Millésima

September 2009

Press release

Pertimm's search engine to power Millésima website.

Europe’s leader in mail-order sales of fine wines chose Pertimm to boost search relevancy, speed and response time on its website in three languages (French, English and German)

Millésima's imperative: a search engine that delivers effective responses to customer queries

Millésima, founded in 1983, has grown to become Europe’s leader in mail-order sales of fine wines. They boast over 55,000 loyal customers throughout Europe, who have placed more than 250,000 orders.

Based in France, the company is present in 12 European countries. Millésima launched a website in 2000 to supplement sales from their printed catalogue. It was an instant success, and today, 40 to 45% of Millésima's sales are made through the site. With nearly 25,000 unique visitors monthly, the company needed an effective search engine that provides customers with quick, relevant responses.

"Today's customers expect rapid responses from search engines. We needed to set up optimal, high-performance tools to facilitate navigation, searching and purchasing on our site"

- said Gérard Spatafora, Internet Marketing Director at Millésima.

Pertimm's solution: a high-performance search engine for relevant results

Pertimm and Millésima began their partnership in September 2008. Pertimm, a specialist in information processing, developed a semantic search engine customized to meet Millésima's requirements and expectations.

"Pertimm was able to rapidly develop an effective demo version of its search engine. It was tailored to the needs and constraints of our business as a wine merchant, an advantage that we didn't get from other vendors"

- added Gérard Spatafora

Major improvements brought by Pertimm’s search engine to Millésima website:

• More relevant responses to customer queries, even when they contain spelling errors, via fast and easy integration of "Pertimmizers" (semantic and linguistic concepts stored and managed by the search engine's knowledge base).
• Quick display of results, guaranteed by Pertimm's advanced technology.
• Multi-lingual searches in French, English and German, to serve Millésima’s three largest markets, are supported by translingual technologies developed by Pertimm.
• Unlimited reconfiguration of the search engine based on seasons and events, to spotlight new vintages, en-primeur wines, etc.
• Customized searches allow Internet users to target their searches in detail by year, appellation and producer.
• Real time auto-suggest technology, handled by the Pertimm search engine, also speeds users’ searches.

"We wanted Internet users to feel like they were walking into a brick-and-mortar shop, with the same quality of service that a physical salesperson could provide. We've now accomplished that, and we are one of the first websites in the wine market to offer such a high-performance search engine"

- said Gérard Spatafora

Millésima plans further development with Pertimm to allow searching in other languages on its site, since the company is present in 12 European countries.

About Pertimm

Pertimm was founded in 1997 by a team of three engineers. These product designers pooled their expertise in linguistics, artificial intelligence, databases and real-time operating systems to develop innovative technology supporting high-relevance search tools.

Organizations such as the CNRS, IRSN, NASA, the French Ministry of Defense and the Musée d’Orsay, along with companies such as EADS, the SNCF, Meetic and Pages Jaunes put their trust in Pertimm's expertise to optimize their information systems.

Today, Pertimm has sites in Asnières-sur-Seine and Valence, France, as well as in the United States.

In 2009, the company was once again named an Innovative Start-Up by OSEO, following its nomination to the European Fast500, which lists the 500 European high-tech companies that have experienced the fastest growth. Pertimm's growth rate is 560% over 5 years.