MAKING THE LEAP FROM E-COMMERCE TO PRODUCT EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT

www.agiitymultichannel.com

© 2020 © Magnitude Software, Inc. and Agility Multichannel. All Rights Reserved.

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3

www.agilitymultichannel.com

3

FOR ATRANSITION?

TIME

4

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

4

5

www.agilitymultichannel.com

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.

5

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

www.agilitymultichannel.com

6

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

7

www.agilitymultichannel.com

7

8

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)

9

www.agilitymultichannel.com

9

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

www.agilitymultichannel.com

10

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

11

www.agilitymultichannel.com

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.

12

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.

13

www.agilitymultichannel.com

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

14

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

14

15

www.agilitymultichannel.com

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

16

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

16

READY TO UPGRADE? CONSIDER A PIM

17

www.agilitymultichannel.com

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)?

17

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.