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What is a MACH-Certified PIM & Why Do You Need One?

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Composable Commerce

What is a MACH-Certified PIM & Why Do You Need One?

Headless commerce provides the scalability and flexibility that brands and retailers need to grow, but requires a strong foundation of product information management (PIM). How do you decipher which PIM tool best supports your migration?

Change is hard; whether it’s your collection of records or that decade-old coffee machine you’re still holding on to, it can be difficult to let go of the past and accept new technological innovations. But when it comes to your eCommerce tech stack, clutching on to legacy platforms and outdated processes can lead to more harm than good.  With global online spending projected to hit $6.3 trillion by the end of the year and expected to make up almost 22% of global retail sales, there is a huge and ever-growing eCommerce market available at your fingertips. But if you don’t have the infrastructure in place to take advantage of this massive market, your growth and scalability will be severely stunted. We at Akeneo have seen a lot of interest in the market to move to new commerce technology architectures that bring the agility and flexibility that brands and retailers need to tackle the growth challenges of today and tomorrow. Traditional commerce architecture offers an all-in-one solution from a single vendor, providing the basic capabilities needed to activate an eCommerce site. And while this worked for a while to provide a singular, standard digital experience to consumers, the digital landscape has expanded at such a mind-boggling rate that traditional architecture just can’t keep up anymore.  Headless (sometimes known as composable) commerce architecture provides a modular, best-of-breed approach that enables organizations to grow and scale as they need.  

What is headless commerce architecture?

Headless commerce architecture is a development approach that enables organizations to activate their entire product record across every channel by leveraging best-of-breed commerce vendors composed together into a singular, custom-built application. This type of software model allows teams to create an ecosystem that is customized to meet their organization’s specific business needs. Instead of the traditional, monolithic approach, headless architecture communicates via API. Each individual solution can be updated or replaced at any time without disrupting the rest of the system, meaning that your eCommerce stack is flexible and can scale to meet your needs.
Headless architecture vs monolithic architecture
  Headless commerce works by decoupling and then orchestrating front-facing capabilities from back-office applications and integrations, allowing brands and retailers to implement new product information across all channels at a much faster rate than before without having to touch the back-end infrastructure.  Not only does this bring greater agility and control to brands and retailers, but it also means that less technical knowledge is needed to push product information updates and new features. The decoupled nature of headless commerce means that your tech stack is modular and adaptable; you get to select which technologies fit your needs best and can replace or update platforms as needed without disrupting your eCommerce experience.  With a headless architecture, brands are able to:
  • Create compelling, coherent, and consistent product experiences across every channel
  • Accelerate time-to-market
  • Expand into more markets and territories with ease
  • Scale the tech stack as the organization grows and changes. 
 

Headless Commerce & PIM

Now that we understand the benefits of a headless commerce architecture, you may be ready to jump on the composable bandwagon right away, and that’s great! But transitioning from a traditional architecture to a headless one can be intimidating and difficult, especially if your organization isn’t mature enough to have the required resources to make the switch on-time and within budget. From the types of data needed to the people and processes involved to the related technologies that need to be integrated into this new architecture, there are many factors that need to be taken into account when considering the transition to headless architecture. Where should you even start? The recommended first step is to get the underlying product data and content organized and ready for migration. There are two main reasons for this: one, product information is a critical foundation to how you deliver product experiences, irrespective of the architecture used or the channel it appears on. As more and more digital touchpoints emerge every single day, we can no longer predict where or when a consumer will first discover or interact with a business, so establishing and maintaining consistent and compelling product experiences across every channel is crucial.  With a traditional architecture, this is extremely difficult. Personalizing and syndicating product information across channels with a monolithic platform is nearly impossible, and requires a lot of redundant labor and manual efforts. Headless commerce eases and automates this process, but requires a strong foundation of product information to be truly successful. After all, product information can’t be activated across all channels if we don’t even know where it lives. Secondly, the modular nature of headless commerce means it’s made up of individual, best-of-breed applications, each handling a specific aspect of the overall shopping experience (recommendations, merchandising, shopping cart, payment, and so on). Product information flows through many of those applications, all of which are orchestrated via standardized APIs. Therefore, the product information needs to be well-structured, consistent, complete, accurate (and of course, compelling) to be handled reliably and correctly. This is where a Product Information Management (PIM) tool comes into play. Creating a central repository of product information allows your team to manage, organize, and optimize your product data to more easily flow through your other technologies and syndicate to your channels. Not all PIM solutions are created equal. To implement a transition to a headless architecture, you need a modern PIM that is built to support such a modular structure.

The MACH Alliance

Founded in 2020, the MACH Alliance is a not-for-profit institution that advocates for open and best-of-breed technology ecosystems. MACH stands for:
  • Microservices-based: Individual pieces of business functionality that are independently developed, deployed, and managed.
  • API-first: All functionality of the product is exposed through an API.
  • Cloud-native: SaaS that leverages the cloud, beyond storage and hosting, including elastic scaling and automatically updating.
  • Headless: Front-end presentation is decoupled from backend logic and channel, programming language, and is framework agnostic.
The MACH Alliance is a global community of individuals and businesses that have come together under these guiding principles. Their mission is to future-proof and propel current and future digital experiences with open and connected enterprise technology. The vendor-neutral alliance drives awareness of the benefits of modern, best-in-class ecosystems that provide flexibility and openness as a key differentiator and driver of competitive advantage.  With their focus on modularity and best-of-breed applications, organizations who are members of the MACH Alliance are guaranteed to help support your transition to a headless architecture.  

Akeneo & MACH

In March of 2022, Akeneo joined several of our established technology partners by becoming a certified Independent Software Vendor (ISV) member of the MACH Alliance. Openness and innovative integrations lie at the heart of Akeneo’s PIM software, and we’ve been accredited for embracing MACH philosophies and deliver MACH-certified services.

MACH technologies are the cornerstone for organizations looking to build sustainable, future-ready commerce and business models. Akeneo deserves this certification as another example of a true MACH champion that represents the category well through its operations and PIM architecture.

Sonja Keerl President

MACH Alliance
By offering a composable SaaS solution, Akeneo allows your team to break down product information silos and provides a strong foundation of product data that easily communicates with all your existing and potential technologies, opening the door to a smooth transition to a headless architecture. Future-proofing your business means that you need to be able to create compelling and consistent product experiences across all your owned and unowned channels, and that is significantly more simple when you have a modular, headless approach that allows you to plug-and-play technologies as you scale. But jumping straight into this transition without a solid foundation of product information can spell trouble. Implementing a MACH-certified PIM, like Akeneo, allows your team to centralize, organize, and optimize your product information and set you up for a successful migration to headless architecture. If you’re interested in discovering how a MACH-certified PIM can help you transition to a headless architecture, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us today.

Akeneo Product Cloud

Discover how Akeneo’s MACH-certified PIM can prepare you for a successful migration to a headless architecture.

Casey Paxton, Content Marketing Manager

Akeneo

Perfect Your PIM Selection Process

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Product Experience

Perfect Your PIM Selection Process

In the fast-paced world of digital commerce, selecting the right Product Information Management (PIM) solution transcends the realm of technology features. It’s an intricate dance between the robustness of the tool, the adaptability to your company’s processes, and the ease of adoption for future key users. Contrary to common belief, rushing into platform procurement before a thorough “discovery” or “study” phase can lead to costly missteps.

Embarking on the PIM journey involves a meticulous two-phase discovery process. And to start, we delve into high-level analysis, dissecting user needs to ensure the selection of a platform that aligns seamlessly with team workflow and objectives. The goal? to secure optimal adoption and efficiency in managing product attributes and asset by choosing a solution that adapts to the organization maturity.  

Step 1: Categorizing User Needs into 7 Key Groups

Our process begins by analyzing and categorizing user needs into seven distinct groups through intensive sessions. From KPIs and Objectives to Data Model Structure, this exhaustive approach ensures a comprehensive understanding of your requirements. Here are the groups we usually make that are also the different workshop sessions lasting between 30mn-1.5h max:
  • KPIs & Objectives: Create a  list of measurable goals in order to know where you’re starting from. Identify and list major challenges from a business and technical standpoint.
  • Product Lifecycle & User Workflow: Design a process map with gaps between current and future needs and a Business Process Management (BPM) Strategy. This allows listing user roles & permissions roles, enrichment, catalog search, and syndication needs.
  • Data Model Structure: Develop a strategy that cleanses and enriches data efficiently
  • Data Cleansing: Analyze the level of efforts necessary to cleanse your data base from a programmatic standpoint that leverages AI
  • Asset Management: Stay at the strategy level to understand if we’re loading these assets from a DAM or an SFTP, and if there’s a need to rename assets.
  • Supplier Data Onboarding & Initial Import: Depending on whether you’re a manufacturer or a distributor, this might require some great features and processes to format supplier’s data into your own format.
  • Architecture & Connections: Last but not least, connecting your PIM with all your source & destination systems (marketplaces, websites, paper catalogs, POS, etc…).
 

Step 2: Crafting a Business Case

The outcomes of the analysis should synthesized into a high-level summary—a business case. Here’s our typical agenda:
  • Introducing the major challenges
  • Current client key user & roles
  • A catalog overview
  • KPIs & Objectives
  • Product Catalog Management Gaps
  • Requirements listing for each of the 7 groups above that PIM provider will use to contextualize their demos.

Step 3: PIM Demos with Purpose

Armed with a concise business case, we orchestrate demos with a carefully selected shortlist of 3 PIM technologies. The selection process needs to respect the organization size, users maturity and process complexity. As an example, if your client key user group is between 1-2 with poor technical support, it would be overwhelming to select an ‘Informatica’ type of solution as these kinds of flexible platforms require more customization needs and development, therefore complexifying the adoption if you have a smaller team.  In these demos, a tailored approach is key; we guide providers to focus on client-specific needs, eschewing generic feature tours. We help providers to kick off these demos by listing all the challenges and we then let the PIM providers contextually demo the features in the same order as the challenges listed. So that clients can really visualize their future way of working with the technology. It’s a whole PXM inception work. Final tip, spacing out these demos allows clients to digest information without feeling overwhelmed.  

Step 4: Contextualized Platform Rating

A platform’s suitability is gauged through a client-specific lens, considering factors like budget and user base. Each PIM technology is evaluated across crucial dimensions, and a weighted rating is assigned based on client priorities. Here’s a list of what we grade with the client:
  • Supplier data onboarding
  • Manual data import & updates
  • Data cleansing
  • Data governance
  • Data model
  • Taxonomy
  • Asset management
  • Product search
  • Enrichment capabilities
  • Product lifecycle & workflows
  • Analytics
  • Translation & Localization management
  • Syndication & export
  • Paper catalog & advertising solution
  • UI & ease of use
  • Product catalog performance
  • Customization
  • System integration
  • Implementation costs
  • License costs

Step 5: Executive Summary and Decision Time

After performing this exhaustive analysis, it’s now time to distill this information into an executive summary, emphasizing major outcomes. The client is empowered to select the platform that resonates most with their needs. With the platform chosen, we seamlessly transition to drafting a Statement of Work (SOW) for implementation.

Benefits Beyond Selection

The strategic PIM selection process offers a plethora of advantages:
  • Tailored Solutions: Clients choose a platform aligned with their unique needs.
  • Efficient Adoption: Accelerated adoption through streamlined workflows.
  • Reduced Customization: Minimized reliance on costly customization.
  • Optimized Design Costs: A meticulous approach minimizes design costs.

Ready, Set, Implement

Embrace the future of effective product catalog management with our proven PIM selection process. With a budget ranging from 20-50k and a timeline spanning from one week (onsite) to 1.5 months (online), let’s empower your team for a seamless implementation journey. Looking for more PIM implementation support? Check out some of our other Valtech featured articles diving into the people-first approach to product experiences, or how to maximize the ROI of your PXM organization. This article is a guest post by Akeneo partner, Valtech.

Raphaël Iscar Gutierrez, Head of Global PXM & Product Strategy

Valtech

The Secrets to AI Implementation Success

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Artificial Intelligence

The Secrets to AI Implementation Success

In this guest post from Akeneo partner Unifai, discover why AI requires expert training, ongoing supervision, and a long-term commitment for optimal performance. Explore the critical aspects of AI education and discover why dedicating time and resources to understanding this technology is paramount for enduring success in the ever-evolving business landscape.

Artificial intelligence has profoundly revolutionized the world of business, offering the possibility of automating complex tasks and significantly improving their performance.  But, let’s face it, AI can be a bit mysterious and confusing; navigating the world of AI requires dispelling myths and addressing prejudices that often surround this groundbreaking technology. With that in mind, let’s delve into the critical aspect of AI education, exploring why dedicating time and resources to it is paramount for achieving enduring success.  

AI, a powerful but not magical tool

Contrary to popular belief, most AI systems lack neural capacity or consciousness; they are sophisticated computing tools operating based on received data and learned patterns. As one AI expert at Unifai wisely points out, “AI can’t think for us, it works with pattern recognition.” One common misconception is that AI is entirely autonomous, capable of solving all problems without human intervention. This often leads to unrealistic expectations from customers, envisioning AI as a one-size-fits-all solution.  However, AI isn’t a “plug-and-play” magic wand; it needs training and ongoing supervision. According to our in-house AI expert, “In the first year, expect AI to handle about 50% of the workload, but it requires continuous commitment for optimal performance.”  

Expert AI Training

The training of AI models relies on the essential involvement of human experts, and can be broken up into two distinct stages: initialization and re-training. In the initialization phase, AI experts use customer-supplied data to train the models. This stage involves meticulous data collection, preparation, and annotation. These experts play a pivotal role in imparting the specific behavioral patterns essential for AI. Re-training is a crucial stage where experts evaluate tags created by customers, ensuring AI models remain relevant to evolving needs. This collaborative effort between experts and customers is vital for the continual improvement of AI.

Is your product data ready for AI?

AI as a tool for continuous improvement

Following the training phase, the AI calibration stage allows customers to test results over varying time periods. Multiple iterations are conducted, analyzing and adjusting tasks based on results. It’s crucial to recognize that customers’ expectations of AI vary based on their maturity with the technology.  Contrary to the notion of AI’s automatic capabilities, the emphasis should be on understanding it as a tool requiring long-term commitment for optimal results. Customers’ expectations of AI vary according to their level of maturity with this technology. However, it is essential to deconstruct the idea that AI can do everything automatically and to emphasize that it is a tool that requires a long-term commitment to achieve optimal results. Artificial intelligence isn’t magic, and it isn’t a stand-alone solution. It needs to be initially trained with high-quality and reliable data, supervised and maintained by experts, and calibrated or adjusted based on performance.. AI training relies on the involvement of human experts and continuous collaboration with customers. Unfai has recently joined forces with Akeneo! Learn more about the partnership here, or reach out to a PX expert today.

Pauline Le Calvez, Content Manager

Unifai

5 Reasons to Attend Unlock Boston 2024

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Akeneo News

5 Reasons to Attend Unlock Boston 2024

Step into the future of retail at Akeneo’s Unlock 2024, and join industry leaders and experts for a two-day immersive experience featuring dynamic keynote presentations, real-life examples of AI transforming retail landscapes, and hands-on workshops showcasing Akeneo’s latest innovations. Don’t miss the chance to delve into PX strategy analyses and connect with like-minded professionals at the PX Community, culminating in the legendary Unlock Party!

2024 promises to be an exciting year. From the Summer Olympics to the European Championships to the American presidential election, there are many events that are likely on your radar to watch out for.

But there might be one you’ve missed if you haven’t attended it in the past; and that is Akeneo’s Unlock Conference.

The ultimate gathering of PX experts and enthusiasts, Unlock 2024 will be an inspiring 2 day event where you’ll be able to learn how to provide exceptional and consistent product experiences through dynamic keynote presentations, best practices, customer testimonials, hands on technical workshops and of course, product insights.

We’ve recently released the official jam-packed agendar for Unlock 2024, which you can check out here. But while we’ve got you, let’s dive into the 5 reasons why we think you’ll have a blast at this year’s premiere PX conference.

 

Check Out Highlights from Unlock Paris 2023!

1. Keynotes and Roundtables on AI: Unveiling the Future of AI

In a world where technology is reshaping the retail landscape, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of innovation. At Unlock 2024, dive into dynamic keynote presentations and engaging roundtable discussions to learn how leading brands and retailers are leveraging AI to revolutionize their approach. Real-life examples will showcase how businesses like yours are finding a better way to navigate the evolving retail landscape.

Featured Session: Demystifying Generative AI: Convincing CEOs to Unlock the Full Potential of AI in PX strategies

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the use of AI in Product Experience strategies has become an imperative for staying competitive and customer-focused. But as AI technologies advance, the challenge often lies in convincing CEOs and top-level decision-makers to fully embrace AI’s transformative power. Join our expert panel of AI pioneers and industry leaders as they demystify ChatGPT and provide actionable insights on how to navigate the AI landscape with confidence.  This engaging discussion will empower you to unlock the untapped potential of AI in your PX strategies.

Key Takeaways:

    • Understand how to get started with AI
    • Collaborate with AI partners to boost innovation
    • Leverage generative AI for product content
    • Enhance visuals with Gen-AI
    • Streamline back-office operations

 

2. PX Strategy Analysis: Real Stories from Industry Leaders

Unlock 2024 goes beyond theory, offering firsthand insights from industry practitioners and leaders who have successfully elevated their PX Strategy. Gain valuable perspectives from those who have navigated the challenges and opportunities in the rapidly changing retail landscape with real stories and practical examples that illuminate the path to creating a robust and effective PX strategy for your brand.

Featured Session: Leading the Charge: How to Kickstart a Product-Centric Revolution in Your Organization

In the ever-evolving realm of customer interactions, the paradigm is undergoing a significant shift. Instead of trying to pursue customers everywhere, brands are now focusing on attracting customers with compelling product experiences. 

Join our session to explore the transformative journey your organization must embark upon to join the revolution. We’ll hear insights from brands already leading the way and delve into the crucial interplay between people, process, and technology required to place Product Experiences at the core of your operations.

Key Takeaways:

    • Your organization must evolve to realize the full potential of PX 
    • Learnings from other organizations that have successfully adapted people, process, and technology to support the PX revolution

 

3. Akeneo in Action: Hands-on Workshops and Presentations

Get ready for an immersive experience as Unlock 2024 unfolds the latest from Akeneo Product Cloud. Through hands-on technical workshops and insightful presentations, explore the full PX ecosystem and discover how Akeneo is empowering brands to deliver consistent and exceptional product experiences and real-life examples of the tangible impact of incorporating Akeneo into your workflow.

Featured Session: Spring Product Release Keynote

Get a first view of Akeneo’s 2024 Spring Release. In this session you will discover the latest innovative features and products that will revolutionize the way businesses deliver Product Experience Strategies, all told through the eyes of a B2B Manufacturer.

Key Takeaways:

    • See what the 1st AI powered supplier onboarding solution can do for you: Quickly and easily onboard and enrich supplier provided product information and assets
    • Strengthen the way you work in Akeneo PIM with enhanced workflow capabilities
    • Revolutionize the way your work by easily connecting to ‘monolith’ infrastructure and extend the value of your PIM
    • Get a glimpse of what the future of PX will look like: Product Experience Platform
    • Don’t just use AI for onboarding suppliers – find out how Akeneo is infusing AI across the PIM offering including native generative AI and product matching capabilities

 

4. Integrate with the PX Community

Unlock 2024 provides a unique opportunity to connect with PX experts, leading industry analysts, and like-minded professionals. Engage in meaningful conversations, seek advice, and build valuable connections that can propel your business forward. We here at Akeneo are passionate about fostering an environment where networking is not just a side activity but a core element of the entire experience.

Featured Event: PXM Champion Awards

Our Annual PXM Champion Awards Ceremony recognizes organizations who are practicing and demonstrating exceptional business growth. In particular, we look to highlight PX success stories about how a strong and healthy foundation of PIM can impact your organization’s people, process and technology while unlocking business growth opportunities.

 

5. Connect & Speak with Experts

PIM, PXM, DAM, OMS – all the acronyms can make everything feel so robotic. What’s more, remote and hybrid working models mean that most of us have limited face-to-face, or even camera-to-camera, interactions with others in the industry. 

Featured Event: Infamous Unlock Party

Cap off the conference with the renowned Unlock Party—an evening of celebration, networking, and entertainment. Unlock Boston offers up the perfect excuse to get to meet others in person, and gain quality time learning and speaking with each other, forging connections that extend beyond the event itself.

 

 

Unlock 2024 is not just a conference; it’s a gateway to unlocking the full potential of your product experiences. With a rich agenda featuring keynotes, strategy analyses, hands-on sessions, networking opportunities, and a legendary party, this event is designed to equip you with the knowledge and connections needed to thrive in the ever-evolving world of retail.

Check out the official agenda here, and make sure to secure your spot at Akeneo’s Unlock 2024—the premier destination for those committed to mastering the art of Product Experience.

Jo Venner, Global Communications & Events Manager

Akeneo

Bolster Customer Support with a PX Strategy

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Product Experience

Bolster Customer Support with a PX Strategy

Explore the often-overlooked realm of customer support and the impact of sidelining customer support on the $816 billion returns crisis. Discover how brands can transform customer interactions into opportunities for revenue growth by leveraging product experiences, reducing returns, and integrating support teams seamlessly into the omnichannel experience.

Customer support is often a neglected and overlooked aspect of the customer journey. To many business leaders, it’s considered an expensive cost center and a necessary evil, one that’s also closely linked to the $816 billion returns crisis plaguing retailers in the post-covid world.  On a personal level, we all hate interacting with support teams. No one wants to run the gauntlet of chatbots, robot answering machines, legal disclosures, and overwhelmed customer support representatives to get the resolution we need. So, it’s no surprise that many brands sideline customer support and treat it as an afterthought in the customer journey.  Let’s take a look at why this is the wrong approach, and how brands can use Product Experiences to help resolve their service woes.   

The importance of post-sales support

First, it’s critical to understand the importance of post-sales support on the customer journey and your bottom line. Reducing or resolving support issues and having a positive interaction with a business all help drive brand loyalty.  We all have those few special brands we’ve done business with for years, not because of their pricing or marketing, but because we know they’ll quickly help us resolve our challenges. Every brand should strive to create this type of brand loyalty because the payoff is rich. Selling to an existing customer is much cheaper than acquiring a new one.  So, how do we create this brand loyalty with customer support? Let’s take a look.   

Reduce product returns with better product experiences

Many of the most frustrating and harmful Customer Support interactions can be eliminated altogether by eliminating returns. Enhancing product information on a retailer’s website can significantly reduce the return rate and alleviate the burden on customer support teams tasked with processing returns.  By providing comprehensive and accurate product descriptions, clear images, and instructional content, retailers empower customers to make well-informed purchasing decisions, minimizing the likelihood of receiving products that do not meet their expectations. This transparency not only reduces return requests but also enhances customer satisfaction, fostering loyalty and trust in the retailer’s brand.  A well-informed customer base leads to cost savings and allows customer support teams to focus on more complex or potentially profitable issues, ultimately improving overall operational efficiency.

Revolutionize CX With PX

Discover how ASSA ABLOY reduced Customer Support calls by 20% with Akeneo technology.

Incorporate customer support teams into your existing infrastructure for true omnichannel experiences 

Omnichannel doesn’t mean just your eCommerce channels, it means providing the same high quality experience across every customer touchpoint.  Brands sometimes make the mistake of treating their CRM platforms and customer support efforts as a closed loop that’s completely segregated from the rest of the buying ecosystem. After investing so much time and money in experiences during the discovery and buying phase, why start from scratch when it’s time to handle service calls? Look at integrating your CRM platform with product data and assets to equip your support functions with all the information about the products you sell. Building this single source of truth enables efficient issue resolution and responsive support, reducing disruptions in the buyer journey and enhancing satisfaction and retention.   

Use customer support interactions to sell 

Brands should start looking at Customer Support interactions as a new line of revenue instead of a cost center. Every Customer Support interaction provides an opportunity to sell new products or services to existing customers.  During support conversations, customer service representatives can identify additional needs, complementary products, and warranty options, offering a seamless avenue for cross-selling and upselling. Only by understanding the customer’s specific requirements can support teams recommend relevant upgrades or complementary items. “Retailers that ensure their agents can answer customer questions could see a $1.1 billion increase in incremental sales.” –The Three Customer Service Megatrends In 2023, Forrester  To maximize your support team’s ability to cross-sell, it’s critical you provide them with a deep understanding of the products you’re selling, from technical specs, to sustainability information, and compatibility.  How can a service representative sell a new switch for a customer’s existing generator if they don’t know if it’s compatible? Or help a customer pick out a new band for their watch if they don’t know the style guide?   

Conclusion 

As the Covid boom subsides and new customers become increasingly expensive to acquire, brands can find an untapped goldmine of potential in customer support. By investing in the customer support journey, businesses can not only reduce expensive returns, but also enhance brand loyalty and drive new revenue growth.  However, this outcome hinges on a robust foundation of compelling product information. The ability to enlighten both customers and support teams about the characteristics, capabilities, and compatibility of products is critical.  To achieve this, brands must provide the same compelling product experiences across their entire customer journey, from discovery, purchase, and post sales support. 

Adam Beatty, Community Evangelist

Akeneo

Unlocking the Power of Product Data with Attribute Enrichment

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Technology

Unlocking the Power of Product Data with Attribute Enrichment

In this guest article provided by Akeneo partner Constructor, delve into the challenges retailers face with data accuracy and integrity and discover how to automate product data tagging, ensuring a structured catalog, improved customer experiences, and a competitive edge in the dynamic eCommerce landscape. Explore the power of composable eCommerce solutions, where Akeneo’s PIM meets Constructor’s Attribute Enrichment for standardized, complete, and highly accurate product data, paving the way for a streamlined, efficient, and competitive online presence.

For eCommerce retailers, Product Information Management (PIM) systems like Akeneo play a pivotal role in centralizing and standardizing product data. This consolidation creates a single source of truth, streamlining operations for businesses dealing with large volumes of SKUs. However, as with any data management solution, data accuracy and integrity issues are inevitable.  In this blog post, we explore the challenges associated with product data, focusing on the common problems retailers face and how Constructor’s Attribute Enrichment addresses these issues, resulting in more accurate and usable product data and a better customer experience.  

Big Data, Big Problems

Managing product data is no small feat. Product information originates from various sources such as supplier spreadsheets, ERPs, eCommerce platforms, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems, where product teams input data during the design phase. As a result, data completeness and standardization can vary significantly between different vendors and product categories. This not only contributes to a less-than-ideal customer experience, but can also result in missed revenue. For example, a general merchandise retailer may carry both electronics and clothing. As you might imagine, the product data for these two categories will differ significantly. This is complicated by the fact that electronics often require highly specific technical attributes like screen type, memory capacity, resolution, and special features whereas clothing might have general attributes for categories like tops, bottoms, and footwear. 
Attributes
And when it comes to B2B commerce, these challenges are multiplied. It’s not uncommon for B2B eCommerce catalogs to contain millions of SKUs — in many cases with numerical data like measurements or part numbers. When that data is inaccurate or missing, the outcomes can be devastating: both for the B2B companies that rely on high-volume bulk orders and for their customers, for whom speed and accuracy is critical to deliver on time. With thousands or millions of products from hundreds of different brands in hundreds of different categories, how can retailers make sure that their product data is accurate and complete for the category of product and for the attributes that matter most to customers?  

Filling the Gaps

What if a shirt is manually tagged as purple when it’s actually blue, or what if a soup is tagged as vegan or gluten-free when it’s actually not?  Modern PIM systems like Akeneo can detect and alert eCommerce teams when product data is missing, inconsistent, or inaccurate. However, fixing the issue effectively is another story. Especially with large volumes of data, allocating resources to manually fix missing or inaccurate data is expensive. Human intervention can also introduce errors, making the process unreliable. A recent MIT study confirmed that human data tagging contains errors to the effect of, on average, 3.5%. When it comes to product discovery, the challenge also goes beyond data completion; it’s about understanding your customers’ preferences and language and making sure your product data reflects them accurately. Without a clear understanding of which attributes matter most to shoppers, manual efforts to correct data could end up being a waste of time.  

Enter Attribute Enrichment

It’s here where Constructor’s Attribute Enrichment comes into play. Revolutionizing the way product data is enriched, Attribute Enrichment combines Constructor’s existing AI capabilities with innovative Machine Vision and Text Classification algorithms.  The result? An automated system that tags products with new, relevant attributes and categories daily, enhancing data accuracy and maintaining a structured and consistent product catalog. This is a game-changer for retailers, as it significantly improves customer experiences and drives sales and competitiveness in the eCommerce landscape.
Attributes
The advantages of Attribute Enrichment extend across various aspects of your business. Here are some of the key benefits:
    • Increase Revenue per Visitor and Average Order Value: With improved product attributes, your entire product discovery offering, including search, recommendations, and quizzes, becomes more relevant. This translates to higher revenue per visitor (RPV) and increased average order value (AOV).
    • Reduce Returns and Refunds: High data quality leads to improved customer satisfaction, as the right products match customers’ preferences in terms of colors, flavors, sizes, and other attributes. 
    • Enhance Operational Efficiencies: Attribute Enrichment automates the process of enhancing product information, saving eCommerce teams time and money, and reducing human error. This newfound efficiency allows your merchandisers to focus on high-value strategic contributions, ultimately improving overall operations. 
  • Maintain Control: Don’t blindly trust the AI. Your team has the final say on what attributes are added to the catalog so they can refine and tweak as needed.
  • Stay Current with Market Trends: Attribute Enrichment leverages customer behavioral data to support the latest search trends. By creating trending attributes based on actual customer behavior, you can keep your product catalog up-to-date and competitive.
 

The Power of Composable eCommerce Solutions

Constructor’s Attribute Enrichment is a specific solution to address the challenges of managing product data in today’s complex eCommerce environment. By combining Akeneo’s PIM capabilities with Constructor’s AI-driven Attribute Enrichment, businesses can achieve standardized, complete, and highly accurate product data. This partnership offers a composable solution that is API-first, making it easier to integrate across various platforms. The result is a more streamlined, efficient, and competitive ecommerce presence — with the power of product data at its core.

Nate Roy, Director of Product Marketing

Constructor

How AI Improves Site Search & Functionality

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Artificial Intelligence

How AI Improves Site Search & Functionality

Often the unsung hero of your eCommerce shop, your site search engine is a critical component for increasing revenue and customer satisfaction. Discover how integrating AI transforms this seemingly traditional tool into a powerhouse, cleansing data, enhancing localization, and personalizing the shopping experience.

The key to increasing your eCommerce revenue has been right in front of you the whole time. The big trend in eCommerce and digital retail sales has been social selling and new marketplaces to adapt to. The endless influencers and hockers on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and of course Amazon is the new path to making exponential increases in profit.  That’s not without good reason. Those channels are certainly important, and making sure your product information shows up in these marketplaces correctly is a cornerstone of a great product experience.  But what if I told you that there was a way to increase revenue, satisfaction, and enhance the product experience, and it’s been sitting right in front of you this whole time? Well let’s not bury the lead any further. What is it? It’s ole’ reliable.The thing we have been using since the beginning days of the internet. It’s our trusty pal, site search/product search engine.  Now, I know what you’re thinking: “You’re living back in 2005. Might as well start designing for flip phones, and SMS texting too.”  And to that I say, I miss my flip phone. Those were the good days.
Site search
Site search is not to be confused with shopping search engines such as Google Shopping, Bing Shopping, Yahoo Shopping, Wanelo, Shopzilla, or ShopMania. Those are search engines that provide their users with results pulled from crawling other sides. They are still important to optimize, but this blog is about site search.    

What is Site Search?

Site search is an untapped resource in today’s modern product experience world, especially when you integrate that with AI, and further if you personalize the experience based on behavior. Before we get into the capabilities of AI-powered site search, lets see what a good site search/product search should be able to do:
  • Strong filtering capabilities for different categories or groupings, based on the the behavior of your customers and shoppers
  • Intelligent recommendations based on past searches and even general site behavior (I.e., shoppers clicking on a product, and recommending another product that would be related in their search)
  • Clear and concise search results with the exact information that the shopper would like to see. Don’t make them click into every single result!
  • Incorporate user generated reviews, and allow filtering of products based on reviews
  • Autocorrect and error correction
  • Never allowing a shopper or user to hit a dead end; even if their exact search doesn’t come back with results, suggest something else that could be related.
Now that’s just the basics. Let’s bring up the capabilities to this year, add in some AI, and a pinch of analytics, bake it at 350 degrees for 10 mins, and voila! We have a delicious cheesecake. Sorry, it’s lunch time. I mean we have the recipe for increasing revenue in eCommerce.  

AI-Powered Site Search

So what exactly can AI do instead of just me cramming it in this blog as a buzzworthy keyword? 

Cleanse & enrich data

When a shopper comes to your site, they expect to be able to find all the information they need for any product with ease. But considering most organizations have at least thousands of SKUs across hundreds of categories, it’s very likely that some products may not receive the attention they deserve, resulting in incomplete or inaccurate information. Here, AI steps in as a data magician, cleansing and enriching product data by seamlessly filling in  these gaps by optimizing product descriptions, uses, and other tangible details. Take a global fashion retailer with an extensive inventory; AI-powered data enrichment ensures that each clothing item, regardless of its popularity, is equipped with detailed and accurate information. This means a customer searching for a specific type of fabric or design can find exactly what they need, contributing to a more satisfying shopping experience.

Translate & localize content

Second is a big one that gets missed a lot in terms of site search and product experience, and that is localization. Now to a lot of people that means purely just translation, but there’s a lot more nuance to ensuring your content is ready to be taken to different markets. AI-powered translation tools excel at understanding the nuances of language, cultural context, and regional preferences. Unlike traditional translation services, which may focus solely on linguistic conversion, AI goes a step further by taking into account the cultural tone, idiomatic expressions, and contextual usage of language, and they have the capability to learn and adapt over time by analyzing user feedback and preferences. This ensures that the translated content resonates authentically with the target audience, fostering a deeper connection between businesses and their diverse customer base.

Personalize the shopping experience

AI excels at processing vast amounts of data at remarkable speeds. This is particularly valuable in the e-commerce landscape, where customer interactions, preferences, and behaviors generate massive datasets. AI algorithms can quickly analyze this data, identifying patterns, trends, and correlations that might be impossible or time-consuming for human analysts to discern. From these data sets of individual customer preferences, purchase history, and browsing behavior, AI algorithms can predict what products a customer is likely to be interested in, not only enhancing the shopping experience but also increasing the likelihood of upselling and cross-selling and providing the potential for dynamic pricing based on demand and availability.  

Unlocking the Power of AI for Site Search Success

Site search is often the unsung hero of eCommerce success, and when integrated with the capabilities of AI, can transform the modern product experience by enabling personalization, searchability, and localization at scale. Beyond basic site functionality, good site search can build a sense of trust and loyalty with your consumer base, ensuring that shoppers have the information they need when they need it at every touchpoint through strong filtering capabilities, intelligent recommendations, clear and concise results, user-generated reviews, autocorrection, and an ever-helpful approach, even suggesting alternatives when an exact search doesn’t yield results. So dust off your site search and get it acquainted with AI. It’s the key to higher conversion and revenue that’s been sitting right there this whole time. If you want to learn more about harnessing AI technology to improve product experiences, you can check out our comprehensive AI for PX Strategy page, or reach out to a PX expert today.

AI for PX

Discover how to leverage AI technology to deliver comprehensive, compelling product experiences to consumers.

Casey Paxton, Content Marketing Manager

Akeneo

What is Composable Commerce, and Why is it Important?

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Composable Commerce

What is Composable Commerce, and Why is it Important?

Discover why future-thinking brands and retailers are making the move to composable commerce architecture, and how it can revolutionize your eCommerce offerings.

Every single day, new digital touchpoints emerge that offer users an enticing new way to shop.

Whether it’s new digital marketplaces coming onto the scene, social media apps looking to break into eCommerce, or new technology like AI permeating the retail landscape, there seems to be an almost endless stream of new channels that many, if not all, brands and retailers are struggling to keep up with. Why?

Simply put, their eCommerce presence is precariously built on a traditional, monolithic commerce architecture that offers a single solution, from a single vendor, and a single digital experience.

And while this one-size-fits-all approach worked for many years to support standardized experiences and basic eCommerce offerings, the digital marketplace has expanded at such a rapid pace that we’ve quickly outgrown this legacy architecture. It wasn’t built to accommodate all the facets that are now required to produce high-quality product experiences across so many different channels.

Enter composable commerce; the modular approach to eCommerce that enables true omnichannel product experiences.

 

What is Composable Commerce?

Composable commerce is a development approach that leverages best-of-breed vendors composed together into a singular, custom-built application. This type of architecture model allows teams to create an ecosystem that is customized to meet their organization’s specific business needs, enabling activation of their entire product record across every channel.

Instead of the traditional, monolithic approach, composable commerce software communicates via API, meaning each individual solution can be updated or replaced at any time without disrupting the rest of the system. This creates a flexible, scalable eCommerce stack that can easily be updated or adapted to meet your needs as your organization grows.

 

What’s the Difference Between Composable Commerce and Traditional Architecture?

A traditional, monolithic approach offers an all-in-one solution from a single vendor, providing the basic capabilities needed to activate an eCommerce site.

For a while, this met a need in the market; everything was stored in the same place, and organizations had everything they needed to provide a singular, standard experience for all their customers.

However, thanks to the impact of both the pandemic and rapid technological innovation, the needs of modern organizations span much farther than the reach of traditional commerce architecture. There are new digital touchpoints emerging constantly that these legacy platforms simply weren’t built to accommodate, not to mention the ever-growing expectations of customers to have a dynamic, cohesive, and engaging experience with your product no matter where they discover or search for you.

At a more granular, technical level, massive monolithic code bases present steep roadblocks; plug-and-play replacements of outdated technology is impossible, extensive knowledge of the code base is required for developers to do any sort of adjustments, and scalability is severely limited. As a result, development speed and time-to-market is simply too slow to keep up with the speed of today’s economy.

As consumer behaviors continue to rapidly shift and digital touchpoints continue to expand, more and more organizations are beginning to move away from a traditional model and towards a composable commerce model that decouples the frontend user experience from the backend logistics. This offers organizations the flexibility to customize their tech stack to their specific business needs.

With composable commerce, brands are able to:

  • Create compelling, coherent, and consistent product experiences across every channel, regardless of their specific personalizations.
  • Accelerate time-to–market and expand into new territories, products, and markets more seamlessly than ever before.
  • Leverage best-of-breed technology solutions to ensure that you’re utilizing the most up-to-date and efficient processes.
  • Scale your tech stack with your company by replacing technologies as you continue to grow and take on new challenges.

 

Composable commerce vs monolithic commerce

 

Tenets of Composable Commerce

Composable commerce architecture has been growing in popularity as more and more organizations continue to search for a more scalable and flexible model. But what does that actually look like in practice? Let’s take a look at three of the defining features of this modern commerce architecture.

1. Modular

Arguably the most important aspect of composable commerce approach is its modular nature. Every component of your tech stack is replaceable, and therefore scalable. Changing, adding, or removing one aspect of your tech stack will no longer crumble your entire ecosystem like a fragile Jenga tower.

What does this mean? Accelerated time-to-market, increased eCommerce conversions, eliminated redundant technology costs, and stronger omnichannel customer experiences.

2. Open Ecosystem

An open ecosystem essentially means that your organization isn’t tied to one specific vendor; you are free to select the software that best serves each individual business need, ensuring that you’re receiving world-class SaaS products across the board. This is a particularly useful aspect as it allows your team to easily swap out technology if a piece of software isn’t performing the way you intended it to, it’s been changed, or it becomes obsolete due to changed internal processes.

This open ecosystem also encourages simple integrations and deep customization capabilities, allowing your team to essentially build the perfect system for your commerce tech stack.

3. Flexible

The scalability and flexibility of a composable commerce architecture is one of the biggest reasons so many organizations are beginning to transition. Whether it’s adapting to meet the needs of new customer markets, new global locations, new products, or new eCommerce channels, composable commerce offers the flexibility to meet your organization’s needs that a traditional approach can’t compete with.

 

Benefits of Composable Commerce

So we’ve covered the basics of composable commerce, and how this architecture framework often provides greater agility and control to brands and retailers. But now let’s dive into the specific benefits that an organization can reap from migrating to a composable commerce architecture.

Create truly omnichannel experiences. 

Mobile, print, web, social media, retailer sites, even newer channels like voice search and TikTok. All of these existing touchpoints, and those of tomorrow, are potential places where your customers could discover you, but showing up on these channels requires a strong technological foundation to syndicate product information and listings. Monolithic architectures are often too rigid to adapt quickly to these rapid market changes.

Reduce vendor risk. 

Swap in and out components of your tech stack as needed, allowing your ecosystem to scale to meet your needs. Whether you need to replace an old piece of technology, incorporate a new software tool, or upgrade existing functionality and capacity, you can do so freely with this type of plug-and-play architecture.

Reduce operational costs. 

By increasing internal operational efficiencies and leveraging modern technology stacks, your organization is able to save time and money. Plus, you’re customizing your tech stack to what works best for your team, so you aren’t paying for features or solutions you don’t use.

Remove heavy reliance on IT. 

The user-friendly aspect of composable commerce means that managing and operating within this commerce approach doesn’t require in-depth technical skills from developers. Unlike the traditional model, composable commerce allows non-technical employees to perform necessary tasks.

 Deliver highly differentiated, personalized experiences that win against your competition.

More channels than ever before means more competition than ever before; the product experience that you offer to your customers needs to stack up or you risk losing their loyalty. By utilizing best-of-breed technologies and allowing your organization to scale, you’re able to provide your consumers with the personalized experience they’re looking for.

 

Future-proof your Business with Composable Commerce

Future-proofing your business means that you need to be able to create compelling and consistent product experiences across all your owned and unowned channels, and that is significantly more simple when you’ve implemented a composable approach that allows you to plug-and-play technologies as you scale.

The inherently modular nature of the architecture, coupled with the flexibility and scalability it offers, means that a composable commerce approach is the one of the most efficient way brands and retailers can activate their product story across each and every channel, regardless of if it’s owned by them or not. By streamlining internal operations and relying on best-of-breed technology, composable commerce enables organizations to deliver unique, personalized product experiences to their consumers at every stage.

Interested in learning more about how to migrate to a composable commerce model? Request a demo of Akeneo today to see how our MACH-certified PIM can help.

Casey Paxton, Content Marketing Manager

Akeneo

Omnichannel vs. Multichannel eCommerce

Posted on by Virginie Blot
eCommerce

Omnichannel vs. Multichannel eCommerce

Many organizations have been expanding operations to take full advantage of new online touchpoints. But how do you know which eCommerce strategy is right for your team, and how do you get started?

It wasn’t long ago that catalogs ruled the day, brick-and-mortar stores ruled High Street, and malls were the place to be. Salespeople hit the actual pavement hawking manufacturers’ goods from coast to coast. 

Then along came the digital transformation.

First there was dial-up internet and chat rooms. Then came along Amazon, social media, Yelp reviews. Before you knew it, you barely existed if your business didn’t at least have a Google listing.

Each of these new creations became more than a fad. They became channels through which potential buyers learned about your products. But businesses faced the challenge of managing these multiple channels at once, and two dominating strategies emerged: omnichannel eCommerce and multichannel eCommece.

What exactly is difference between omnichannel vs. multichannel, and how can one or the other impact your business? Let’s dive in.

 

What is multichannel eCommerce?

Multichannel eCommerce is short for “multiple channels.” It simply means that you sell your products on more than one channel. Many retailers have both a physical store and an online presence, selling on social media, eCommerce sites, marketplaces, and other platforms. For manufacturers, multichannel eCommerce has been truly revolutionary, allowing them to sell direct-to-consumer rather than having to rely on third parties and catalogs. 

Businesses following a multichannel approach focus on building out individual channels while ensuring product information is accurate and consistent. They tailor strategies to each channel and track results, but each channel acts as a “solo act” rather than a player in an orchestra.

 

Benefits of multichannel eCommerce

Because of the digital transformation, even the most old-school retailers and manufacturers typically have a basic website or social media presence by now, making them multichannel by definition.

For some, this simple strategy can bring rewards like:

  • Reaching more customers and new audiences
  • Reaching shoppers when and where they are most likely to buy
  • Increasing incremental sales and total sales volume
  • Increasing awareness of your brand
  • Driving higher average order value
  • Growing your online presence and sales
  • Providing a more consistent and rewarding shopping experience

 

Drawbacks of multichannel eCommerce

So why the debate between multichannel eCommerce vs. omnichannel?

Those who have operated under a multichannel eCommerce framework will know the struggles well, such as:

  • Implementing new infrastructure and processes needed for fulfillment, shipping, logistics, etc.
  • Increased costs due to new requirements
  • Greater demands on the supply chain
  • Channels and data becoming siloed
  • Inconsistent product information, branding, and customer experiences

New business plans can typically fix the first three issues. However, the last two points are the reason why multichannel vs. omnichannel eCommerce remains a problem, so let’s dive into omnichannel.

 

What is omnichannel eCommerce?

Omnichannel eCommerce combines all customer channels for brand interaction into one strategy, going beyond multichannel approach. Instead of working separately, all your channels collaborate, communicate, and influence each other. This creates a harmonious “orchestra” that guides your customers throughout their purchasing process.

 

What’s the difference between omnichannel vs. multichannel?

The biggest difference between omnichannel and multichannel eCommerce is that while omnichannel is people-focused, multichannel is product-focused; while omnichannel is customer-centric, multichannel is channel-centric. Multichannel eCommerce is all about moving inventory as efficiently as possible through various channels. Omnichannel takes a more holistic approach, aiming to provide a seamless experience throughout the entire customer journey. 

Both strategies have data at their core, but even then, there’s a difference: The foundation of multichannel eCommerce is product data. The foundation of omnichannel eCommerce is both product and customer data. 

Multichannel presents your products on various channels and allows your customers to purchase them or otherwise communicate with you. You’ll collect data on what’s selling, when, and how quickly, but not on customer behavior and preferences. And while you’ll be able to see individual channel performance, you won’t be able to see how all the channels work together.

Omnichannel retail is an integrated experience. Data is shared between channels to target and retarget buyers, providing seamless experiences. Buyers can continue where they left off, even if it was on a different channel. Each interaction builds upon the last, fulfilling the customer’s needs as they progress through the buying journey. 

Essentially, omnichannel takes multiple channels and synchronizes them, while multichannel leaves them separated and siloed. Thus, all omnichannel eCommerce is multichannel, but not all multichannel is omnichannel.

 

So why isn’t everyone doing omnichannel?

When you look at omnichannel vs. multichannel, it seems obvious to say that omnichannel is better. Multichannel is a more siloed approach, and whether you’re in retail, manufacturing, or distribution, the digital transformation has paved the way forward for holistic, omnichannel eCommerce. 

So why aren’t more companies focused on omnichannel?

The truth is that omnichannel strategies typically require a large investment of resources, especially in the beginning. If you operate out of a brick-and-mortar store or warehouse using a catalog or third-party partnership model, creating even a multichannel strategy means you’ll need to build a website, leverage marketplaces, learn about social media, and start advertising.

To reach true omnichannel status, you’ll also need to syndicate your product data, optimize your tech stack, synchronize your customer data, and then use analytics to segment and target and deliver personalized content at every touchpoint.

When business are instead offered a simple, straightforward multichannel strategy that can still increase sales in the short-term, it can be tempting to not make a further investment in omnichannel. But that’s a mistake.

Omnichannel vs. multichannel eCommerce is ultimately about a long-term vs. short-term approach. The fact is that the digital transformation is turning the world toward omnichannel experiences. You can either build an omnichannel commerce strategy now and get ahead of your competition—or you can be left behind. 

Luckily, many of the differences between omnichannel vs. multichannel can be mitigated with the right technology and partners. While a multichannel strategy will use separate and disparate technologies, like eCommerce platforms for selling, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, or customer data platforms (CDPs), composable technology allows you to orchestrate and scale your tech stack as your challenges and goals expand.

Best-of-breed Product information management (PIM) systems are a great place to start implementing an omnichannel strategy. A PIM provides a central database for your product information, allowing you to distribute consistent, accurate data to all of your channels while also conforming to their rules — and a composable PIM means that it connects seamlessly with your existing technology, and plays nicely with new systems introduced down the road.

Ready to learn more about best-of-breed technology can help you implement and support an omnichannel strategy? Book your demo today to see the benefits for yourself.

Akeneo Product Cloud

Discover how Akeneo’s composable technology can support an omnichannel product experience strategy today.

Casey Paxton, Content Marketing Manager

Akeneo

2024 Retail Trend Predictions

Posted on by Virginie Blot
Retail Trends

2024 Retail Trend Predictions

Looking to the coming year, we break down how the retail landscape is evolving to provide consumers with more personalized experiences and unparalleled convenience. Plus, we take a glimpse at how the circular economy can support a brighter, more sustainable retail tomorrow.

As we gear up to welcome 2024 with open arms, many brands and retailers are heads-down in annual budgeting and planning mode. Despite what some gurus or financial analysts may have you believe, nobody can predict the future with pinpoint accuracy. But what we can do is put away the crystal ball and instead take a look at what’s happened this past year to take an educated, speculative journey through some forecasts for the retail industry in the coming year. So, grab your virtual shopping cart, and let’s dive into what the future of retail might hold.   

1. Data-Driven, Hyper-Personalized Shopping Journeys

In 2023, we saw the rise in popularity of highly personalized product recommendations and experiences based on deeper insights into customer shopping behavior. In 2024, we expect this area of Product Experience (PX) Strategy to only continue to grow as more advanced technologies and AI-driven systems that gather and process vast amounts of customer data are released.  Personalized interactions will become less of a luxury and more of a standard as this level of personalization not only enhances the customer experience but also drives higher conversion rates and customer loyalty. It’s a win-win for both retailers and consumers. As an example, let’s take a look at how fictional sustainable fashion brand, ZigGreen Apparel, would provide data-driven shopping journeys. If a consumer likes a post on ZigGreen’s Instagram with a jacket made out of recycled material, they can recommend that jacket the next time the consumer heads to ZigGreen’s website. Or perhaps several customers who purchased their thermal beanie also bought the thermal scarf in the same color, so when a consumer adds the beanie to their cart, the scarf automatically pops up as suggested.      

2. Transparent Supply Chains & Business Practices

In the wake of global awareness regarding environmental and social issues, transparency in supply chains and business practices will be a critical focus for retailers in 2024. Consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of where and how the products they buy are sourced and manufactured, and providing a certain level of transparency builds trust with consumers and can be a powerful differentiator for brands. Plus, transparent supply chains are currently poised to be less of a recommendation and more of a requirement in the coming years, at least for retailers operating in the EU. The European Digital Product Passport (DPP) initiative comes under the European Green Deal, first approved in 2020, and aims to gather data on a product and its supply chain to share it across the entire value chain so all actors, manufacturers, repairers, and consumers better understand the environmental impact of the materials and products they use. Let’s go back to our eco-conscious brand, ZigGreen Apparel. Providing insight into their supply chains such as what sustainable materials are used, where they were sourced, and the steps taken to reduce their carbon footprint empowers shoppers to make informed choices and feel confident that they’re supporting a brand that shares the same values.

Digital Product Passport 101

3. Incorporation of AI to Enhance Customer & Employee Experience

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in 2023, you’ve likely heard of Artificial Intelligence (AI).   While it’s easy to over-hype the impact that AI can have on the retail industry, there are some concrete ways this technology can have a real impact on the efficiency and optimization of your organization, including:
  • Generate & enrich product content: Quickly and easily generate ready-to-edit content, including product descriptions and product page copy that aligns with your business’s tone of voice, product keywords, and character limits.
  • Collect & cleanse product data: Leverage AI to accurately clean and enrich any product data including de-duplication, data extraction, and product categorization & classification, at scale and in a centralized way. Relieve your teams from lengthy manual data work by leveraging the power of AI.
  • Enhance work automation: Remove lengthy manual tasks and increase operational efficiency, elevating employee job satisfaction and productivity
  • Unburden & support customer service: AI can help unburden support teams and make them highly efficient by intelligently routing specific requests or questions to specific people or departments, encouraging higher customer and employee satisfaction
  • Personalize content to new markets and geographies: Automatically translate product content to quickly and efficiently deliver product experiences at scale and in any language with AI
With the help of AI, the folks at ZigGreen Apparel can quickly and easily generate ready-to-edit content that aligns with their unique tone of voice, product keywords, and character limits, saving time and ensuring that the information provided is consistently on-brand, informative, and engaging. Or maybe they employ the help of a machine learning algorithm to predict upcoming trends and seasonality patterns to better protect against overstock and understock situations based on millions of data points of customer behavior.    

4. Seamless Experiences Across Digital, Social, and Physical Channels

The omnichannel experience has been a buzzword in retail for some time, but in 2024, we expect the demand from consumers for seamless experiences across digital, social, and physical channels to be higher than ever before. For instance, a customer might discover a fashion brand on social media, explore their online store, and then decide to visit a physical store to try on the clothes. It’s the retailer’s responsibility to ensure that the customer’s preferences and shopping history are seamlessly transferred across these channels, and that they are able to find all the information they may need to make a decision regardless of where they’re interacting with your company. Let’s say I’m scrolling in TikTok and see a video of my favorite influencer showing off their newest sweater from ZigGreen. I eagerly click the link to check it out on ZigGreen’s website and learn more about the color, size, price, and shipping estimates. As I’m scrolling through the user reviews of the sweater, I see that many people are claiming the sweater runs small, and I decide I want to try on the sweater before purchasing. Luckily, I notice a “Find in-store” button for the sweater, and when I click it, I can see all the brick-and-mortar locations within a 50 mile radius that are carrying the sweater so I can go try it on and select the right size. This seamless cohesion between channels provides a trustworthy experience for the consumer and reduces the likelihood of a return or an unsatisfactory purchase.    

5. Growth in Demand for a Circular Economy

An economic model that aims to minimize waste, make the most of resources, and reduce the environmental impact of products and services, the concept of a “circular economy” has already grown in popularity over the past few ways and is poised to become even bigger in 2024. Investing in upcycling or recycling programs can not only reduce the carbon footprint left behind by your organization, but can open up new streams of revenue and provide consumers with an affordable marketplace to buy and sell products with like-minded shoppers. In particular, a resale market can enable your organization to:
  • Increase Store Traffic: Customers are increasingly drawn to stores that offer drop-off points for their pre-loved items.
  • Reduce Return Rates: By extending the lifespan of products through resale or refurbishment, retailers can significantly reduce the number of returns, cutting down on waste and saving money.
  • Communicate a Shared Passion and Commitment: Participating in the circular economy sends a strong message that your brand cares about the environment, which can foster customer loyalty and attract like-minded consumers.
  • Improve Upsell and Cross-Sell Opportunities: When customers bring in products for resale or recycling, retailers have an opportunity to upsell new items or cross-sell related products, increasing revenue.
For ZigGreen Apparel, this could look like introducing a clothing rental service that allows customers to subscribe to and rent the latest sustainable fashion collections instead of purchasing single-use items This approach encourages the reuse of clothing, extending the lifespan and reducing the environmental impact of fast fashion. Or maybe ZigGreen can create a program that allows customers to send back their ZigGreen garments that are no longer in use, and then transform them into new, unique pieces, not only reducing textile waste and cost of supplies but also providing customers with a tangible connection to the circular fashion journey.  

To 2024 and Beyond

Despite what many economists and analysts would want you to believe, nobody can predict the future. What we can do is take a look at consumer behavior and analyze the strategies that companies are using to successfully navigate such uncertain times. Technological advancements and evolving customer expectations mean that the retail landscape is changing at a break-neck speed, and organizations who are able to adapt and optimize their presence on new channels and markets are the ones who will be around for the long haul. Interested in future-proofing your organization through 2024 and beyond? Reach out to an Akeneo expert today to see how we can set you up for success.

Akeneo Product Cloud

Discover how Akeneo technology can create the foundation needed for omnichannel product experiences.

Casey Paxton, Content Marketing Manager

Akeneo