CRM & Customer Experience Archives • Page 10 of 12 • SAP.iO

SAP.iO In Foundries, Tel Aviv, Consumer Industries, CRM & Customer Experience

Use the best content to sell your products and brands with eStoreMedia

Today, every brand needs to be an e-commerce All Star. The problem? Many brands don’t know how to play the game. From solving distribution problems, through optimizing content and in store search, monitoring pricing and promotions, to creating a ratings and reviews strategy, a long list of complex processes must be executed by brand teams just to keep their heads above water in the e-commerce world. Companies are struggling to fill the ever-present gaps in content, distribution, search, and ratings.

Looking to win on the digital shelf? Look no further than eStoreMedia.

Streamline. Automate. Thrive.

eStoreMedia provides a suite of automated, e-commerce tools that helps CPG brands optimize growth in online sales. The eStoreMedia suite is made up of two core products: eStoreContent and eStoreCheck. eStoreContent takes the product content from a brand’s database and delivers it to the product pages on each of the brand’s online retail channels via a syndication process. This streamlines complex content management processes; it expedites content implementation and maximizes content effectiveness by ensuring the best content is always deployed. Rich and relevant content improves conversion, which in turn is favoured by the e-retailer’s algorithm, making the product more findable, and sales accelerate accordingly.

eStoreCheck provides enhanced predictive analytics that measure a brand’s overall performance on the digital shelf including the performance and compliance of rich content as well as keywords in titles, descriptions and bullet points. It also checks other elements in store such as product availability, price and promotion, and overall category performance benchmarked against competitors, and buy box win/loss analysis. When eStoreCheck identifies a gap (a risk or opportunity), it creates a prioritized action list, enabling e-commerce teams to seize more sales opportunities. With both e-commerce analytics and e-content management, eStoreMedia’s comprehensive solution provides quick, automated content deployment across multiple online marketplaces and sites, and ensures that companies win over the shopper with the best content to sell their products and brands.

Top Reason Consumers Distrust A Brand? Asking For Too Much Information

As consumers spend more time online, the level of trust people have in brands has become closely linked to how brands use their personal data.

When it comes to communications that are mutually beneficial, Jebbit’s fifth bi-annual Consumer Data Trust Index found that interactive experiences such as product matches and personality quizzes take the cake, increasing consumer trust by 38.4 percent.

The report asked adult consumers in the US to rate, on a scale of one to 10, their level of trust in brands to use their personal data in exchange for relevant promotions, goods and services.

Over half (62 percent) of consumers said they prefer personalized products and experiences but a brand’s approach can make or break how that experience is received. For example, 54 percent of consumers said their trust in a brand decreases when receiving emails based on data they haven’t knowingly shared.

Interactive experiences are nearly tied with personalized emails (38.9 percent) based on knowingly shared data and are the least likely to decrease trust by far, according to the report. Such experiences provide both transparency about how consumer data is used and immediately deliver value on that data through personalized recommendations, notes Jebbit.

Creating a data collection strategy is critical, as 35 percent of consumers told Jebbit that a brand asking for too much personal information was their top reason to distrust a brand—the number one reason for the third time in a row. Jebbit clients have seen increases of over 30 percent in customer lifetime value by collecting as few as three points from each of their customers.

Vacation Vibes Filter Across Men’s and Women’s Fashion

Vacation Vibes Filter Across Men’s and Women’s Fashion. In addition to occasion wear, beach-ready fashion was abundant in Resort 2022 and Spring/Summer 2022 men’s collections, with several brands putting a “psychedelic, funky twist” on typical beach attire, according to data-driven fashion trend forecasting firm Heuritech.

The destinations designers were dressing for, however, are varied with some channeling the breezy, bohemian vibe of Tulum with linen and crochet and others embracing the retro coolness of Hawaii with printed shirts and vibrant colors. Meanwhile, the heap of pastels for men and women signals a sunnier and more optimistic outlook for fashion overall.

The universally beloved themed gives retailer a lot to work with. Here, Heuritech provides a rundown of most promising vacation-inspired fashion trends to know for 2022.

Crochet

From Casablanca’s yellow scalloped-edge sets to bra tops by Ambush, designers are exploring the DIY look and feel of crochet.

“Knitwear has been a huge trend in fashion for over a year, and crochet has taken the lead as the go-to trendy knit textile as of late, with big brands and independent designers alike integrating the textile in their collections,” Heuritech reported.

Linen

No fabric sums up “vacation mode” as well as linen. “It is not only desirable for its practicality in the heat but also for its growing reputation as a sustainable material,” Heuritech stated.

Though linen is prevalent in current summer collections, its popularity is expected to grow as the sustainability movement continues to gain momentum. Key women’s items will be beachy tops and dresses, though labels like Lemaire are also showcasing the natural fabric as an option for workwear. Heuritech said retailers can expect this trend to reach additional segments soon, including mainstream dressers.

Linen’s look for men is slightly different. Compared to its “strong beachy connotations” for women’s wear, Heuritech described men’s linen as minimalistic safari. The fabric takes on desert undertones in garments such as Hed Mayner’s tunic tops and Yohji Yamaoto’s relaxed epaulette-embellished blazer.

Linc Integrates CX Automation Solution with SAP Store

Linc’s CX Automation platform has been added to the SAP Store, providing retailers and companies using SAP solutions with end-to-end solutions for resolving 85 percent of all customer service inquiries without the need to escalate to a human agent.

Linc’s patented no-dialogue tree technology allows customers to engage in two-way conversations across all communication channels throughout the entire customer journey with seamless hand-off to people in the contact center, at a store, or in an advocate network. Linc is fully integrated with SAP Commerce Cloud to provide a first-line responder to customers.

The key benefits of utilizing the Linc solution for SAP companies include the following:

Support for a wide range of service intents and questions;
Real-time assistance to customers’; critical buying questions on topics ranging from product information to promo use;
Extensive integration with leading e-commerce platforms, shipping carriers, and customer support platforms.

Klarna Buys Online Commerce Startup Hero

Klarna Bank AB, one of Europe’s most valuable financial startups, said it struck a deal to buy e-commerce technology firm Hero Towers Ltd., a move that will expand its foothold in online shopping.

London-based Hero connects online shoppers with retail workers via text messages, videos and online chat rooms. It helps retailers who sell major brands such as Nike and Adidas to compete with Amazon.com Inc. by offering better customer service, according to Hero’s founder, Adam Levene.

Klarna will pay about $160 million, according to people familiar with the deal.

Klarna specializes in buy-now-pay-later services, an increasingly popular type of cash advance that lets merchants offer a way for customers to pay for goods and services in installments without paying interest. Klarna makes money by charging the merchants a fee. It competes with traditional credit-card companies.

SAP.iO In Portfolio News, Funding Announcement, CRM & Customer Experience, Munich

ViewAR secures Strategic Investment for Expansion

ViewAR, a leading global provider of augmented reality (AR) software. The creator of new AR ecosystems, is pleased to announce a strategic investment from Lansdowne Investment Company Cyprus Ltd (“LICC”) and Breeze Invest GmbH (“Breeze Invest”).

The multi-million Euro capital investment from LICC and Breeze Invest will allow ViewAR to increase its head count, accelerate the development of its award-winning technology, and further enhance its ability to address key markets and industry segments globally.

LICC is an investment vehicle managed by Lansdowne Partners Austria GmbH (“LPA”), which is an Austrian Alternative Investment Fund Manager with a strong focus on investing in and fostering European innovation. LPA is part of the Lansdowne Partners group of companies.

Breeze Invest, based in Vienna and Liechtenstein, is a private equity company focusing on investments in medium-sized industrial companies in the DACH region and neighboring CEE countries.

Founded in Vienna in 2010, ViewAR has created the only AR solution of its kind, providing a complete infrastructure to create, manage, test and publish augmented reality applications. The ViewAR System lets developers and inexperienced creators use cutting-edge AR technologies to create immersive AR experiences across a broad range of domains. The ViewAR All-in-One system covers the solutions for indoor navigation and guidance; Industry 4.0 & IoT; remote assistance and product visualization. ViewAR has won several awards for its technology, including the highest award in the field of AR: Auggie Award from Augmented World Expo.

Explorium And Ventana Research To Share Strategies For Boosting Analytics ROI With External Data

Explorium, the External Data platform that automatically discovers thousands of relevant data signals and uses them to improve analytics and machine learning, opened registration for its July 14, 12pm ET webinar: “How to Boost Your Analytics ROI with External Data.” The event brings together David Menninger, Research Director & SVP at Ventana Research, and Ajay Khanna, CMO at Explorium, to discuss tips for leveraging external data to earn better insights from analytics programs.

The webinar, “How to Boost Your Analytics ROI with External Data,” explores the best approach to incorporating external data into analytics programs for more impactful insights. Using the playbook of successful data-driven companies, participants will learn how they can quickly enrich their predictive models with external data and boost their performance while staying compliant with current data privacy regulations.

“Our latest research shows that by 2024, more than 60% of all data processes will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to boost the value that can be derived from data. Organizations need to strongly consider how external data can enhance their analytics models for marketing, finanacial, risk assessment and other use cases. This webinar will give you everything you need to drive highly competitive analytics strategies,” said David Menninger, SVP & Research Director at Ventana Research.

Mention Me research flags permanent shift to online first retail

The coronavirus pandemic has cemented the shift to e-commerce, with Q2 2021 online sales up +64% compared to the same time period in 2019, according to research from Mention Me.

The referral marketing platform’s Retail Insights team compared data trends since 2019 across beauty, home and garden, fashion, and food and drink to identify long-term trends in the market, beyond the fluctuations caused by changing lockdowns.

While Q2 sales in 2021 are down -15% compared to the extraordinary peaks seen in Q2 2020, prompted by consumers panic buying, the data shows that online shopping has increased significantly compared to 2019. Across the four sectors analysed, online sales have increased +64%.

he beauty sector has performed best over this time period, with online orders up +78% from Q2 2019.

This is closely followed by fashion (+58%) and home and garden (+67%). Despite the re-opening of physical retail, the four sectors are only tracking 2% down from where the research team would expect them to be at this time of year.

parcelLab secures $112M to help global brands deliver a seamless experience

The leading Operations Experience Management platform, parcelLab, announced today that it has secured US$112 million in Series C funding led by global venture capital and private equity firm, Insight Partners. Endeit Capital joined as a co-investor as well as existing investors Capnamic Ventures and coparion. The funding will enable the Operations Experience category leader to accelerate its mission of bringing people and brands closer together.

SAP.iO In CRM & Customer Experience

Zippin and AiFi Announce New Cashierless Checkout Store Locations

It’s not even noon pacific time as I write this and it’s already been a day packed full of cashierless checkout news. Things kicked off when Amazon announced a new full-sized grocery store using its Just Walk Out technology, and that was quickly followed up by Zippin and AiFi talking about newly launched cashierless checkout stores. All of these moves show that momentum for the cashierless checkout space that began earlier this year seems to be continuing unabated.

First let’s start off with Zippin, which said today it has opened up a new autonomous store in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, home of the Brooklyn Nets (the news was first reported by the Sports Business Journal earlier this month). What makes this store a little different from the ones Zippin previously opened in venues like Mile High Stadium and Golden 1 Center is the exclusive partnership with American Express. According to the Zippin blog post, the new store, which will sell an assortment of beverages, snacks and merchandise, is only open to American Express cardholders.

Virtual shopping startup Hero launches short-form video feature

Hero, a virtual shopping platform, has introduced a “Stories” feature, the company announced on Thursday. The tool allows brands to create short-form, shoppable videos highlighting their products that can be shared within their online store.

According to the company survey of about 1,500 consumers, the company found that shoppers wanted short, relevant videos, more product experts than influencers and the ability to visualize products in an authentic way. Hero’s survey showed that 64% found the inability to see products up close as they would in person was their least favorite aspect of online shopping.

“Static product images and boring text descriptions simply aren’t cutting it,” the company wrote in its announcement. “Today’s shoppers want to see real video content about their favorite products, from experts who know them best.”

A Quick Dive into Retail Tech Startups In Europe

Statistics say that since 2015, nearly $130 bn has been invested across the continent in nearly 23,600 equity deals to tech startups in the European continent alone. It is interesting to note that despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of the same on the global supply chains, 2020 still managed to produce major tech breakthroughs along with some profound startup launches and growth stories.

From shelf monitoring to increasing brand engagement, retail tech startups in Europe have developed amazing solutions for the global market. European Retail Tech Startups have driven $26 trillion revolution and the retail tech landscape in the continent seems to be at its peak.

Explorium advises enterprises on improving and speeding up analytical machine learning

The key to successful artificial intelligence-based advanced analytical training is augmenting internal data with external, according to data science platform startup Explorium Inc.

The process is not easy, though. Problems include getting a hold of and managing that mass of external material.

“The key to any analytical problem is having the right data,” said Zach Booth, director of global partnerships and channels at Explorium.

Models are only as strong as the data they train on, but getting that needed, external data is challenging. “It’s manual, it’s tedious and it’s extremely time consuming,” he said.

Explorium claims it has a solution that includes a curated, data-source catalog coupled with a platform to integrate everything within an organization’s existing, internal material.

Booth spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the AWS Startup Showcase: The Next Big Things in AI, Security & Life Sciences. They discussed how external data source platforms — taking advantage of the massive amounts of data being generated in the world — could improve and speed up analytical machine learning for individual organizations.

SetSail Announces Revenue Acceleration Programs To Align Sales Behaviors With Specific Growth Objectives

Silicon Valley Startup Improves On Its Industry-leading Revenue Execution Platform With A Host Of New Ai And Workflow Enhancements

SetSail, the Revenue Execution platform for sales, has launched a library of machine learning powered Revenue Acceleration Programs that extend its intelligent signals engine. Combined, these two products form a complete solution for driving predictable revenue growth for B2B businesses and digitally transform their sales processes.

“Despite the maturity of the CRM space, running efficient sales programs has always been the Achilles heel of revenue organizations,” said Haggai Levi, the CEO of SetSail. “By introducing a new layer of program management on top of SetSail’s intelligent signals, we are making it easy for sales managers to guide their teams towards in-quarter goals. Just like ABM ushered us into the age of programmatic marketing, Revenue Acceleration Programs ensure teams can rally around specific growth objectives — with clear accountability and higher impact on key behaviors.”

BP completes nationwide rollout with Too Good To Go

The Too Good To Go app lets consumers buy surplus food and drink from retailers, restaurants, pubs, and producers to stop it from going to waste. Consumers simply download the free Too Good To Go app and search for nearby businesses with unsold produce. They then purchase a ‘Magic Bag’ and collect it at an allotted time.

The surplus food app has now been successfully rolled out to all 292 company-owned and operated bp M&S Food Stores across the UK, having launched an initial pilot in Scotland and Essex in August 2020.

Since August 2020, the partnership has saved more than 138,000 Magic Bags of food from going to waste. The BP Magic Bags contain a mix of short-dated fresh groceries, food-to-go items, deli items, and ambient produce from M&S Food, Wild Bean Cafe, and other in-store ranges.