About
Built by someone who has been responsible for the outcome.
I’m Raffi Vartanian, founder of Search & Commerce. Over the past 20 years, I’ve worked where search, ecommerce, technology, and customer experience intersect.
Raffi Vartanian, Founder, Search & Commerce
The path here
From technical search to ecommerce leadership.
My work has ranged from architecting large-scale search discovery experiences to improving conversion funnels, directing ecommerce roadmaps, and fixing the measurement systems marketing teams depend on.
Throughout, I’m explicit about what I personally design or implement, what I lead, and what I coordinate across internal and agency teams. You’ll see the same distinction on every example on this site.
Building search and ecommerce experiences at scale
Early on, I built the taxonomy, category architecture and internal linking for a large retail catalog, then defined the information architecture, structured data and crawl controls for a global web-discovery product spanning millions of URLs and multiple international markets.
Moving into digital product, conversion and growth leadership
From there I authored a global lead-capture UX standard and a lead-scoring model for a large marketing organization, led search and UX through a full ecommerce redesign and CMS migration, and managed search and paid acquisition in a regulated healthcare category.
Founding and scaling my own businesses
Alongside that work, I founded and operated my own search-driven digital businesses. Owning acquisition, content, UX and monetization myself is where my ownership mentality comes from.
Leading integrated marketing, engineering and ecommerce operations
As an independent consultant, I have directed digital commerce, search, experimentation, analytics and web operations for ecommerce and digital brands, working through combined in-house and agency teams. That included taking over a site rebuild that had failed and leading the relaunch as de facto product owner.
Establishing Search & Commerce
Search & Commerce brings this together: senior strategy and hands-on technical work for ecommerce brands, with specialist support brought in when the scope requires it. Clients work directly with me.
What I believe
Successful ecommerce growth requires alignment between marketing strategy, technology and execution.
Understand the economics, identify the real constraint, and focus on improvements that can actually be implemented.
Strategy is only valuable when it changes what gets done.
Measurement should support decisions, not merely produce dashboards.
A well-run ecommerce website is part of the marketing engine, not a separate technical department.
The best solution is the one with a credible expected benefit, manageable risk, and a clear owner.
Relevant experience
Without client identification.
Client and former employer names are not published. Project examples appear on the service pages, with my role in each made explicit.
- Founded and scaled multiple search-driven digital businesses, including successful exits.
- Led cross-functional digital growth and delivery initiatives involving approximately 18 internal and agency contributors across development, design, content, paid media and digital operations. This was a combined in-house and agency organization rather than a team of direct reports, and the work was delivered by those specialists under my direction.
- B.S. Cognitive Science, Human–Computer Interaction focus, UC San Diego.
Who I work with
Brands
- Established ecommerce brands, most often on Shopify or Shopify Plus
- Beauty, skincare, wellness and consumer products — and other categories with a similar growth model
- Typically in the $5M–$50M+ range, though fit matters more than size
- Marketing teams in place, without senior technical-marketing depth
People
- CMOs and VPs of Growth
- Heads of Ecommerce and Digital Directors
- Founders and general managers
- Retention, performance and product leads
Tell me what you’re working on.
A short note about your store and the challenge in front of you is all it takes to start.