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MAKING THE LEAP FROM E-COMMERCE TO PRODUCT EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT
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© 2020 © Magnitude Software, Inc. and Agility Multichannel. All Rights Reserved.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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FOR ATRANSITION?
TIME
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INTROMAKING THE LEAP FROM E-COMMERCE TO PRODUCT EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT
FACT: E-commerce is a moving target and every company eventually
outgrows its e-commerce platform. When your platform can no longer
deliver the functionality and performance your business requires, it’s
time for an upgrade.
Considering the significant cost of a new system in dollars and staff
resources, the stakes are high. Your company will be wedded to your
selection for many years. Your ability to compete and thrive depends
on a sound decision.
Before your organization selects a new platform or solution for e-commerce, you must be assured that
it can help you:
• Accomplish the objectives necessary for growth
• Address the pain points that are prompting the change
• Implement a custom solution that fits your organization
• Deliver a satisfying customer experience that ensures brand loyalty
• Keep your product data clean and buyer-ready
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ADMITTEDLY, THAT’S A TALL ORDER, BUT NOT INSURMOUNTABLE
In this ebook, we will help you understand whether it’s time for an upgrade; if it is, why product
information management (PIM) is a smart next step; and the importance of preparing for a transition
by ensuring you have clean, complete, consistent and contextual product data that serves the needs of
your business and your customers.
Let’s get started.
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Though a B2B eCommerce web site is a powerful tool, it is difficult to construct
without the right solution and support.
Data Source: Frost & Sullivan
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01As you look ahead, your organization likely has big plans that depend on the capabilities of your e-commerce platform, such as:
• Increasing the number of SKUs offered
• Drastically decreasing time-to-market
• Ranking high in search results and driving traffic to your site
• Freeing staff from manual effort and spreadsheet-driven chaos
• Getting departments, suppliers, vendors and affiliates to work collaboratively
• Reducing returns and decrease calls to Technical Support
• Implementing a workflow process that automates approval
• Publishing products multiple channels effortlessly
An existing e-commerce platform that can’t support such objectives is one that is holding your organization back. Compile your own list of strategic goals for your business and what features you expect an e-commerce platform to have to help you realize them.
For example, for the objective of increasing SKUs, you may want to require a platform that is scalable and supports unlimited SKUs. Finally, prioritize the features as Must Haves, Want to Haves, Nice to Haves (not deal-breakers). This allows you to identify the functionality most important to you when you examine a potential solution. This will represent one half of your eventual functional wish list — the dream state.
ACCOMPLISH THE OBJECTIVES NECESSARY FOR GROWTH
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02ADDRESS THE PAIN POINTS THAT ARE PROMPTING THE CHANGE
Your current platform obviously has shortcomings. Some are minor annoyances, but others hamper your
ability to transact business or manage your e-commerce process efficiently. The good news is that your pain
points can alert you to functionality you’ll need in an upgraded system:
List these pain points, most painful to least.
Redefine them as features that you seek in a new system. For example, “Having to manage
photos and assets from a separate program” could be rephrased as “Integrated Digital
Asset Manager”.
Prioritize the features as Must Haves, Want to Haves, Nice to Haves (not deal-breakers).
This allows you to identify the functionality most important to you when you examine a
potential solution.
Add this to your dream state list, and you have a comprehensive, prioritized list of functionality you’re look-
ing for to address the pain of your current state and help you transition to a future state that will allow you
to achieve your business objectives.
Most of all, at no point should you have to settle for less functionality than you currently have. In fact, you
should be looking for a quantum leap forward that will serve you for well beyond your initial ROI and enable
future capabilities such as intelligent recommendations, voice search, native mobile apps, marketplaces,
and expansion into global markets.
PRIORITIZEFEATURES
1. Must Haves
2. Want to Haves
3. Nice to Haves (Not deal-breakers)
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Features B2B Customers Want in Their 2020 B2B Buying Experience
Data Source: SAPIO Research
PREDICTIVE ORDERING
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)TO ASSIST IN BUYING DECISIONS
PERSONALIZATION
VOICE SEARCH
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03Does the solution fit you, or do you have to fit the solution? Not
all e-commerce platforms offer the same levels of functionality
and flexibility. Some are intended strictly for e-commerce. If you
publish to endpoints besides a website — mobile, print —
ask how the potential solution serves these channels. Look for a
product that can be configured and scaled to your needs. If the
sales call wanders into “round peg, square hole” territory, move on.
A provider may try to convince you that their product’s “catalog”
feature serves as a product information management system. These solutions are generally OK for
storing product information, but not for managing it. Ask for a proof of concept and be mindful of needing
a future-proof solution.
If you find you need a robust tool that allows you to organize, create, manage and publish content to a
variety of endpoints, now and into the future, consider a Product Information Management (PIM) solution
as a core component of your overall e-commerce infrastructure.
IMPLEMENT A CUSTOM SOLUTION THAT FITS YOUR ORGANIZATION
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You may not think you know what PIM software is, or what it does. But as a consumer, you’re already
familiar with what a PIM solution delivers:
• If you’ve entered a few product criteria into a search engine and been presented with relevant results,
that’s the kind of SEO and findability PIM software delivers.
• If you’ve seen a product’s specifications online, in a brochure, and
on the packaging, and they’re all correct and the same, that’s the
kind of consistency PIM software delivers.
• If you’ve made an online purchase with confidence because you’ve
been able to review features and benefits, see photos or a video,
and been offered needed accessories at checkout, that’s the kind
of compelling, contextual content PIM software can deliver.
• If you’re received a flyer with a product selection tailored to your interests, that’s the kind of targeting
PIM software can deliver.
From the customer perspective, Product Information Management is the foundation of a buying experience
that simplifies product selection, removes doubt, and ensures satisfaction.
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04As new technologies emerge, customer behaviors change with them to redefine the “expected” customer
experience. Recent research confirms that because shoppers have options of where to buy products, the
shopping experience has become more of a differentiator:
Companies need to design their e-commerce journeys to meet the expectations of today’s shoppers so they can:
• Search and find products based on multiple attributes like size, weight, color, material, etc.
• Make informed purchase decisions on information-rich product pages with multiple images and often
videos, complete specifications, descriptive copy that highlights distinctive features, user guides, related
products, needed accessories and supplies, and more.
• Receive personalized product recommendations that are on point.
DELIVER A SATISFYING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE THAT ENSURES BRAND LOYALTY
DID YOU KNOW?
86% of customers are unlikely to buy products
from a brand after an experience with
incomplete or inaccurate product information.
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PxM is wholly dependent on the complete and consistent product content that product content
management, and product information management, enables. Very few comprehensive solutions on the
market can the findability, context, and personalization that converts shoppers into brand loyalists.
According to Gartner, this level of customer experience demands utilizing all the capabilities of PIM to
deliver a shopping interaction that satisfies the customer, or Product Experience Management (PxM):
CHANNEL NEUTRAL PRODUCT CONTENT AND DIGITAL ASSETS
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE OPTIMIZED PRODUCT CONTENT AND DIGITAL ASSETSECOMMERCE OPTIMIZED
PRODUCT CONTENT AND DIGITAL ASSETS
PIM
PCM
PxM
STANDARDIZED 1:n CONTEXTUALIZED 1:1
PIM: PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENTPCM: PRODUCT CONTENT MANAGEMENTPXM: PRODUCT EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT
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0505A PIM can help you to conquer a universal challenge for
product content managers: keeping your content “clean.”
Over the years, with multiple users adding information,
content quality inevitably degrades in terms of organization,
presentation, consistency, and accuracy.
One of the most common mistakes companies make when
migrating e-commerce platforms is to move bad data from the old platform to the new. Pre-
migration planning offers you a chance to clean house, scrub your content and ensure that you
populate the new platform with accurate and timely product information. This is a critical and
painstaking step, but the benefits make the effort worthwhile.
Before you upload a single product record, organize a migration team to assess your data model,
taxonomy and content.
The data model should reflect all of the ways you use and publish product information. Ideally you
want to manage multiple outputs from a single source of content truth. The number of product
copy attributes must be sufficient for the task but not too granular. You want your product intake
mechanisms — manual authoring or electronic imports — to be efficient.
KEEP YOUR PRODUCT DATA CLEAN
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Your product taxonomy probably has some level of misclassification. This leads to erroneous or incomplete
browse, search and refinement results for your website users. For example, we knew a cutting tools
distributor whose “saw blades” were scattered under “Saw Blades” as well as under “Power Tools”. Different
search and browse approaches returned different product lists. It behooves you to analyze your products
in your existing taxonomy and make corrections before you migrate.
We recommend an audit — a systematic review — of your existing content with these action steps:
• Remove outdated content, i.e. expired promotions, past events, old
news releases.
• Archive content of historical value. This retains the information but
separates it from current content.
• Remove duplicate content. Over the years, you might have written
multiple articles about the same topic. Cull the older articles and keep
the most recent if it remains valid.
• Standardize inconsistent content. This applies mainly to individual
product specifications and includes things such as units of
measurement (mL, ml, milliliters), spelling and abbreviations. This can
be done very efficiently via a spreadsheet export.
• Author incomplete content. Identify products with less-than-ideal descriptions and enrich the content.
Finally, think ahead to the future state with a new platform. How will you keep your product information in
top shape? How will you cost-effectively market to multiple channels and allow personalization? Will your
new platform support your business needs in the years to come? If you decide to implement a PIM as a
core component of your e-commerce infrastructure, the answer is yes to all.
90%of B2B researchers who are online use search specifically
to research business purchases.
Data Source: Google and Millward Brown
Digital B2B Study
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A good PIM is configurable, scalable, versatile, and flexible and integrates with your e-commerce platform
as well as with your ERP and other critical back-end business processes. As the name implies, a PIM
is designed specifically for authoring, managing and publishing product information for omnichannel
marketing. Check out our Infographic: What to Watch for When Choosing a PIM
To confirm if it’s time to take your e-commerce strategy to the next level, take our 3-Minute PIM
Readiness Assessment —16 simple questions designed to help you establish if your business could
benefit from PIM. Or, contact our Agility product information management experts and we’ll help you
evaluate your business needs and determine if you are ready for a PIM solution.
Let’s start a conversation.
LET’S TALK
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READY TO UPGRADE? CONSIDER A PIM
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Choosing a PIM: What to Watch for
How to Determine if Your Business is Ready for a PIM Solution
What is Product Experience Management (PxM)?
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RELATED ASSETS
Magnitude Software is a registered trademark of Magnitude Software, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and
company names mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks/registered trademarks of their
respective owners.
© 2020 Magnitude Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
CONTACT US TODAY
ABOUT AGILITY, A MAGNITUDE COMPANY
Agility® PIM puts your most valuable product data at the stable core of a go-anywhere commerce
strategy. Contact us today. We’re here to help.
For more information, request a demo via our website or email agilitysolutions@magnitude.com.
Any company selling products or services today needs to excel at delivering contextual,
comprehensive and flawlessly consistent product information to today’s ever-evolving and always
connected customer. Agility PIM is the Product Information Management (PIM) solution of choice
for thousands of users across the world. From manufacturers and B2B distributors, to retailers
and global brands, our customers range in size from small/medium sized domestic operations,
to large global enterprises, some of which have deployed Agility PIM in more than 50 different
countries. For more information, please visit www.agilitymultichannel.com.
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