for entrepreneurs and customers.  The neural network can identify product category depending on the uploaded image, when filling out the product profile, or match similar offers. This helps users add their items to the catalog more conveniently and faster and analyze their price offers in comparison with those of the published commodity descriptions.

In 2021, the catalog design was updated to showcase the supply; moreover, not only entrepreneurs, but Moscow customers can also submit their applications for filling the catalog.

In 2022, it became downloadable.

“Users can do this thanks to a public API. It helps download both the entire catalog, including filtering by categories or keywords, and individual item profiles to be smoothly processed using big data analytics software. Data in the downloaded catalog is structured according to selected characteristics or keywords and depending on available offerings,” says Dmitry Tetushkin, Deputy Head of the Moscow Department of Economic Policy and Development.

Users can go to the catalog via the opening menu in the left upper part of the main page. For user convenience, it is divided into three main sections, i.e., goods, work and services, while the list of goods includes 46 thematic categories, such as paper, textiles, stationery, medical products, etc. It also contains more than 39 types of services and 25 areas of work, including rent/lease, architecture, passenger transportation, cadastral measurements and mapping, design, and engineering surveys; in addition, its page displays customer favorites and new offerings.

It also has a section of Russia-made products, including furniture, medical products, industrial equipment, clothes, construction, paper and household goods, etc., with the list being updated on a daily basis. Users can find items they need by themselves in the relevant category or by entering keywords in the search bar.

This year, the search functionality has been upgraded to become more user-friendly and make the search faster; it suggests links to product profiles, corrects misspellings and maps from one system of writing to another, while users can use filters and item characteristics for a better search.

Any individual, legal entity, sole proprietor or self-employed person can become a supplier and can place their goods or services on the portal free of charge; they need to sign up and have an enhanced qualified electronic signature.

Launched in 2013 to automate small procurement, the supplier website has more than 290,000 registered suppliers from all over the country, including approximately 90 per cent of SMEs, who ensure supplies to 54.100 governmental and municipal customers in 39 regions, with about 1,500 contracts being concluded via the website every day. Most often, it is used to order educational and fire safety services, building materials, consumables for office equipment, medical products, and stationery.

Its end customer is the Moscow Department of Competition Policy; the Moscow Department of Information Technologies is responsible for its technical development, while catalog administration is done by the Department of Economic Policy and Development of Moscow.