2 out of every 3 consumers say they would lose trust in a brand and stop buying from them after a bad product information experience.  You might think this would make product experience something every company would prioritize and get right. But anyone who has shopped online recently knows this isn’t the case. Spend just a few minutes looking, and you’ll find product listings on even the most recognized retailers and brand’s sites that provide a less-than-compelling experience for a buyer. So why is this? Why do companies continue to offer a poor customer experience for their products? Well, to put it bluntly, it’s because managing product experiences is hard.  Today, companies oversee vast, complex product catalogs that must be made available at a moment’s notice to customers across multiple sales channels, marketing streams, and languages or geos. Underneath the surface of these final product listings lives a dizzying array of challenges, from supplier and retailer management to search optimization, translations, copywriting, and even regulatory management. Conquering these challenges requires aligning a disjoined network of IT infrastructure, convoluted processes, and cross-functional teams with competing priorities.  Companies consistently fail with product experiences because they fail to consider the complete picture. They try to tackle each challenge independently without coordination or support of an overall organizational vision. What they need is a PX Strategy:   PX Strategy: Noun. A comprehensive strategy to build and deliver world-class product experiences across every customer touchpoint to accelerate growth, stay competitive, and support the organization’s overall goals.   Let’s dive into a step-by-step guide to building a PX Strategy that will help you unlock the full potential of your product experiences. 

How to Build a Product Experience Strategy(Step-by-step)

1. Create product experience goals and objectives

The first step is clearly identifying what you’re trying to accomplish. Mapping out a north star  helps to guide every decision and keep things focused. To do this, your organization should define goals and create objectives.  Goals should be high-level and focus on how your overall organization plans to allocate its resources in the next 3 to 5 years. Objectives should be more specific and focused on leveraging product experiences to help your organization realize its goals. Understanding the benefits of a PX Strategy to your business and incorporating them into your objectives is essential. These benefits can be broadly classified into those that increase profitable sales and those that drive cost efficiencies. Once you map out goals and objectives, you need to identify measures of success, which we can think of as specific results or improvements in quantifiable measures of performance over time (KPIs: key performance indicators). This step’s output should detail exactly how you will use product experiences to help support the brand’s overall business.      Finally, it’s essential to consider your business context and incorporate the unique requirements of your customers, channels, products, the regions you sell in, your business model, and even the brand values you want to convey into your strategy.  

 

2. Identify a sponsor and key stakeholders

Getting the right people in the room early on is critical in executing any strategy. A Product Experience Strategy impacts many different parts of your organization, so it’s necessary to identify a project sponsor who can drive outcomes and influence cross-functional teams. These cross-functional teams can be broadly broken down into:

• Those that manage technical solutions 
• Those that create or enrich product experiences and 
• Those that manage sales channels. 

Identifying these key stakeholders allows us to be more agile in identifying and solving challenges. It also prevents the creation of internal silos which can bog down even the best planned initiatives.   

3. Audit your customer’s product experience journey  

The next step in developing a PX Strategy is obtaining a clear understanding of the product experience you’re giving customers today. Put yourself in the customers’ shoes and look at every website, marketplace, print catalog, social media platform, etc. that you sell on. Consider if you’re giving your customers all the information they need to find, buy, and get service for the products you sell on each of these channels.  Consider more than just basic product details; think about marketing copy, images, videos, brand stories, sustainability, user reviews, and compatibility. Look for poor experiences like inconsistent, inaccurate, incomplete, or poorly formatted information, and identify the root cause.   

4. Compare yourself to competitors and industry leaders 

Almost equally as important is understanding what product experiences your direct competitors offer by completing an audit of their product experience offerings. Look beyond your own industry and think about brands you interact with daily that provide great product experiences. Engage with analysts, partners, and thought leaders to understand future trends and challenges. Think about new ways to innovate with product experiences by reaching new customers or giving them new ways to engage with products.   

5. Understand the gaps in your current solution 

Think about what’s preventing you from delivering on your product experience objectives today. It could be a lack of technology, poor or unstructured data,  discoverability issues, organizational silos, or external factors like inadequate supplier data. Map out a product’s life cycle within your ecosystem from its creation to eventual sunsetting. Understanding how your systems, teams, and processes work together to manage product records, orchestrate them across systems, activate them on internal and external channels, and analyze their performance provides a clear understanding of what’s creating gaps.  It’s also essential to understand how you’re compensating for these gaps today and the cost of doing so. If you’re managing an army of employees working in Excel, relying on a third-party data provider, or even doing nothing at all, there is a cost to the business that you must consider.   

6. Build your product experience guidelines

After clearly understanding the product experiences offered by your company and your competition, it’s time for you to build your own product experience guidelines. These guidelines document the product experiences you want to provide customers across all of your touchpoints. They should include data governance standards around product information, new types of information you wish to provide, opportunities to improve discoverability, and even a consideration of outdated information that’s no longer required. Don’t let current limitations restrict your ambitions! Think about the product experiences you’d like to give customers in an ideal state.  It’s also essential to establish a process for maintaining your guidelines over time and for incorporating new products into your ecosystem as the organization grows or makes acquisitions. Consider creating a small cross-functional committee to handle this review process.   

 

7. Develop your tactics and a plan to execute

After completing the previous steps you should have a clear understanding of the following:

1. What your overall product experience goals and objectives are
2. The gaps that prevent you from delivering these experiences with your current solution
3. The ideal product experiences you want to provide your customers

It’s also critical to consider the day-to-day Product Experience Management (PXM) operation that incorporates People, Process, and Technology to deliver Product Experiences. With this information you can start building a plan tailored to your organization. It may include: Adding New Capabilities 

• Tools: PIM, DAM, syndication, supplier onboarding, AI, performance analytics, translations, ETL, data feeds 
• Skills: Data analytics, business intelligence, CX (research/design/test), SEO, process engineering, data management, copywriting
• Product Experiences: Sustainability, brand values, cross-sell, upsell, compatibility, product models, referential data, images, videos, 3D models

Market and Channel Expansion  

• External: Print, eCommerce, mobile, social media, In-store, retailers, distributors 
• Internal: Customer support, supplier, sales, point of sale
• Markets: Languages, regions, customers

Organizational Changes: Building cross-functional or PX-focused teams, adding new job roles, or centralizing decision-making.   Process Improvement: Streamlining workflow, automation, data architecture, asset management, permissions, or supplier onboarding processes.  Data Transformation: Cleansing or restructuring data (new data fields, taxonomy, or hierarchies). Organizations concerned about timelines or resources may take a more iterative approach by focusing on quick, short-term wins to build momentum before tackling more significant challenges. For example, a multi-brand organization that wants to implement a new technology and product enrichment process may focus on a single brand before rolling it out across the entire organization.   

8. Prepare for change

Building and executing a Product Experience Strategy means making changes within your organization. These could include new organizational structures, training and enablement around new technology, new ways of working, and even an institutional shift in how employees view and appreciate the importance of product experiences. The impact and difficulty of implementing these changes will depend on the magnitude of changes being made, the size of your organization, its flexibility, and the support and commitment of executive sponsorship.  It’s critical to identify these changes and develop a plan to communicate, implement, enable, and monitor them. Some organizations may be best served by creating a formal change management process, while others may just need a few internal meetings and open lines of communication.   

9. Continuously optimize and improve   

Once you’ve built and executed your Product Experience Strategy, you must continuously reevaluate it. Understand what is and isn’t working and reallocate resources or develop new tactics to make your strategy more effective. It’s important to appreciate that customer preference, technologies, and even your products will evolve, meaning your strategy needs to consider what’s coming next.  Lastly, never forget that your PX Strategy must be aligned with your brand’s overall goals. If your organization changes its priorities or investments, ensure your Product Experience Strategy is still positioned to support it, and always continue looking for new use cases for your Product Experience Strategy.  

Final Thoughts

Don’t be dissuaded from building a Product Experience Strategy because you think it will take too much time or add complexity to your business. If you have some immediate initiatives to tackle, like re-platforming your eCommerce solution or centralizing your product data, don’t put the brakes on it. Just appreciate that they need to be approached as part of a larger interconnected strategy for building and delivering product experiences to customers.

Despite every organization operating with unique intricacies and distinct goals, many have traditionally opted for standardized, off-the-shelf eCommerce platforms to tackle their multifaceted requirements. This approach often leads to a need for customization, involving the implementation of in-house add-ons, connectors, plugins, custom code, and more.  This reliance on generic solutions poses challenges to scalability. With rapidly evolving customer demands, businesses must swiftly adapt to market changes and address functional gaps to provide the seamless experiences buyers expect. Plus, as your eCommerce ecosystem expands to encompass an array of tools like marketing automation platforms, PIM solutions, and user-generated content collection tools, the emergence of functionality gaps becomes evident. What initially seemed like a manageable task of maintaining consistency across platforms quickly becomes overwhelming. Valuable attention, time, resources, and finances are drained into the upkeep and patching of the eCommerce platform, diverting focus from impactful endeavors. Given these complexities, many teams are drawn to the notion of replatforming to a more robust and dependable eCommerce solution and the search is on for a user-friendly platform that not only adapts seamlessly but also scales in sync with business evolution, ensuring the alignment with buyer expectations. If this situation sounds all too familiar to you, then let’s take a look at a five-step process that your organization can follow to ensure that your eCommerce replatform project is successful, speedy, and scalable.  

Step 1: Defining Your Replatforming Blueprint

Undertaking a replatforming endeavor might seem overwhelming, given the array of solutions, technologies, and industry jargon in the mix. Identifying the perfect platform tailored to your business can be a challenge. This is where creating a comprehensive brief comes into play. The process begins by outlining your business’s needs and expectations from the new platform. This foundational document, known as the brief, serves as your roadmap. Crafting an eCommerce replatforming brief doesn’t need to be overly complex. Essentially, it revolves around defining two primary components:

• Customer Expectations: Articulate all the functionalities you wish to empower your customers with on the website. This could encompass seamless browsing, smooth transactions, and interactive features that enhance their experience.
• Administrative Efficiencies: Consider the tasks you require your administrative team to seamlessly execute from the admin panel. These might include managing products, monitoring orders, and refining user experiences.

Additionally, augment your brief with a list of external technologies integrated into your ecosystem. This encompasses tools like marketing automation platforms, review services, and payment providers. By incorporating these elements, your brief becomes a comprehensive guide that outlines your unique requirements. To further enrich your brief, include key data points to provide context:

• The extent and variety of products in your existing product catalog.
• The count of customers registered on your current platform.
• The volume of daily orders and the Average Order Value (AOV).
• Your project’s budget allocation and the timeline for implementation.

Avoid getting bogged down in over-detailing the brief’s format. There’s no need for it to become a laborious, minute-by-minute plan that consumes more time than the actual replatforming process. Simply ensure these key components are well-addressed, and you’re good to go.  

Step 2: Equipping Your Teams for Success

In the lead-up to a successful replatforming projects, ensuring that your teams are well-prepared, aligned, and informed is of paramount importance. Let’s take a look at a few key strategies to do so.

1. Optimize the Digital Channel Team(s)

Effective operations often stumble due to misallocated resources and siloed functions. Such inefficiencies may arise from a lack of cohesive integration of the digital channel into the organizational structure, or a shift in roles over time that no longer suits the evolving business landscape. Address this by revisiting your organizational setup, readjusting roles, and embracing change despite anticipated resistance. Achieving collective buy-in or removing roadblocks is crucial; if you’re assembling a team externally, prioritize familiarity with platform best practices and technology expertise, ideally complemented by industry know-how.

2. Navigate Channel Conflict with Strategic Communication

Enhancing or introducing new channels can inadvertently stir conflicts that jeopardize digital initiatives’ success. Commonly seen among retail and field sales teams, concerns about digital sales overshadowing their roles need to be proactively managed. Personalize your communication approach for internal and external stakeholders, tailored to individual teams and resources. By adopting an approach that addresses anxiety, welcomes change, and fosters enthusiasm, you can effectively neutralize potential disruptions.

3. Post-Launch Preparedness

Beyond the excitement lies a reality: launching is merely the beginning. Establishing a post-launch support plan is essential to a successful replatforming. Ensure you have internal or external site support ready to roll out as soon as the site warranty period concludes. Avoid reactive responses by preparing for potential site issues beforehand. Internally, define who holds the authority to make and approve decisions post-launch. This might pertain to business, IT, or even a committee’s domain. Be aware that post-launch, decision-making authority could shift; guard against internal conflicts by having a solid plan in place, keeping the focus steadfastly on your new site’s success.

4. Elevating Marketing and Engagement

A surge of eager new and existing visitors awaits you after launch – be ready to captivate their attention and sustain their interest. Ensure your marketing materials are primed for engagement, reflecting the design and ethos of your new site. Your social profiles need to be optimized and aligned, displaying accurate company information, branding, visuals, and content. The same holds true for transactional and marketing email templates as you may need to rewrite and redesign to resonate with the new site’s identity. As your site garners more traffic, keep them engaged with compelling content, whether it’s insightful buying guides, intriguing CMS pages, or a captivating blog. By curating meaningful interactions, you solidify engagement and catalyze conversions.  

Step 3: Preparing Your Product Information

A seamless eCommerce replatforming requires meticulous mapping of your data sources, an unwavering commitment to elevating product content quality, and a strategic approach to optimizing your site’s SEO strategies. Let’s take a look at how these aspects work in harmony to pave the way for a successful replatforming journey that doesn’t just meet your expectations, but exceeds them.

1. Mapping Your Product Data Sources 

Enabling product information to flow seamlessly across channels is a foundational step in digital transformation. However, creating, maintaining, and leveraging product data throughout its lifecycle is not a one-time project, but a complex, ongoing program. Having a single system of record with thoughtful processes and technical guardrails developed to enable ongoing integrity is crucial. Prior to determining your migration approach, identify the data you intend to migrate. Cleanse your data by removing duplicate records, incomplete sets, and centralize disparate legacy data systems to ensure data is accurate, actionable, relevant, and consolidated. Inventory migration data, accounting for who owns it, where it lives (on the new platform or external system), and how it’s accessed. Consider migrating data incrementally to allow users and stakeholders to view the sample sets and correct any issues upfront, making it easier to identify areas for development if necessary.

2. Elevating Product Content Quality

Inevitably, typos creep in, information ages, and links decay. With various contributors, the brand voice might waver. Customer preferences evolve. Scrutinize every site page, article, and post for accuracy and relevancy. Archive underperforming or obsolete content, streamlining content migration efforts and redirecting attention to the noteworthy pieces that endure. Tailor content to guide customers during awareness and consideration stages, captivating them even during non-shopping periods. With the sitemap and wireframes as your guide, launch engaging content initiatives, aligning resources for a dynamic launch or securing additional support if required.

3. Optimizing SEO Strategies 

Replatforming ushers in site alterations, including URL changes, that could disrupt organic search rankings if mishandled. While no universal solution exists, implement essential technical measures for a seamless SEO transition. Adhere to schema.org best practices and integrate canonical tags, particularly for filtered pages within the product catalog, curbing duplicate content concerns. Enhance URL structures to incorporate natural language, enriching user experience. Thoughtfully employ relevant anchor text for inbound and external links, routinely scrutinizing the site for broken links. Plan 301 page redirects, prioritizing high-traffic or extensively linked pages. While applying 1:1 redirects for all pages isn’t advised, you can selectively channel users to the new homepage URL or relevant category pages. This safeguards customer access, irrespective of web address changes, nurturing a seamless browsing experience.  

Step 4: Selecting the Perfect Platform

In your pursuit of the ideal eCommerce platform, an agnostic approach is paramount. By comparing your core brief requirements against the features various platforms offer, you’ll uncover the right fit for your business. At this stage, establishing (and sticking to) a platform budget is essential, as even platforms claiming to be free come with costs. To streamline your options, ask three fundamental questions:

1. B2C, B2B, or Both? 

B2B enterprises often demand distinct eCommerce platform features compared to their B2C counterparts. If you’re planning to operate in a B2B capacity, robust tools like company accounts, credit limits, and customer-specific pricing are vital. While platforms like BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce cater to B2B needs, platforms like Shopify might lack specific B2B features and are better suited for B2C operations, so ensure that you’re choosing a platform that aligns with your long-term business goals.  

2. Hosting and Management Approach: Open-Source or SaaS? 

The platform landscape is divided into open-source and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) options.  Open-source platforms provide access to source code for extensive customization. Ideal for businesses with skilled IT teams, platforms like Adobe Commerce Cloud and WooCommerce offer this flexibility. However, they demand coding proficiency and hosting responsibility.  SaaS eCommerce platforms operate on subscription models, offering hassle-free software as a service. Platforms like BigCommerce, Shopify, and commercetools handle hosting, updates, and support, leaving you free to focus on your core business. Choose based on your technical expertise and business priorities.  

3. Integrating with Current Technologies?

A thriving eCommerce ecosystem relies on seamless integrations with various technologies. Platforms often offer app/extension marketplaces for off-the-shelf integrations with common partners like payment providers, review platforms, and loyalty schemes. Leverage your technology partner list from your brief to evaluate platform compatibility. Ensure the platforms you consider offer connectors from the app marketplace, or possess robust APIs that enable integration with your chosen technologies. With these core questions addressed, it’s time to test the waters. Many platforms offer trial periods or demos. Witness the platform in action before making a final decision. Your chosen platform will shape your eCommerce journey for years ahead, so a thoughtful choice is imperative.  

Step 5: Selecting the Perfect Agency

Pinpointing the ideal agency involves a strategic process tailored to your specific needs. Begin by filtering your choices through your essential requirements and critical success factors. Here are a few key factors to consider: Platform Expertise: Does the agency possess proven experience with your chosen platform? Relevant Portfolio: Does the agency boast a portfolio aligned with your business profile, industry, and functionalities? Client References: Can the agency provide references from satisfied clients who have achieved successful outcomes? Timely Delivery: Can the agency commit to meeting your project’s timelines outlined in the brief? Alignment and Compatibility: Does the agency’s work style and approach harmonize with your organization? Are they approachable and cooperative? Transparent Pricing: Do you fully comprehend the agency’s pricing model and all associated costs? Is it sustainable for your organization long-term? Location: Consider the agency’s location if regular face-to-face meetings are essential. Budget and Roadmap: The agency’s role is to translate your brief into a solution within your budget and timeframe. This may require prioritizing requirements and finding compromises.  Remember, eCommerce websites are ever-evolving. Replatforming defines the starting point, not the endpoint – often known as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Post-launch, elements from the MVP become part of a strategic roadmap for ongoing enhancements and continuous development, adapting to new features, technologies, and creative trends.  

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  Replatforming is a strategic move that requires careful consideration, planning, and execution. By creating a comprehensive brief, preparing teams, organizing product information, finding the right platform, and partnering with the right agency, businesses can successfully navigate the complexities of replatforming and set themselves up for long-term growth and success in the ever-evolving eCommerce landscape.  And lastly, keep in mind that replatforming isn’t just about reaching the finish line; it’s about laying the foundation for ongoing evolution and improvement in response to changing customer needs and market trends.

We’re thrilled to announce that our offering, Akeneo Product Cloud, has been recognized as an impactful software for businesses by receiving the 2023 Best Customer Support Badge from verified reviewers on Software Advice under the following software categories:

1. Best Catalog Management Software

2. Best Data Management Software

Software Advice synthesizes verified end-user reviews to recognize the most highly-rated products in a specific software category, helping software buyers make more informed purchase decisions. (Learn more about the methodology here.) Akeneo Product Cloud has earned an overall rating of 4.7 (out of 5) on Software Advice. Big thanks to all our customers! It would not have been possible without your constant support and feedback.

Here’s what our users have to say about their experience working with us: “The product completeness and data quality features make it really easy to manage data quality per channel. The ease of use of the platform for unique views & filters makes it easy to identify and fix products that have data issues.” – Garreth “{We love the} Drag & Drop features as well as the ease of mass imports & exports for product information. We migrated from an outdated PIM where everything was inputted manually so this program has greatly sped up our internal processes.” – Forrest “We were looking for a platform to manage product data and syndicate it to downstream applications. This data goes to our eCommerce site, our customers’ eCommerce sites, a new automation platform, and internal data analytics tools. We’re very happy and would recommend Akeneo to anyone who asked.” – Trenton Want to share a review? Click here.  

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  About Akeneo Product Cloud Akeneo is the Product Experience (PX) company, helping organizations deliver enriched, engaging, consistent, and compelling product experiences across the entire customer journey. By providing best-of-breed technology and expertise, Akeneo equips global brands, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to deliver omnichannel customer experiences that turn browsers into buyers.  As the Product Experience company, Akeneo helps leading brands, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers such as Chico’s, Staples Canada, Boohoo, Canon USA, BoxyCharm, The Very Group, and LVMH deliver engaging and compelling product experiences that foster customer loyalty. With its modern and best-of-breed PIM, highly-connected App Store, leading SIs, and API-driven technology, Akeneo dramatically improves product data quality and accuracy, simplifies catalog management, and accelerates the sharing of product information across all channels and locales.  

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  About Software Advice Software Advice guides businesses through the software buying process. Through 1-on-1 conversation and trusted insights, industry-specific advisors guide buyers to top software options in as little as 15 minutes (and it’s 100% free). Founded in 2005, Software Advice has helped more than 900,000 businesses find the right software for their specific needs. Software Advice also features over 2 million verified user reviews to ensure people feel confident in their technology decisions. For more information, visit softwareadvice.com

For over a decade now, clients have turned to PIM (Product Information Management) solutions to streamline, structure, and effortlessly distribute their product catalogs across various channels. Initially, the focus was on finding the best platform with the most impressive features, often driven by IT departments.  However, what most teams failed to consider at the time was that PIM platforms are primarily utilized, on a day-to-day basis, by business profiles, including marketing managers, product managers, legal experts, and more. Viewing these projects solely from a technical perspective resulted in complexities that impacted user-friendliness and hindered seamless integrations. As a result, the adoption of the PIM tool suffered, making it nearly impossible for business users to efficiently manage their product catalogs within the system. At the time, we heard confident statements like: “Just connect the PIM to our ERP and send data to eCommerce, it’s easy!” “Our ERP data is clean and well-organized!” “Replicate our existing data model and processes in the PIM, that’s all we need!” “No need for change management, we’ll inform users after the integration is done.” “We’ll figure out the users during implementation, no worries!” “Here’s a list of features we need, and my requirements are clear enough!” These statements encapsulate the challenges faced, and it’s why we strongly recommend companies reevaluate their needs and seek external agency expertise. To ensure success, it’s vital to address both technical and, most importantly, business needs from the outset. That’s why we here at Valtech put together a set of comprehensive recommendations aimed at guiding companies in their quest to find the perfect PIM platform with utmost clarity and precision. By prioritizing the identification of business needs that encompass a meticulous review of processes and profiles, businesses can effectively unravel the complexities of the PIM paradox and unlock the true potential of their product management.

Step 1: Know Yourself 

List all the vital elements of your product catalog – your arsenal of complexity!

• Identify your objectives & KPIs – the compass guiding your conquest! 
• Reveal the channels where you’ll unleash your products, storming the sales domain!
• Harness your source of information – will it be internal development or a battalion of suppliers?
• Picture your catalog’s evolution – from today to a future of global dominance!
• Count your SKUs, the backbone of your army, and predict the forthcoming surge!
• Embrace the attributes – the lifeblood of your warriors, shaping their destiny!

 

Step 2: Define Your Product Offering 

Clarify how you market your product. This will help you measure the complexity of the data modeling exercise you’ll have to do in your PXM program.

• List & prioritize your subcategories – each requiring unique attributes to describe its digital prowess.
• Unleash your product types – Simple, Variants, Bundles, Kits, Accessories, Parts. It’s not always clear even for your internal teams that each develop their own definition over time.
• Gather your resources – assets, videos, documents, titles, descriptions; anything and everything you need to convert a customer.

 

Step 3: Conquer Your Challenges – Master Your Product Catalog Management

• Design your current process map – marching from product catalog distribution back to the genesis of your product creation – it’s the moonwalk theory in action!
• Identify the editors and consumers of your catalog – who are your internal clients & who are the people who need to deliver the proper information.

 

Step 4: Focus on Your Key Targets – Establish Priority Criteria

• Rank your products – the categories, product types, best sellers, and underdogs.
• Measure the impact – business, customer demand, compliance – aligning with strategic goals.
• Assign weights to each criterion – shaping your battle plan for a triumphant ROI.

 

Step 5: Minimal is Mighty – Unveil the Essential Product Information

Step into your customer’s shoes – what essential information must you wield to conquer their hearts? Detail the attributes needed for each product type – product names, descriptions, SKUs, and more. Rally stakeholders across marketing, sales, operations tocapture all necessary data for an unyielding advantage.  

Step 6: Evaluate the Arsenal – List and Prioritize Requirements

Here are the different categories of requirements I recommend:

• User roles & permissions
• Product information source (from internal sources like a PLM or external sources like providers sending information)
• Product creation & enrichment trigger
• Assets 
• Enrichment
• Search
• Navigation & UI
• Architecture & technical requirement including data flows & methods to transfer data
• Product Lifecycle
• User workflows
• Taxonomy
• Channel syndication & distribution (marketplaces, print, websites, etc…)

 

Step 7: Validate and Unite – Stakeholder Inputs

Engage stakeholders from various departments and roles to gather their inputs on the prioritization process. Their expertise and insights can help validate and refine the prioritized list of requirements. Additionally, involving stakeholders fosters a sense of ownership and ensures that the implemented PIM system meets the diverse needs of the organization.  

Step 8: Build the Business Case

In a visual business case – a blueprint of your conquest:

• Unveil the WHY – the need for your program’s PXM analysis.
• Showcase your might with figures, visuals, products, and assets – a compelling catalog overview! Concatenate all the figures you’ve analyzed in steps 1 and 2 with visual examples of your different products & assets and clearly define each of these.
• Objectives & KPIs – the compass guiding your triumphant campaign.
• Process mapping – A visual business process mapping of your current versus desired product catalog management process that clearly identifies users, processes, and systems so the providers can demo workflow features accordingly.
• List of functional & technical requirements per need as listed in step 6 in the format of user stories.
• Scorecard – a tool to compare platforms and crown the ultimate victor.

  Prioritizing product requirements for PIM implementation is crucial for the success of your organization’s data management efforts. By identifying and categorizing product types, defining data requirements, and establishing priority criteria, you can ensure that the most critical aspects of your product information are effectively managed within the PIM system – and that you select the right one. But before starting to shop for a solution, you’ll need to do an internal audit regarding your real needs. And you’ll often need an external eye to support you on gathering the right stakeholders, answers, and visuals to make this happen.  Want to know more about successfully implementing a people-first PX platform? You can schedule a 1:1 meeting with a PX expert here, learn more about the Akeneo x Valtech partnership, or see the collaboration in action with joint customer, Bath Depot.

Are you giving your buyers an error-free experience with your product information? The answer is probably “no”, and the impact of these errors is likely more than you realize. 

Product information helps buyers discover your products, provides critical information about a product and its use, and even helps convey your brand values. Simply put, errors in product information hurt the customer experience and brand reputation, and even cost your organization money through lost sales or abandoned purchases. 

Let’s take a look at 6 of the most common errors we see with product information.

 

1. Inconsistent Data

Populating product data is a collaborative effort that brings together multiple data sources and teams to create the final product record. These disparate data sources, each with their unique formats, coupled with individual contributors adding their own interpretations, can lead to multiple ways of describing the exact same data if proper governance isn’t implemented.

The Impact: These inconsistent formats can lead to multiple filter options for a customer that creates a poor navigation experience. This degrades the customer experience and impacts the discoverability of your products.

 

2. Failing to Consider Intuitive Language for Customers

Organizations often sell products with unique, complex, or highly technical product details that don’t always align with how customers try to find their products. The most common example is found in color, where a product with an exotic color like Burgundy is not linked to a generic “Red” SEO keyword or filter. 

 

The Impact: Your Burgundy EasyGo Road Cruiser Bike may be the perfect product for a customer who never sees it because they don’t understand your marketing colors. Searching for “Red” is far more intuitive than searching for Burgundy. Learn more about this color conundrum here.  

Color is just one example; this challenge exists across many product specifications and every industry brings its own nomenclature that you shouldn’t necessarily expect your customers to know. 

 

3. Showing Customers Internal Language 

Many organizations have internal abbreviations or codes for product information that are never intended to be seen by customers. This often originates from procurement processes and ERP systems with limited space, and is supposed to be replaced before products make it in front of customers. This doesn’t always happen though.

The Impact: This internal language looks sloppy, can be confusing for customers who may not understand internal codes, and can even impact discoverability if it’s included in particularly sensitive places like product names or specs. 

 

4. Showing Customers Placeholder Language

During the development process of products, it’s not uncommon for certain pieces of information to not yet be available. In these instances companies will insert temporary filler language with the intention of going back later to replace it with the final version. The problem comes when companies fail to go back and update the information, often due to tight launch deadlines or unclear processes with no ability to validate the final version. 

The Impact: At best, customers are exposed to an obvious error that erodes their trust in the product and you as a brand. At worst, it means critical information is withheld from the customer that impacts their buying decision, or impacts their ability to find the product because of SEO gaps or missing filters. 

 

5. Showing Customers Inaccurate Data 

Human error is always a risk for organizations that don’t have proper tools or governance in place. A content specialist entering hundreds or thousands of products a day in a spreadsheet or the back-end of an unwieldy eCommerce platform will inevitably make errors. 

 

The Impact: Customers who see information that is obviously incorrect will lose trust in the product and your brand. An even worse outcome is that the customer won’t realize there’s an error, purchase the product anyway, get something that’s different than they expected and carry out a return. Returns are expensive and will further degrade a customer’s loyalty to the brand.

 

6. Neglecting Product Compatibility

Products typically don’t live in a vacuum. There may be complementary products that a buyer would be interested in adding to their shopping cart, or products they want to buy in conjunction with another product they already own. An example would be a customer trying to buy a charger for an Electric Car they already have at home. Maintaining this type of relational data can be difficult and some organizations fail to include it, making these types of purchases extremely difficult for customers as they don’t have the information they need.

The Impact: Customers are left uncertain about whether the product they’re about to purchase will meet their needs, which pushes them to buy elsewhere. A charger for an electric car is a critical item for a customer that relies on their car everyday, and they may not be willing to gamble on whether or not their car is compatible with a product they want to buy. Finally, failing to present compatible products means missing out on cross-sell opportunities for other products and services which can have a significant impact on your bottom line. 

Eliminating these errors can be more difficult than it appears because they’re often a systematic failure in how product information is managed in an organization. It’s not just a data error, it’s a breakdown in how you leverage people, process, and technology within your organization to build and deliver product experiences for your customers. 

Reach out to an Akeneo expert today to get started on developing a comprehensive Product Experience (PX) Strategy that can help you address these product information issues and more.

The business landscape has been undergoing a significant transformation with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Although it’s important to acknowledge that AI isn’t a magical cure-all, there’s no denying its potential to revolutionize customer experiences.  In fact, it has become a pivotal tool for companies seeking to elevate their customer interactions to new heights. While human oversight remains essential, the integration of AI opens up exciting opportunities for brands to enhance customer satisfaction, meet rising customer expectations, predict customer behavior, and foster unwavering loyalty. While there’s a lot of information out there about the possibilities of AI, let’s take a look at four ways forward-thinking organizations are using AI today to provide a more compelling customer experience.  

1. Reduce Errors & Gaps in Data and Visuals

In the digital age, maintaining a strong brand image and building customer trust heavily relies on data consistency and accuracy. With the vast amount of information dispersed across various platforms, businesses often struggle to ensure that the data presented to customers is correct, up-to-date, and consistent. This is where AI-powered tools come to the rescue, offering efficient solutions to comb through massive datasets and identify any missing, incorrect, or inconsistent information across all channels. For instance, product descriptions, pricing details, and specifications are critical pieces of information that customers rely on when making purchasing decisions. AI algorithms can be employed to automatically analyze and validate this information, rectifying any discrepancies and updating it in real-time. This ensures that customers receive reliable and accurate information, no matter which platform or touchpoint they are using to interact with the brand. Moreover, AI can play a crucial role in analyzing visuals and multimedia content associated with products. Brands often use numerous images and videos to showcase their offerings, and it’s essential to cross-verify that the right visuals are correctly linked with the corresponding products. AI-powered image recognition and verification algorithms can automatically match visuals to products, reducing the chances of errors or mismatches. It’s even possible to take product visualization to the next level by generating mock-ups of products in various colors, sizes, or styles, enabling customers to visualize how the product would look in different variations.   

2. Enhancing Customer Support

Prompt and effective customer support plays a pivotal role in the success of any business; it is the backbone of building trust and loyalty among customers. AI technology can significantly augment the efficiency of support teams, enabling them to provide even better assistance to customers.  AI-powered tools can analyze support tickets, chat logs, and customer interactions to identify the most frequently asked questions and common issues faced by customers, freeing up your customer support reps to focus on higher value-add work or more complex and critical support inquiries. By automating responses to these FAQs, AI can provide quick resolutions without the need for human intervention. While AI can handle routine tasks, human representatives excel in providing personalized and empathetic support. By offloading repetitive inquiries to AI, support teams have more bandwidth to devote to understanding and addressing the unique needs of customers. Empathy and understanding are crucial in making customers feel valued and heard, leading to a positive emotional connection with the brand and faster problem resolutions.  

3. Deliver Personalized Recommendations

As consumer expectations continue to grow, personalization has emerged as a key differentiator organizations can use to stand out from the competition. AI’s prowess in analyzing vast amounts of customer data has revolutionized the way brands approach personalization, providing the ability to create tailored experiences that cater to individual preferences and needs based on real customer data. AI algorithms excel at processing and analyzing large datasets, including customer browsing history, purchase behavior, and interactions on the website. By understanding these patterns and preferences, AI can predict the products or services that customers are most likely to be interested in, enabling companies to offer personalized product recommendations that increase the likelihood of conversions. AI technology can even help reduce cart abandonment rates; when a customer abandons their shopping cart without completing the purchase, AI can automatically identify this behavior and trigger targeted marketing campaigns to re-engage the customer. These campaigns might include personalized emails with discounts, special offers, or incentives to encourage the customer to return and complete their purchase, helping to recover potentially lost sales and boost conversion rates.  

4. Enter New Markets Swiftly

Expanding into new markets or geographical regions is often a complex and costly endeavor, especially when it comes to overcoming language barriers and localizing content to resonate with new audiences. AI offers invaluable solutions that streamline this process, making market expansion more accessible and efficient. AI-powered translation tools can swiftly and accurately translate product descriptions, marketing materials, and websites into the languages of target markets, saving time and effort for businesses and enabling them to make a seamless entry into foreign markets. AI not only simplifies the translation process but also enables businesses to test new markets more efficiently and at a lower cost. AI can analyze data from different markets to gain insights into customer behavior, preferences, and response to marketing efforts, identifying the most promising opportunities and helping businesses prioritize and focus on regions with the highest potential for success. By understanding customer sentiments and demands in these new regions, businesses can adjust their strategies accordingly before making substantial resource commitments.  

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  While AI has been heralded as the next wave of technology to revolutionize the retail industry, many of the articles out there focus on the speculation of how AI can impact the way we do business over the next couple of years. And while it undeniably holds enormous potential to revolutionize the way we shop down the road, there are several ways AI can be utilized today to reduce errors, enhance customer support, deliver personalized recommendations, and smoothly expand into new markets. By combining the power of AI with human ingenuity and oversight, businesses can create a customer-centric approach that fosters long-term loyalty and success. As technology continues to evolve, the possibilities for leveraging AI to improve the customer experience are endless. 

As the interest in sustainability is growing in the mass market, resale and growth of the secondhand market are featured in news headlines every month. However, the variety of possible execution models, limited data availability, and fear of failure make many companies hesitant to take full advantage of the opportunity at stake.

As more consumers become sustainability-oriented, the demand for resale business increases for brands and retailers. Let’s quickly talk about some facts. 

• Market growth (US): Resale in the United States experienced record growth in 2021 at 58%, and in 2022 it grew 5x as much as the retail clothing sector.
• Fast adoption (EU): 90 million EU shoppers engaged in reselling for the first time in 2023 (compared to only 16 million in 2020). 
• Consumer sentiment: 41% of consumers use resale as a way to access hard-to-find pieces, while 40% consider it a more sustainable choice, and 36% want to save money.
• Circular behaviors: 9 out of 10 surveyed shoppers participating in resale market, buy new and pre-owned, while 75% resell their items.

Fashion and luxury are the most talked about from the perspective of growth in the secondhand market. But the trends apply to other sectors, such as electronics and other consumer products, as well.

 

How to Go After the Opportunity

The resale business is not a new concept in the market. The first model of general marketplaces, such as eBay, has been around for years. The next generation of the model includes specialized marketplaces – dedicated to consumer or fashion products, as well as consignment marketplaces – that actively manage the resale process. For brands or retailers, these models give quick access to a big audience, and provide easy ways to participate in the secondhand market with little operational burdens – but at the expense of not being directly involved in the consumer touchpoint nor transaction. 

The big idea of value creation in resale is customer lifetime value expansion, which is virtually impossible without owning the relationship with the consumer. To help companies with lifetime value expansion, white-label recommerce service providers have emerged in recent years. These companies support brands and retailers in establishing their resale business under their brand, with a dedicated storefront – offering out-of-the-box solutions, outsourced operations, and a branded experience for shoppers. This is a huge step in consolidating the “new” and “pre-owned” business as it takes back the ownership of the value generated by products the companies initially sold (and could resell again!). 

However, such models come with limitations – an “outsourced” business typically involves breaking points in customer experiences with limited visibility into demand and supply, and much delayed or fewer ways to build on the newly established customer touchpoints. 

 

No One Recipe for Success

There are various ways to succeed in the resale business model. For example, specialists can support brands and retailers with services for product lifetime extension and operations that will limit environmental impact, in a way that is measurable and traceable. Also, sustainability plays a major role in the resale business and is a big drive in setting up a proper ecosystem for resale execution.

Success in the resale business starts with an alignment between business objectives and brand strategy. Organizations need to keep in mind that the customer experience as well as transaction data become a foundation for expanding customer lifetime value, which benefits the resale business. Companies can build trust with consumers via the “front-office” by delivering the best, most optimized customer experience. From the “back-office” perspective, they need to be equipped with the capabilities to handle complex recommerce operations along with the right data and insights to connect supply and demand signals. 

 

Room for Innovation

Once the basic setup of a resale business is in place, the question about maximizing its revenue, profit and customer lifetime value emerges. The answer to it would look different as each company has their own story and brand equity, combined with the circular mindset.   

For some, it would be about building new experiences that consumers can try using pre-owned products – lowering the barrier to trying a new sport, variation, or style. For others, it would be a way of capturing more customers who need certain products for a short amount of time, and an easy way to bring back a product after it serves its purpose. On the luxury end, it would be more related to collecting and reselling archive pieces or merging the digital and physical ownership using NFTs, and other forms of digital ownership. 

In a world where every purchase has the potential to make a difference, the rise of value-driven shopping has become an unstoppable force. Gone are the days when consumers merely sought products; now, they crave a connection with the heart and soul behind the brand, and if they don’t connect with your business’s message, they’re quick to abandon purchase in search for an organization that shares their views. 

Our 2023 Global B2C Survey uncovered that two-fifths of consumers have declared their willingness to pay more for brands that proudly showcase their core values. And it’s not just a passing fad; we also found that these consumers are prepared to invest an average of 18% more for products that weave meaningful brand values into their very fabric.

But what actually matters most to consumers these days, and how can your brand ensure that you’re effectively communicating your investment in these areas? Let’s take a look at four pathways to breathe life into your brand’s core values through product information, forging an unshakable connection with your customers. 

 

1. Sustainability

With sustainability becoming a major concern for consumers, brands need to prioritize communicating their efforts in this area. Our B2C Survey revealed that 35% of customers consider sustainability a crucial piece of product information. Moreover, a staggering 63% of consumers stated that they would stop buying from a brand if they lost trust due to a lack of transparent and accurate product information. To communicate your sustainability efforts effectively, brands must have access to the right product information that can be syndicated across all customer touchpoints.

One effective way to achieve this is through Digital Product Passports, which will soon be required by law for any organization that sells or conducts business within the EU. These passports require organizations to gather data on a product and its supply chain and share it across entire value chains so all actors, manufacturers, repairers, and consumers better understand the environmental impact of the materials and products they use. Not only does this promote sustainable and ethical supply chain communication, but it also provides consumers with the information they need to make an educated purchase that aligns with their desire to protect the planet.

 

2. Disability Accessibility 

Inclusivity is another critical aspect of a brand’s values that can be conveyed through product information. Ensuring that your website and products are accessible to people with disabilities, such as those with hard of hearing or blindness, is essential. Having the right product information in the appropriate places enables these individuals to effectively utilize assistive tools, like screen readers that convert on-screen text into synthesized speech or Braille output, and have an equally enjoyable browsing experience.

In order to provide additional information to these assistive technologies, a set of attributes referred to as ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) can be added to HTML elements. These attributes help screen readers and accessibility tools understand the interactive elements, live regions, and dynamic content on a web page, improving the user experience for individuals with visual disabilities. By clearly identifying interactive elements, users can efficiently interact with the website and perform actions like adding products to their cart or submitting forms. ARIA attributes can also be applied to indicate when a product is currently out of stock or unavailable for purchase, or used to describe visual elements like product images, all of which require the appropriate product information around product availability or image alt-text to be readily available.

3. Size/Gender inclusivity

Though these values tend to apply specifically to fashion brands, size and gender inclusivity is an important aspect of a brand’s value set that consumers are increasingly prioritizing in their purchase decisions. In a world that celebrates uniqueness and diversity, brands that embrace size and gender inclusivity in their product information are paving the way for a more inclusive and accepting shopping experience.

One of the most powerful ways to promote size inclusivity is through product photos that reflect the diversity of your customer base. Rather than showcasing products solely on models with conventional body types, fashion brands can feature their products on models of various sizes and appearances.

Accurate and inclusive size guides are another essential component of size inclusivity. Providing detailed measurements that cater to a wide range of sizes ensures that customers can confidently choose the perfect fit for their unique body shape.

And it’s not just size inclusivity that’s a hot topic; rigid gender norms are also being challenged more and more frequently. To stay ahead and foster a more positive shopping experience for all customers, brands should reconsider their approach to gender categories. Instead of strictly dividing products into traditional men’s and women’s sections, consider providing options for non-binary individuals and those who prefer gender-neutral clothing by offering gender-inclusive product categories or providing gender-neutral options for certain items. Beyond product images and categories, the language and messaging used in product information also play a crucial role in promoting inclusivity. Avoid gender-specific language when it’s unnecessary, and opt for gender-neutral terms that resonate with a broader audience. This simple yet powerful gesture goes a long way in establishing an emotional connection with customers, signaling that your brand respects and values their identities. 

 

4. Back to School/Education

For brands looking to support education and back-to-school initiatives, effective communication of product information is crucial. Running a campaign where a portion of sales goes to a local school requires accurate information about qualifying products, the percentage of the price being donated, and precise tracking of contributions. Transparent and accurate product information instills trust in customers, assuring them that their purchases are making a genuine difference in supporting education.

Plus, back-to-school season provides an opportunity for brands to connect with a large influx of customers on major retailer websites that have historically carried out back-to-school campaigns like Target, Walmart, and Amazon. Product detail pages serve as the frontline in capturing customers’ attention and driving conversions on these sites – brands should ensure that their product information is comprehensive and engaging across every retailer platform. This includes high-quality images and videos that showcase products in action, user reviews that build credibility and trust, accurate stock availability to prevent disappointment, and shipping estimates that manage customer expectations.  A compelling presentation of product information captures shoppers’ attention, fosters trust, and ultimately encourages them to choose your brand over competitors during the back-to-school rush. By providing well-prepared and informative product detail pages, brands significantly boost their credibility and visibility in crowded online marketplaces.

Beyond the technical aspects of product information, storytelling holds the key to forging a deep emotional connection with customers during the back-to-school season. Brands can leverage narrative videos and behind-the-scenes stories to communicate their commitment to education and the community. Share heartwarming stories of how the campaign impacts local schools, highlighting the real difference it makes in students’ lives. Personal anecdotes and testimonials from educators, students, and school administrators further solidify the brand’s dedication to supporting education.

As consumers become more discerning about the values and practices of the brands they support, it is imperative for businesses to invest in creating product content that highlights and reinforces these values. By leveraging product information effectively, such as through narrative videos and behind-the-scenes stories, brands can build a deeper connection with their customers. Transparent, accurate, and inclusive product information not only facilitates informed decision-making but also builds trust and loyalty with consumers who share similar values. Embracing communication of brand values through product information can lead to more significant customer engagement and increased brand reputation in today’s value-driven market.

To learn more about how to utilize product information to communicate your brand’s value and gain deeper insights into trending consumer behavior, be sure to check out the full 2023 B2C Survey Results Report.

Recently, we introduced the latest collaboration between Akeneo and Calago: the ETIM app, which serves as a seamless connector between the ETIM API and Akeneo, revolutionizing the way catalog structures are created.  By integrating the power of ETIM with the efficiency of Akeneo, this app simplifies the process of adhering to ETIM standards and streamlines catalog management for businesses worldwide.  

What is ETIM?

ETIM, short for “European Technical Information Model,” has emerged as a critical global technical standard. ETIM provides a standardized classification and structure for technical product data across various industries, ensuring consistency, interoperability, and streamlined information exchange.  As a result, ETIM has become a fundamental framework for industries such as construction and electrical, enabling efficient data management, effective communication, and enhanced collaboration throughout the supply chain.  

Akeneo x Calago

Before the development of the Calago ETIM app, integrating the technical characteristics of the ETIM standard into Akeneo required manual effort and time-consuming processes. While the software previously created attributes and families, it did not automatically populate the product data itself.  This meant that customers had to invest significant resources in manually creating attributes, particularly for businesses dealing with a wide range of product types requiring numerous classes and features. The whole process of creating ETIM structures in Akeneo could take hours or even an entire day depending on the complexity of the product catalog. The newly introduced Calago ETIM app directly addresses the challenges faced by businesses in integrating ETIM standards into their Akeneo catalogs. The app offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies the process to just a couple of clicks, enabling users to create a complete catalog structure in Akeneo within just a few minutes.  Moreover, the app provides the option to schedule automatic updates, ensuring that the latest classes from the ETIM API are fetched and integrated into the catalog automatically. This automation eliminates the need for manual updates and allows businesses to “set and forget” their ETIM catalog structure, especially for companies whose product classes experience minimal changes over time.  

The Future of the ETIM App

Looking ahead, the Calago ETIM app aims to enhance its functionality to meet the evolving needs of businesses. One of the planned improvements includes the addition of reporting features, which will notify users of any removed attributes or features within the ETIM standard. This reporting will enable users to efficiently manage attribute removals from Akeneo, ensuring compliance with the latest ETIM standards. Furthermore, the app will introduce an export functionality, allowing users to export data from Akeneo back out according to the ETIM standards. Additionally, the app’s roadmap includes catering to businesses that already have an existing structure in Akeneo and wish to align it with the ETIM structure. This enhancement will provide flexibility for customers to maintain their own structure while still adhering to ETIM standards, offering a harmonious integration of their catalog management practices. The Calago ETIM app represents a significant step forward in simplifying the creation and maintenance of catalog structures within Akeneo, adhering to the global ETIM standard. By automating the process, reducing manual efforts, and providing a user-friendly interface, the app empowers businesses to effortlessly manage their catalogs and ensures seamless interoperability within the industry. With future updates and improvements, the ETIM app will continue to serve as an essential tool for businesses seeking to streamline their catalog management processes and enhance their compliance with industry standards. Are you interested in learning more about how Calago and Akeneo can help your organization comply with ETIM standards? Reach out to an Akeneo expert today.

As we navigate the ever-changing landscape of digital commerce, one thing is certain: innovative technologies continue to reshape the way we shop online. The future of digital retail holds immense potential, fueled by advancements that were once only the stuff of science fiction. From AI-driven commerce to AR & VR experiences to live commerce or social shopping, the possibilities are endless.

Let’s take a look at the top four ground-breaking technologies that are impacting the digital commerce landscape today, and how companies are already utilizing these futuristic strategies today.

1. AI-Driven Commerce

The leaps and bounds we’ve made within Artificial Intelligence (AI) over the past few years is truly mind-boggling; what once produced clunky, robotic chunks of text can now create eloquent and natural-sounding sentences that pass through human detection with ease. Generative AI can help product teams create compelling (and SEO-friendly) product descriptions and product page copy, along with instantaneous translations and suggestions for product information. Not to mention, this technology can analyze almost unfathomable amounts of data instantaneously, sorting through millions of transactions, interactions, and browsing patterns to pull out customer insights that lead to more personalized product recommendations, advertisements, and customer experiences. And it can even digest visual content – brands can utilize AI to analyze product images to identify characteristics like color, material, and size to pull as attributes.

 

Mondial Tissus Spins AI Magic for Seamless Growth

Mondial Tissus, a leader in the French retail market for fabrics and haberdashery items, successfully leveraged AI technology to supercharge their product experience. With the combination of a composable PIM and ChatGPT’s AI capabilities, Mondial Tissus automated the generation and translation of hundreds of product attributes, resulting in improved product descriptions and easy localization of content for international markets within hours. This not only accelerated their time-to-market but also enhanced the quality of their offerings, empowering their teams to develop high-value assets, personalized for each season, and expand into new geographies with ease.

 

 

2. AR & VR Commerce

Together, AR and VR are transforming digital commerce, blurring the lines between online and physical shopping. With VR, consumers can virtually “try on” clothes and accessories without stepping foot in store. Similarly, AR allows consumers to visualize products in their home before ever making a purchase. Visual configurators personalize the shopping experience by enabling customers to visually bundle the items of their choice and customize to their heart’s desire. By meshing the ease of online shopping with the power of physically seeing how a product incorporates into a space, brands are empowering consumers to make better shopping decisions. Plus, these brands will then have the data they need to suggest compatible products to compliment a buyer’s choice, encouraging cross-sales.

 

From Hollywood to Your Homepage: Visual Effects for eCommerce

Founded by a CGI expert who created visual effects in Hollywood, Threekit is a 3D product configurator that offers brands the opportunity to create virtual and augmented reality experiences for their customers on their own D2C site. By enabling consumers to visually change color, fabric, or size of products and see the adjustment in real-time, Threekit provides a visual representation of the exact product that the consumer wants. Plus, their AR tool for eCommerce lets users virtually place these customizable products in their space. Utilized by Starbucks Coffee, Crate&Barrel, and TaylorMade, Threekit is already supporting the visual commerce efforts of massive corporations. 

 

 

3. Live Commerce

Live commerce is an emerging trend that combines live streaming and eCommerce, providing a real-time interactive shopping experience to consumers. Influencers, brands, or retailers will broadcast live video sessions where they showcase and demonstrate products, engage with viewers, and offer exclusive deals or discounts. 

Not only does this interactive format allow customers to ask questions, receive instant feedback, and make purchases directly within the livestream, but it also enables businesses without the resources for a brick-and-mortar store to still showcase their products and build trust and credibility among customers.

However, as with all aspect of digital commerce, the product experience your business can offer through live commerce is only as good as your product information. If you provide an influencer with the wrong list of ingredients for the lipstick they’re demoing, or doesn’t know the correct dates for a flash sale that someone asks about in the chat, this experience falls flat and becomes a liability for the brand.

Beauty, Brains, and Real-Time Buys at Your Fingertips

Major beauty and personal care retailer Sephora has been making waves in the world of live commerce, hosting their “Sephora Live” events, where beauty experts and influencers broadcast live sessions to showcase products, makeup tutorials, and engage with viewers in real-time. During a “Sephora Live” session, the expert host will demonstrate application techniques, answer questions, and offer deals, encouraging consumers to interact through comments and make purchases directly in the live stream. This digital commerce strategy also enables Sephora to reach customers who may not live geographically near a Sephora location, driving revenue and unlocking new markets.

 

 

4. Social Commerce

Social commerce is one of the fastest growing segments of digital commerce as it fuses two of the most popular uses of the Internet: social media and online shopping. By bringing the convenience of eCommerce to popular social platforms like Instagram or TikTok, users can discover, research, and buy products all without exiting the app. 

Social commerce also enables consumers to easily access real, trustworthy user reviews, check out personalized recommendations, and purchase exactly the same item as their favorite influencer, all so that they can feel confident that they’re purchasing the right product.

Again, a strong social commerce presence relies on strong product information. Imagine a customer comes to your TikTok page to see videos of your product in action, but all they see are recycled images from Instagram plastered into a video template. Or they try to input a promo code they saw from a Tweet, but the promotion doesn’t start until the following week and the Tweet never mentioned that. This is a recipe for bad product experiences.

 

Starbucks’ Social Media Brews Up Success

Starbucks has effectively incorporated social media platforms into their digital commerce strategy, particularly Instagram and Twitter. On the photo-sharing app, Starbucks brews up visually appealing images of their products and utilizes the Instagram Shoppable post feature that allows users to click on tagged items and make purchases directly from the Starbucks website or app. Plus, they encourage user-generated content by promoting specific hashtags, featuring customer photos, and running Instagram-specific promotions.

Starbucks is equally as innovative on Twitter – through their “Tweet-a-Coffee” campaign, users are able to send digital Starbucks gift cards to friends or followers directly through just a tweet, linking their Starbucks account to their Twitter profile. Not only do these social channels allow Starbucks to promote their products and connect with customers, but they actually help drive revenue, customer loyalty, and a better customer experience.