In today’s fast-paced, dynamic, and exceedingly competitive commerce world, retailers and distributors need a healthy commerce ecosystem to succeed. Why? There have never been as many opportunities in the commerce industry, nor has there been as much competition.

From online retailers like Amazon and Etsy lowering the barrier to entry for entrepreneurs to sell products, to social media platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok entering the retail space, the eCommerce landscape has just exploded over the past few years and advancements in technology, increased competition, and the growth of available channels have made it easier than ever to buy and sell online.

 

eCommerce: Steadily growing, and showing no signs of stopping

As businesses came online during the COVID-19 pandemic, the global trend toward digitization surged ahead. Even with the recent rise in inflation, as regions began to reopen and consumers could shop in-person, eCommerce growth continues to climb. Merchants continue to follow consumer demand online, and this growth means more brands competing for customers.

Due to this increase in competition, the digital advertising dollar is not going as far as it used to. A recent study by Adobe saw that the rising cost of digital advertising was moving five times faster than inflation in the United States.

As the barrier to entry thins and the digital space becomes more crowded, brand identity and brand awareness will only become more crucial to draw more organic acquisition and retain more customers.

Not only are new competitors emerging, but new channel opportunities are as well. Brands and retailers need to be where their consumers are online to be top of mind, make an impact, and capture the sale. The typical social media user now spends about 15% of their waking life using social platforms; people around the globe are spending even more time scrolling through social feeds which leads to spending their money online.

Implementing an omnichannel product activation strategy is essential, and successful brands are the ones that are meeting customers where they already spend their time. The omnichannel opportunity is all about giving consumers choice and options around where, what, and how they engage with retailers and their products to make a purchase.

 

Utilizing the Product Ecosystem to Support Commerce Trends

Staying on top of commerce trends is not an option — it’s a necessity. For commerce business owners, keeping up-to-date on industry trends is particularly important to stay competitive and identify new opportunities. Partnering insight into commerce trends with a comprehensive, scalable, and well-functioning commerce ecosystem is the key to staying competitive and supporting your commerce business.

You’ve heard all of the ecosystem acronyms – ERP, PIM, MDM, and PLM, just to name a few, but why are they important? Whether you are B2C, B2B, a distributor or retailer, the end goal is the same – get your products to your consumers.

Most commerce brands have similar ecosystem components. However, the type, number, and scale of the tools or software they use for their online businesses will differ.

Identifying your desired business outcomes, key processes you want to improve, and what metrics you’ll use to measure impact will help guide your decisions on what systems within your commerce ecosystem will be most beneficial to your business.

Your commerce ecosystem can help you with marketing, sales, customer relations, inventory management, and product data and enrichment. Strong product data and the right commerce ecosystem can massively improve the customer experience, improve your time-to-market, and increase sales conversion.

That’s why the team here at Akeneo will spend the next few weeks diving into all the different areas of the product ecosystem, detailing what they are, how they interact with each other, and how to best utilize each piece of technology to create the most compelling omnichannel experiences. From the basics to the best practices, we’ll be providing you with everything you need to better understand the product ecosystem and how to build a scalable technology stack that supports the future of eCommerce.

A customer’s experience with your product is no longer just a single interaction; they may discover you on Instagram, search for you on Google, and compare your product to others by looking at user reviews, all to purchase your product on Amazon. Every single one of those touchpoints, and more, contribute directly to your customer experience (CX). What does that mean? Product experience (PX) is foundational to customer experience. This has been the mindset at Akeneo for some time, and in April 2022, we commissioned Forrester Consulting to explore this idea further. The research team at Forrester conduct an online survey with 452 global product strategy decision-makers with the intention to discover how product data and product content tools and processes impact engaging and contextualized customer experiences.  What we found was fascinating – though the right tools, people, and strategies may be in place, organizations have yet to tap into the right functionality and combination of resources to optimize their product experience strategy. Organizations are struggling to create and harness quality product data that they can use to inform customer experience development and achieve business goals. In particular, we discovered that:

Product experience is critical to customer experience and business success. 

Customer experience continues to dominate the path to growth for many organizations, but CX is impossible without quality product experiences and product data. Decision-makers recognize that top gains can be realized when their organization’s product activation strategy directly aligns with top-level business priorities.

Product experience requires the right technology but won’t be achieved without the processes and strategies to align tech to outcomes. 

Respondents to the Forrester survey revealed that their organizations are not struggling with a lack of tooling, but rather that they have trouble tapping into key functionalities required to develop a robust product experience. You may have all the product information technology you need, but you don’t have a focused strategy on how these platforms should communicate and work together, causing communication silos and a subpar customer experience.

PXM champions have invested in their PXM capabilities and are reaping the rewards.

When organizations invest in tech, people, processes, and quality product data, they are able to turn actionable insights into decisions that improve the product experience. PXM maturity cannot be reached with poor product data; by prioritizing how they activate their product data, teams experience the full benefits of having actionable access to their PXM data, such as the ability to activate and localize across all channels. This, in turn, provides pathways to better data-driven decision-making, increased agility, and ultimately, better CX.

Omnichannel customer experiences are here to stay, and brands and retailers are going to have to activate their entire product record across every channel, whether it’s owned by them or not. But this requires a dedicated PXM strategy with investments in the right people, processes, and technologies because the customer experience starts with the product experience. For more insights into how PXM is the foundation for a strong customer experience, you can download the full Forrester study here, or check out our on-demand webinar, featuring an industry analyst from Forrester breaking down the findings in detail.

For just about ten years now, Akeneo has hosted a yearly conference known as Unlock (or Akeneo Partner Summit, if you’ve been around from the start). It’s held every year in Paris and is one of the most highly anticipated PXM events of the year, featuring engaged audiences with expressed interests in collaborating toward the future of omnichannel commerce. And just about a month ago, in early October, Unlock expanded to the States. That’s right, Akeneo hosted its first-ever Unlock Boston event, and let’s just say it was a big hit; from keynote presentations to technical workshops to networking opportunities and even karaoke, our inaugural Unlock Boston conference brought together leaders and experts from every part of the PIM community to share challenges, lessons, achievements, and breakthroughs. Though there were many notable moments during the full day of activities and sessions, here are four of our favorite parts of Unlock Boston 2022.  

1. The customer and expert peer panels

Throughout the day, the Akeneo team hosted a number of different panels featuring guest speakers from massive global companies, including Chico’s, Sleep Number, and Thrasio. Covering a range of topics from the future of eCommerce to utilizing product information as the foundation for your growth strategy to creating the right mix of people, processes, and technology to create a PXM revolution, our engaging peer panels shed insights on some of the most important topics in the industry today. Forrester VP and Principal Analyst, Brendan Witcher made an appearance as well, giving an electric presentation on combining the right people and products to create success for your business. He dug into the real reason why consumers choose the brands they do, and how organizations can collect and organize the right information to better understand their consumers. Our favorite part? Seeing Francois Silvain, digital CTO at Havianas International, rock a pair of Haviana’s sandals on stage while providing thoughtful answers on the importance of omnichannel product activation.  

2. Akeneo Product Cloud & Product Updates

We may be a bit biased here, but unveiling our newest product release and vision for the future was one of the most exciting bits of Unlock Boston 2022. First and foremost, we announced Akeneo Product Cloud live on stage, the solution for product activation across any and all channels that accelerates commerce growth for businesses. Akeneo Product Cloud drives exceptional product experiences across owned and unowned channels that exceed the expectations of customers while eliminating chaos and delays from siloed operations. This type of composable SaaS solution enables teams to increase revenue, optimize internal operations, and reduce returns, creating lifelong customer loyalty. You can check out our article on the topic for a deeper dive into Akeneo Product Cloud and product activation. Unlock attendees were also treated to a sneak peek into new releases in the Akeneo product as well, including a walkthrough of Tailored Imports and Shared Catalogs.  

3. Meet & network with people

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. Unlock Boston offered up the perfect excuse to get to meet others in person, and gain quality time learning and speaking with each other. Whether it was roaming the partner marketplace, stopping by the Akeneo Genius Bar, or booking a one-on-one meeting with someone from the Akeneo team, there were plenty of opportunities to connect with one another and exchange ideas on the future of omnichannel eCommerce and how to get started with PIM. The day before Unlock, we even hosted our very first Customer Advisory Board (CAB) and an in-person Akeneo 101 training, hosted by our internal educational team.  

4. Fun!

Here at Akeneo, we consider ourselves to be people first and employees second. Sure, we’ve all gathered to exchange ideas and discuss important topics, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves! With plenty of food and drinks for all, retro arcade games scattered throughout, a killer DJ playing 80’s hits all night, and a karaoke machine that barely saw a break, we had an absolute blast partying with all of our customers and partners. We could go on and on about all the great things that happened at Unlock Boston this year, but we’ll cap ourselves at our top four here. At the end of the day, Unlock is an opportunity for leaders and experts in the world of commerce to come together and honor the art and science of creating omnichannel product experiences, forging alliances and meaningful connections along the way. We’d love to take a moment to say a big thank you to the wonderful Akeneo employees, partners, and customers who made this event possible. We couldn’t have done it without you, and we’ll see you back in Boston next year! If you don’t want to wait a whole year for the next Unlock event, Unlock Paris will be taking place March 8-9, 2023. It’s our ten-year anniversary of the event, you won’t want to miss it! Stay tuned for more details to come on how to register.

We are often asked if Akeneo PIM has workflow capabilities for product information. The answer is a resounding “Yes!” and it enables you and your team to collaborate on work with the usability Akeneo is renowned for, with none of the inflexible rigidity other solutions may present. Here’s how. Early in my career in tech (we’re talking 2000s here), I was often in front of customers demonstrating tools for business process management and enterprise document workflows. Things that looked cool, like drag-and-drop workflow designers and approval logic builders. They demoed really well. Thing is, hardly anyone really used them. Why is that? They were just too rigid and inflexible for the realities of the fast-paced and ever-changing digital workplace. Predefined workflows couldn’t take into account every scenario that would throw up a roadblock (like someone on the team suddenly being hospitalized) without the workflow either becoming overly complex or just too simplified to bother. The exception would be highly-regulated industries like government, finance, and pharmaceutical, where strict accountability is required. Workflow capabilities are absolutely available in Akeneo PIM Enterprise Edition, and they are all about giving you and your team the flexibility to make the work of collecting, enriching, and activating your product record flow. It’s all about gaining visibility into the collaboration that needs to be focused on work that ensures your product story gets to market without delay, and is of the highest quality that your customers expect. Tricked-out workflow design tools that most teams won’t use aren’t required here! Let’s take a look at the neat ways you can have a truly collaborative workflow with Akeneo PIM Enterprise Edition.  

Teamwork Assistant

One reason you might need a “workflow” is to ensure that your team stays on schedule and required work doesn’t get left behind. For example, you have a major launch of a new line of products coming up, and everything must be ready in time for your different channel and marketing teams to promote and sell them on the same day. That means everyone collaborating on those products needs to track progress on enrichment tasks that have been assigned to them, and be notified when there are new tasks for them to take care of. That’s where Teamwork Assistant comes in. Each set of products that needs to be worked on is grouped into a Project, based on their category, channel, and locale. For that Project, a due date is set, and those who have edit permissions for the products selected in the Project will be notified when required attributes need to be completed, based on the attribute groups they have edit permissions on. For example, Mary on the marketing team is responsible for ensuring product descriptions are complete, well-written, and aligned to the brand voice. So she has edit permissions on the Marketing attribute group. If a required Description field for a set of products in the Project isn’t completed, she will be notified repeatedly before the Project’s due date to do so. If everything is good to go with the required attributes that she has edit permissions for, then she won’t be bothered, and will only be notified when everything in the Project is complete. As you would expect, everyone involved can see the overall progress of the Project. And to help everyone be productive and focused, they can even see just the products in the Project they need to work on the Product Grid, just like a View.     How is this a different approach than rigid workflow process management? The assignment of the work is made to anyone on the team who has edit permissions for the selected products. So it doesn’t matter if Mary or her teammate Joseph completes the work, as long as it gets done. If Mary were to decide she wanted to escape to a remote island for a few weeks, the work doesn’t stop. Joseph can see what the progress of enrichment is, and pick things up without breaking the flow and without missing the critical deadline that was set.  

Proposals and Approvals

We often see bad product experiences everywhere. “Product description to come when Peter gets back to me with the details” is not something anyone wants to see when researching a product. This is another reason you might need a “workflow”: when collaborating as a team on the product record, you must ensure information doesn’t get out into the wild that hasn’t been checked and approved by a manager first. Akeneo PIM to the rescue here! Akeneo PIM Enterprise Edition provides granular and flexible permissions settings according to your business needs. I won’t go into detail on all of them here, but some that matter for proposal submissions and approving them are the permissions that can be set for a category in your product catalog. These permit user groups to either own products within the category, edit them, view them, or have no permissions at all.  Someone who can edit a product in a category, but does not own the category it’s in, will be able to edit a draft of the product information and then “Send for Approval” – individually, sequentially, or as part of a Bulk Action. The product(s) status will change accordingly, and the users that are part of the group that owns the category will be notified that they have proposals sent for their approval. They can view those in a single place from the Proposals menu under Activities, for a specific product in the Product Edit Form, or by creating a custom View that includes the Draft Status filter. Whatever suits your style of working the best! Whether the manager approves or rejects the proposal(s), the product(s) status will change accordingly: “Working Copy” ready to be published, “Waiting for Approval” or if the proposal doesn’t pass muster, back to “In Progress” it goes.     Notice some of that Akeneo usability and flexibility in the way Approvals work; the permissions are assigned to a group of users, so anyone within them can work as required to get the job done. Mistakes are minimized if not eliminated, and the workflow doesn’t stop because someone forgot to approve things. There’s more details to Proposals and Approvals, so check out the Akeneo Help Center to find out more.  

Making Work Flow

Why am I writing about all this for product information management for commerce businesses like yours? We are asked if Akeneo PIM Enterprise Edition has workflow capabilities. As you can now see, the answer is “Yes, we do! And you’re going to love how it works, and how it lets you get work done!” Ready to experience some of that workflow flexibility for yourself? Get in touch with us, and we would be happy to discuss how you can collaborate more effectively, without the rigidity.

At Unlock Boston 2022, we proudly introduced to the world Akeneo Product Cloud, our solution for how omnichannel businesses can activate their entire product story across any and all channels that their customers are on, whether owned or unowned, known or yet to be discovered. It’s an exciting vision that will bring Product Experience (or PX) to the same level of importance and business impact as Customer Experience (CX) has been for the last several years. During our introduction of Akeneo Product Cloud we also introduced the concept of Product Activation. In short, Product Activation is a strategy that removes the silos of people, technology, and data that exist within omnichannel businesses and that lead to poor product experiences across any one or more channels. By removing those silos, all the teams who manage each of the different channels where the product record is activated – D2C owned sites, marketplaces, retail network, marketing channels and beyond – are enabled to tell a consistent, complete, and compelling story whether they own the channel experience or not. A successful Product Activation strategy is made up of four essential parts:

1. The first step is managing all the information about a product. Not just the title, description, size, color, and so on, but also all the dynamic data that buyers are looking for, such as reviews, sourcing, pricing, availability, and so on.
2. You then need to connect all the data that is managed with different tools by different people, so that a single product record can be orchestrated as necessary.
3. The next step is activating that product record into all your different channels you need to be on, adhering to the personalized requirements of each channel, whether it’s owned by you or not.
4. Lastly, you need to know how that product record is performing across all your channels, with insights that guide you to the best ways to optimize that product record to help you achieve your growth goals or eliminate poor product experiences that increase returns and negative reviews.

So, the question then becomes, how does Akeneo Product Cloud support such a strategy for delivering those world-class product experiences? Let’s explore.  

Product Data Studios

The first part of a Product Activation strategy is to have the data and assets for the product record created, managed, and enriched. It all needs to be accurate and current as it’s important to you and to your customers. Product Data Studios are made up of specialized tools that manage each aspect of that product record. Today, you are familiar with marketing data and assets managed in a modern PIM like Akeneo PIM. There are also dedicated tools for user-generated content, pricing, availability, and technical product lifecycle information.  Some of these solutions you may already have today and are happy with. That’s great! Akeneo Product Cloud is built on a composable architecture, so you will be able to plug-and-play with the solutions you have in place already.  But what if you need new functionality, or have a gap today? We will be developing our own Product Data Studios to meet the needs of our customer’s Product Activation strategy while delivering that consistent and usable experience that you enjoy today with Akeneo PIM.  

Product Data Platform

So all that cold and hot data is being managed in Product Data Studios, but how does it all come together in a single product record? This is where orchestration in the Product Data Platform comes in. It will dynamically create a real-time golden record of your product story that can be activated across all the channels you need to display that product record.  This is also where developers can access that real-time centralized record to leverage it with other business applications and augment it if needed. For example, for use with commerce search and discovery solutions, or augmenting the customer record in a Customer Data Platform with product information. This is the heart of Akeneo Product Cloud.  

App Store

How do you go about activating that product record across all the channels you need to be on – from your D2C site to Amazon to your retailer to your ad networks? Apps is how this magic happens, connecting to the channels you need to be on directly, or through another solution such as an eCommerce platform or syndication tool.  And where do you find and enable those Apps? Why, an enterprise-grade, SaaS-based App Store of course, with functionality for users and tools for IT and developers to build, deploy, and manage those Apps.  

Performance Analytics and Insights

So your product record is activated across all the channels you need to be on. Congratulations! But the strategy doesn’t end there. How do you know you’re delivering the product experiences your customers expect? How do you know where your teams should focus their efforts on optimizing that product record?  This is where Performance Analytics and Insights come in, as part of the Product Data Platform. We know you already get lots of performance analytics on how your products are selling, how pages are converting. All great stuff. But do you know how elements of the product record are impacting business performance? Do you know which elements your team should spend their time on right now that will ensure great customer reviews? That’s where meaningful insights come in.  These insights will guide you and your team to take immediate action on the parts of the product record that will make a difference in business performance and the experience your customers have. For example, why might a product have high returns, and what can you do about the product experience to turn that around? The product itself may be great, but the product experience may not be. You can control that (much more effectively than trying to control the customer themselves!) and therefore understand how exactly your investment in Akeneo Product Cloud is driving your business growth.  

And what about PXM?

PXM, or Product Experience Management, is still vitally important when it comes to a Product Activation strategy. Success with Akeneo Product Cloud won’t happen overnight. It is a journey in the maturity of delivering world-class product experiences across all your channels. PXM is the set of best practices that guide you on the right journey to take, so that your internal and external team members are effective and productive, and giving you the peace of mind that you are making the most out of your investment in Akeneo Product Cloud.  Still a bit confused on how these all fit together? Check out the illustration below for a simplified view, and download Akeneo Product Cloud 101 for more information.  

  Providing an exceptional customer experience is impossible without providing an exceptional product experience, and that means a consistent and coherent product story across all channels, owned and unowned. Doing so is tricky, and requires a Product Activation strategy that enables truly omnichannel product experiences and supports a composable Product Cloud, like the Akeneo Product Cloud. Ready to see how omnichannel product experiences can unlock growth for your organization? Request a demo of Akeneo today.

It’s the fall season, and everyone in the Northern Hemisphere are preparing for the winter. Animals are gathering food and storing it for later use, and people are essentially doing the same thing — as the holiday season approaches, we mark the occasion with gatherings and feasts among family and friends (this happens in the Southern Hemisphere too!). Certainly, after the past few years, we all hunger for the ability to gather together and celebrate the season.

Fall also heralds the start of holiday gift-giving. And that means shopping in stores, on our favorite eCommerce sites, and on marketplaces. Perhaps we even get gift inspirations from imagery and posts we see on social media.

Through phases of development, Akeneo Product Cloud will include:

– Product Data Studios, that serve each of the core product record components starting with a modern PIM that natively provides product asset management and syndication capabilities, as the keystone to managing and optimizing the entire product record. Additional Studios will provide support for more dynamic product information elements such as product availability management, pricing optimization, user generated content, and product lifecycle management;

– A scalable Product Data Platform (PDP), to centralize and orchestrate the entire product record consumed from each of the Product Data Studios, with performance analytics to inform business strategies;

– And a native App Store, that makes it easy to activate product data across any commerce channel or business application, in addition to providing solutions for seamlessly augmenting the core product information created in the Product Data Studios and orchestrated in the PDP.

Read the full press release here, and you can learn more about Akeneo Product Cloud here.

The modern digital commerce platform is a key component of a successful eCommerce strategy. Today’s consumers expect a truly omnichannel experience, and the right commerce platform can help retailers deliver that.  But to be successful in today’s competitive eCommerce environment, it’s important to adopt the right modern digital commerce platform that supports the enterprise’s business goals and provides customers with a seamless experience across all channels.  

Challenges in Digital Commerce

Organizations face more new challenges to digital commerce efforts today than ever before as customers have elevated expectations about their shopping experience regarding how and where they browse to purchase products.  With thousands of touchpoints, from new eCommerce sites to social media apps introducing shopping and discovery capabilities, organizations face an almost unlimited number of challenges when it comes to syndicating and optimizing product information across digital channels, including: 1. Dealing with monolithic and legacy technology Legacy monolithic eCommerce systems aren’t designed to provide simpler and more personalized digital experiences. They offer limited support for configurable product information sourced from the organization’s PIM software and are lagging in the sophistication of their mobile-first customer experience. Static and brittle eCommerce platforms can’t adapt to industry and digital merchandising requirements and aren’t well connected across the variety of marketing channels where buyer engagement occurs.  2. Settling for impersonal commerce experiences These outdated technology systems and processes mean that scalability and growth becomes increasingly difficult for organizations as new channels emerge almost every day. Optimizing your product information for each channel is the ideal way to provide the best customer experience, regardless of where your customers find you, but that is merely a pipedream when your team is dealing with legacy technology, redundant processes, and inefficient communication. 3. Working with minimal PIM integration Traditional PIM technologies can often struggle with integrating and communicating with other platforms that are needed. Through 2024, one-half of organizations will conclude the lack of a modern dedicated PIM environment to optimize product experiences across marketing and sales channels hampers their operational effectiveness.   

PIM Requirements for Success

A modern platform for PIM supports centralized product information and unified storage with efficient collaboration and teamwork across the organization. Having a best-of-breed PIM platform and a network within which information is collected, assessed, and enriched can save time and resources while also contributing to the best possible product experience for customers. In order to take full advantage of all that a PIM can offer, your PIM solution should: 1. Integrate seamlessly into digital commerce through headless and API methods that ensure a modern architectural approach. Blending the best possible experiences across digital commerce requires the ability to bring a range of technologies that are not necessarily from the same vendor but that nonetheless integrate effectively. The innovation of headless digital architectures separates the front-end application from the back-end technology platform using microservices and API-based methods. This decoupling of technologies enables the opportunity to integrate and unify technologies like PIM, but they must be resilient in design. Market research finds that the majority (95%) of organizations deem it very important or important to integrate PIM and digital commerce, and through headless digital commerce architectures, the use of a PIM platform can be more tightly integrated and enable the information network to syndicate the products.  PIM is the keystone for an organization’s digital strategy, but it must be more than just a product catalog. Planning the technical aspects of headless platform integration with PIM is key. More important is guaranteeing a consistent and contextualized product experience with a fully enabled catalog. When PIM is trusted and integrated with the digital commerce platform, it can enable personalized interactions in both B2C and B2B use cases. 2. Support multi-channel marketplaces through product syndication and information network-based methods. Achieving the business and technology benefits of an investment into digital commerce and PIM together should be based on achieving desired outcomes today and in the future. Unlocking these benefits is possible by investing into technology featuring an architecture and platform that is composable and that can adapt and operate across digital channels in a resilient manner. Success with PIM starts with exploiting its full potential, from the platform to the product information network it must support. PIM is the keystone for an organization’s digital strategy, but it must be more than just a product catalog. When it is trusted and integrated with the digital commerce platform, it can enable personalized interactions in both B2C and B2B use cases.  3. Provide modern, highly-personalized digital product experiences, regardless of the channel. Organizations must provide the information a buyer needs, and this requires product information that is consistent, comprehensive, personalized, and accessible natively in the cloud. PIM enables a faster time-to-value from products through a higher velocity of products sold and through effective experiences for the customer. A modern digital platform for commerce and PIM enables faster time-to-value for products, personalized digital experiences, the automation of manual product processes, accurate product information for customers, and selling into new channels and marketplaces. Interested in learning more about how the right PIM solution can accelerate you towards a stronger digital commerce strategy? Reach out to an Akeneo expert today to get started on a path to better product experiences.

The year is 2010.

Omnichannel marketing is just a sparkle in the retail world’s eye. But that September, the stage is set by a groundbreaking study. According to IDC Retail Insights, retailers using multichannel strategies are able to boost average transaction size by 15-35%—and loyalty customers’ profitability by 5-10%.¹

Three years later, the notion of omnichannel retail—the integration of all existing retail distribution channels into a single, seamless shopping experience—was featured in Huffington Post. In the article, the emergence of omnichannel marketing is attributed to the exploding popularity of smartphones, which have enabled consumers to research competitive pricing while in the act of shopping.

Within another year, an MIT report proclaims that omnichannel consumers are the “central force shaping the future of e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores alike,” driving $12 billion in retail sales from their smartphones and using online research to drive $1.1 trillion in store sales.¹

Omnichannel for retail—as powered by product information management (PIM) and CRM platforms—had officially arrived.

But where did it come from? And what exactly does it look like?

 

Omnichannel Retail: Evolution and Domination

Let’s go all the way back to the ancient days of traditional single-channel marketing.

Retailers with only brick-and-mortar or online stores were able to reduce overhead, drive sales growth and secure market leadership by focusing their resources on a single distribution channel. But as consumers began to embrace the digital revolution and all the new platforms and devices that came with it, it became nearly impossible to compete with a single-channel strategy.

And thus multi-channel marketing was born, giving consumers greater choice over how and when they purchase products—and giving retailers greater insight into what their customers wanted and how to personalize the shopping experience.

But challenges arose.

Creating a seamless customer experience across multiple distribution channels, synchronizing channel data, expanding supply chains while maintaining inventory accuracy—it all put a tremendous strain on the multi-channel strategy, sparking another tectonic shift in how retailers respond to rapidly changing consumer trends: integrations.

By pulling every possible on- and offline distribution channel into a single, cross-platform shopping experience and centralizing data management, omnichannel marketing was able to give consumers and retailers a much better way to interact and transact.

Consumers could now rapidly and conveniently start their product search on one channel and complete their purchase on another. And retailers could now effectively align sales channels, inventory management solutions and marketing strategies.

Everyone won. And won and won.

 

The ins and outs of an omnichannel retail strategy

Getting an omnichannel retail strategy right isn’t just about taking a holistic approach to consumer interactions across different distribution channels. It’s about bringing the entire customer experience into focus—and making sure the journey from Discovery to Purchase is absolutely seamless.

From social ads and email newsletters to push notifications, chatbots, and face-to-face conversations, product information (and brand identity) needs to stay consistent. And transitioning between these marketing touchpoints needs to feel fluid.

If a site isn’t mobile-friendly, if experiences differ from touchpoint to touchpoint, or if information is itself inconsistent, omnichannel marketing just won’t pay off.

Equally as important is personalization. 

In a world where consumers expect companies to fully understand their needs and challenges, employing CRM systems and in-store technologies to customize the customer experience is critical. 

And when done right, the benefits are many and mutual. 

For example, creating personal logins for consumer accounts enables customers to save their preferences and simplify their sales journey. At the same time, it gives businesses an opportunity to collect valuable customer data (like email addresses, interests, and purchase histories) that can dramatically improve the effectiveness of future marketing efforts.

Of course, aggregating and analyzing all that data across multiple retail platforms is no easy task. And building an infrastructure that can support and standardize massive amounts of information is the only way to accurately and effectively unlock actionable consumer insight.

 

On the shoulders of giants

Today’s retail landscape is crowded with omnichannel retail success stories—and there’s no shortage of high-profile omnichannel eCommerce examples to learn from.

Take Amazon. 

From a simple online bookstore to the largest online marketplace in the world, Amazon sets the standard for marketing savvy. Today, the company’s ability to smoothly integrate everything from eCommerce and order management to warehousing management and order broker solutions remains a testament to the power of omnichannel retailing. 

And by focusing on consistent, quality customer engagement across the entire retail ecosystem, Amazon has been able to cultivate a vast global audience that gives its retailers greater visibility, improved customer traffic, and increased revenue.

But how far can you take customer engagement? 

Just ask Disney.

The entertainment behemoth’s gorgeous, responsive website makes it easy to plan a trip from the comfort of your phone. Once they’re booked, customers can then plan their entire vacations through the My Disney Experience mobile app—and use it to do everything from locate attractions to assess wait times.

If that weren’t impressive enough, Disney’s Magic Band program has made it possible for customers to use a single digital tool to unlock their room door, store photos, and order food. It even has a Fast Pass function to keep things moving along.

It’s a shining example of how seamlessly integrating multiple platforms and technologies can enhance the customer experience and bolster brand loyalty.

One more omnichannel eCommerce example for the road?

Consider Starbucks.

The company’s free reward card program enables customers to check and reload credit card information via phone, website, in-store, or mobile app. Any change in the information is then automatically updated across every channel in real-time.

It may seem simple or straightforward enough, but it’s one of those little conveniences that keeps customers coming back for more.

 

Onward to omni 

Today’s customer journey is anything but linear.

In the wake of a global pandemic, most of us were forced to shop differently—and constant advances in technology have made doing so easier and more rewarding than ever.

We interact with brands across multiple touchpoints, we discuss products across multiple channels, and we expect the people selling those products to know what we’re looking for—sometimes before we do.

Omnichannel marketing makes it all possible, incentivizing retailers to invest in the quality of every customer’s experience and improving their ability to understand and market to those customers.

And with the advent of PIM systems that ensure correct, consistent, high-quality data across every channel, retailers have everything they need to create compelling customer experiences that drive growth.

The whole omnichannel system’s symbiotic. And it works.

As technologies emerge and evolve, as retail strategies adapt, and as customer expectations continue to rise, omnichannel marketing will continue to play a critical role in retail success.

 

Sources

¹ https://nectarom.com/2015/01/05/brief-history-omnichannel-marketing/

Enterprises planning large transformations around their omnichannel commerce solutions are faced with a wide array of different technologies. A new trend toward composable commerce means that buyers are confronted with a confusing lineup of systems including DAM, PLM, ERP, CMS, eCommerce, and more. All of these technologies can play an important role in building a cutting-edge commerce solution, but where should you start? For many brands and retailers, the answer lies within a Product Information Management (PIM) solution.

Why Should You Start with a PIM?

1. Put the customer experience first

Customers today want seamless, high-quality experiences across all of a brand’s touchpoints, including marketplaces, social media, eCommerce sites, and more. A critical component of these experiences is giving customers the right technical, instructional, and emotional information about the products you sell. This information must be timely, accurate, and adapted to the sales channel, region, and language that customers are engaging from. A newer trend also has customers expecting personalized advice and recommendations around what you sell. Providing all of this can be a tall order, but the right PIM tool can centralize all your product information and ensure every customer touchpoint is optimized and up-to-date. When beginning a digital transformation, many companies lose sight of this critical focus on customer experience as they execute their strategies around expensive back-end systems (ERP, MDM, PLM), or chase the newest software trends. Starting a digital transformation with a PIM platform is a sure fire way to ensure you’re putting your customers and their experiences with your brand and products at the forefront of your transformation.  

2. Your poor product data is affecting more than you think

Many companies looking to buy the latest and greatest technologies in an effort to improve conversion rates and drive digital growth actually struggle with poor product information. They have product data that is inconsistent, generic, and ungoverned. This bad data permeates insidiously throughout their ecosystem and sabotages every new expensive digital project. Often the biggest gains come from rolling up your sleeves and cleaning up existing messes. High quality product information fuels positive online customer experiences, feeds search optimization and analytics, and is required for filtered navigation. Beginning a transformation with a PIM solution will ensure all of these product data issues are fixed, and provide other systems with the data they need to properly function.  

3. Increase your Time to Value

PIM solutions tend to be cheaper and much faster to launch (Akeneo projects can take as little as ninety days!). Many of the other systems you may be considering as part of your transformation (eCommerce, MDM, PLM, ERP, etc.) are more complex solutions that can take up to a year or more to implement, and require a tremendous amount of resources. Starting with a PIM solution will give you a quick win with measurable results, while also helping to clear the way for future projects by providing clean data and easy integration points.  

4. Get in on the ground floor with cutting-edge technology

It’s important to ensure your organization is adapting to the newest changes in technology. Today, this means abiding by MACH technology principals (Microservices, API-first, Cloud native SaaS, Headless) and having a composable commerce architecture. While many software vendors struggle to evolve and meet these rising standards, Akeneo PIM does meet these standards. It is imperative to find a tool that is built for the future, and beginning a transformation with a composable-commerce friendly solution ensures that your technology stack will be built to scale and grow from day one. PIM solutions are also designed to be easily integratable to numerous other systems, and should have multiple pre-built connectors to popular eCommerce, DAM, marketplace, datapool, CMS, and print solutions. Starting a digital transformation with a modern PIM solution like Akeneo means you have access to a wide ecosystem of technology partners that will ease your integration efforts and provide a wide range of options should your transformation strategy change.  

5. Provide a New Way to Work

There are numerous teams, processes, and applications involved in the life cycle of a product. A team of brand managers, buyers, product designers, eCommerce managers, photographers, translators, and even lawyers are involved in launching a new product to customers. Without a PIM, these teams work in silos with poor communication, a lot of excel spreadsheets, duplicate work and emails, countless revisions and error fixing, and no overall understanding of the big picture. A PIM solution brings all of these different users to the table and empowers them to work collaboratively on a single set of data with workflows and productivity tools. By starting with a PIM solution, you’re providing benefits to all of these teams immediately, and getting them together for the first time under the irreproachable objective of improving customer experiences. Starting with PIM provides the rest of your solution with a foundation of clean, compelling, customer-focused product information. PIM also opens the door to a new way to work by providing benefit to, and fostering collaboration between, the cross-functional teams modern commerce demands. An Akeneo PIM solution is a fast, economic way to incorporate a cutting-edge solution that gives you the flexibility and scalability to support future initiatives and growth opportunities, making it the ideal starting point for a transformation project.