The rise in digital, and the success of online shopping giants Amazon and Alibaba, is pushing some traditional brick and mortar retailers such as Fnac, Best Buy, and Carrefour to launch online marketplaces: “A type of ecommerce site where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are processed by the marketplace operator."¹

When opening the internet for commercial use in 1995, the idea was that technology could help consumers and producers make markets more efficient. Soon after, the idea of replicating the flea-market garage sale concept and other traditional markets in the online world grew in the minds of entrepreneurs.

The first successful attempt to create an online marketplace on a large scale was eBay.com, which was mainly focused on peer to peer transactions, allowing anyone to become a seller and consumers to access a broad assortment of products.

Last Sunday, on my first walk through the Expo Hall at the NRF's 105th Annual Convention & EXPO, I came across a vendor handing out a piece of booth collateral titled, “The Idiot’s Guide to Omnichannel.”

We have heard it over and over again: Efficient and agile enterprises tend to come out on top. But what determines whether a business is fast and flexible enough? In this blog post we will take a look at one of the main elements in an effective enterprise dealing with products; time-to-market. Why is it so important and how can Master Data Management for products help?

Author: Sara Edwards

Visit Stibo Systems in Booth 3974

Participants will focus on how retail technology enhances the customer experience during National Retail Federation’s (NRF) BIG Show Jan. 11-14 at the Javits Center in New York.

Keynote presentations will set the tone. The Brick is the New Black: Reinventing the Brick-and-Mortar Experience session will explore how retailers can reposition brick-and-mortar stores to be at the center of the customer experience.

Author: Kayla Cole

How often do you hear someone complain about or return a product? How often have you been the complainant or seen your bottom line suffer due to returns? The fact is, complaints and product returns occur due to bad product information. 

Last time we discussed why PIM is a customer-facing system. In this post, we’re going to discuss what effective product information looks like and why so many companies don’t have it.

The path to a productive relationship with your customers runs straight through customer service, the customer’s cross-channel experience with your brand and your product content. This is particularly true online where the customer experience of your brand is a function of implementation decisions you and your team have made. For example, what product information do you expose on your Product Detail Page (PDP)? Most retailers understand that the PDP represents the physical product for the online shopper and that compelling product content is needed to ‘romance’ the product. So, while a great product description and a single image repurposed from a catalog were ‘compelling’ in 2000, today’s consumers and B2B end-users expect more, including:

Think back to the last time you visited your favorite retailer’s website. Immediately upon accessing the site, a cookie is dropped into your browser. Later, as you watch television, you see a commercial for new deals available through that retailer’s mobile app. The next thing you do is reach for your mobile device, make a purchase and opt for in-store pickup, and then you’re off to the physical store. Perhaps while you are in the store, you scan a QR code in search of additional deals. Congratulations. You are an omni-channel shopper and this scenario is reality.

Previously on the blog I’ve discussed the importance of Master Data Management (MDM) solutions to various industries, focusing on retail in particular.

In this post I wanted to take a look at one established and widely used application for MDM in the form of product information management or PIM, and consider the important role it can play in future-proofing a business.