Smart Merchandiser and Voyado Elevate both help retailers merchandise their online stores, but they differ in scope and focus. Voyado Elevate, formerly Apptus and part of Voyado since a 2021 acquisition, is an AI-driven product discovery and site search engine with a customer base concentrated in the Nordics. Smart Merchandiser is a dedicated visual merchandising tool that works with Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Adobe Commerce, and HCL Commerce.
Voyado Elevate emphasizes automated relevance driven by shopper behavior. Smart Merchandiser emphasizes hands-on control, putting analytics, inventory, and social signals directly on product thumbnails so merchandisers can act on that data as they arrange the page.
What Apptus is good at
Voyado Elevate is strong in self-learning AI for product ranking and search, with proprietary algorithms that adjust sort orders based on aggregate shopper behavior. Tight integration with the Voyado CDP and loyalty platform means brands running the full Voyado stack get a unified view of customer signals, promotions, and merchandising. Voyado Elevate’s automation depth is strong for brands willing to lean heavily on algorithmic sort.
What Smart Merchandiser is good at
Smart Merchandiser is a visual merchandising tool focused on the work merchandisers do every day: arranging category pages, sequencing products, managing color and inventory presentation, and bulk-editing the catalog. The interface is built around drag-and-drop product tiles with rich context overlays — analytics (page views, conversion rate, abandonment, revenue), inventory (size and color stock indicators), social media signals (Facebook likes, Twitter mentions), ratings and reviews, and category cross-references — all visible directly on each product image without toggling between dashboards. Users report a 70 percent boost in merchandising productivity, a 50 percent reduction in HR costs, and an average 20 percent increase in sales revenue. Smart Merchandiser runs on a catalog-only AI architecture, meaning it processes product and performance data only — never customer profiles, session replays, or behavioral data.
Who should pick Apptus
Voyado Elevate is the right choice for Nordic and European retailers already invested in the Voyado CDP and loyalty stack, or brands that prioritize algorithmic AI sort over human-curated merchandising. The platform’s regional concentration in the Nordics is notable.
Who should pick Smart Merchandiser
Smart Merchandiser is the right choice for North American and global retailers who want their merchandising team to work in a visual interface with rich context — analytics, inventory, social, ratings — directly on each product tile. Brands that combine human-curated merchandising with automated rules will find Smart Merchandiser’s interface model better suited to that operating pattern.
Can you use both?
Possible but uncommon. The two tools occupy similar functional space and most brands choose one or the other for the category-page merchandising surface. A brand using Voyado for CDP and loyalty might still choose Smart Merchandiser for visual merchandising specifically.
