How Wall Tools achieved 19% conversion growth with Maropost Merchandising Cloud

Meeting the needs of tradesmen in real time 

Wall Tools is a U.S.-based retailer specializing in drywall, wallcovering, and wallpaper tools. Their customers range from contractors finishing high-rise apartments to independent remodelers hanging wallpaper in homes. These tradesmen work under pressure — when a project is underway, they don’t have the luxury of waiting days for the right tool. 

But with Wall Tools’ BigCommerce site converting at just 1.7–1.8%, customers were leaving too often. The platform’s basic search plugin delivered poor results and offered no insight into how customers shopped. 

“If a customer can’t find their tool within seconds, they’ll buy it somewhere else,” explains Sacha Dent, Marketing Director at Wall Tools. 

When “bazooka” and “banjo” mean business 

The search challenge was especially tough because tradesmen don’t always use product names. 

• An automatic taper is often called a “taping gun” or even a “bazooka” — with at least a dozen phonetic spellings. 

• A drywall banjo, another taping tool, comes with its own mix of nicknames. 

Before Maropost, every one of these variations ended in zero results, leaving frustrated customers and lost sales. 

With Maropost Merchandising Cloud, Wall Tools mapped all those nicknames and misspellings to the right products. Now, whether a customer searches for “taper,” “bazooka,” or “banjo,” they’re instantly guided to the right tool. 

“Customers were searching for an ‘automatic taper’ by nicknames like ‘taping gun’ or ‘bazooka’ — often with ten different spellings. Before, that meant no results. With Merchandising Cloud, every variation now leads to the right product.” 
— Sacha Dent, Marketing Director at Wall Tools 

Smarter search, happier customers 

The results have been dramatic: 

• Conversions up 15% on average year-over-year — with some months close to 19% growth. 

• Over 50% of searches now completed via autosuggestions before the customer even finishes typing. 

• AI-powered recommendations serve up relevant products instantly, reducing abandoned searches. 

• Zero-result searches slashed thanks to intelligent redirects and nickname mapping. 

And beyond efficiency, real-time analytics revealed hidden opportunities. Customers were searching for wallpaper tools — a category Wall Tools had overlooked. By quickly expanding their range, they became the largest seller of wallpaper pasting machines in the U.S. 

A customer-first approach 

For Dent, the real differentiator was Maropost’s focus on the entire customer journey: 

“The development team looked at the customer journey as a whole, not just the search box,” she explains. “That level of detail set Maropost apart from anything else I’ve seen in ecommerce.” 

That ethos matches Wall Tools’ own approach: answering phones directly, offering bilingual Spanish support, and helping customers at all hours. 

What’s next 

Wall Tools isn’t stopping here. The team plans to: 

• Expand into new categories such as suspended ceiling tools. 

• Leverage more advanced Merchandising Cloud features. 

• Explore integration with Maropost Marketing Cloud to unify customer engagement. 

For Dent, one truth remains clear: 

“If you aren’t listening to your customers when they talk to you through your search bar, you’ll eventually lose them to someone who does. That search bar is a communication between your customer and you.” 

Wall Tools turned a pain point into a growth engine — boosting conversions, uncovering new revenue streams, and building even stronger customer loyalty. 

Read the full Wall Tools case study here >>