Emily Newton

Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) have become more common at supply chain locations worldwide, transporting containers and other loads between ships, trucks, rail cars and warehouses. Why are more leaders using them? Most use cases relate to relieving congestion and improving operations when ports experience record-setting traffic levels. Decision-makers recognize how AGVs can streamline their supply chains, keeping containers moving and preventing costly delays.

Accelerating the Movement of Goods

The supply chain’s persistent labor shortage can cause staffing crises that are particularly impactful during peak periods. Some leaders have deployed AGVs for material handling tasks, finding that such efforts help them maintain high productivity.

One example came from China’s Ganqimaodu land port. Each AGV moved between this port and a Mongolian coal stockyard, carrying two standard containers of imported products along a 1.86-kilometer route. An AGV takes 50 minutes per round trip and travels up to 25 kilometers per hour.

The AGV operator using them in China has 30 in its fleet, using 24 each weekday. They move 10,400 tons of coal daily during 160 total round trips. Additionally, there are 30 AGVs in Mongolia. Supply chain managers believe that using all 60 simultaneously will allow for achieving a 15-million-ton transport capacity.

To provide perspective on the overall coal-related activity at the port, leaders said each arriving truck holds up to four standard containers and makes four to six round trips per month. This initiative was the first instance of AGVs used at a land port for cross-border transportation, showing the potential of such applications.

Examples such as this show how AGVs can minimize supply chain staffing shortages, keeping each port as productive as possible during those challenging times. Moreover, AGVs can support other automation projects to relieve labor needs.

Japanese officials plan to address the labor shortage with a conveyor belt from Osaka to Tokyo. The so-called Autoflow-Road project would include infrastructure above and on the sides of roads, as well as tunnels underneath major highways. Estimates suggest this system could move loads equal to that of 25,000 trucks daily, and that each container placed on the conveyor belt would hold up to 1 metric ton of goods.

Facilitating Improved Forecasting

Multiple partners often handle goods moving through supply chains, especially when those loads require multimodal transport solutions. Clients understandably want progress updates on their container loads so they can plan associated operations accordingly. Managers frequently deploy connected technologies to meet those needs.

For example, the United Kingdom’s Port of Dover has an advanced digital twin that predicts the associated tidal flows and weather conditions, supporting safe arrivals and departures. That tool complements a landside digital twin that optimizes traffic flows and port operations while supporting decarbonization and energy efficiency efforts. Such visibility enhances predictions and reduces the reliance on guesswork. Supply chain clients benefit by passing on more accurate information to their customers, increasing the likelihood of repeat business.

People worldwide have warmly embraced online purchasing, appreciating its convenience and efficiency. In 2023, U.S. B2B ecommerce sales surpassed $2 trillion and U.S. retail ecommerce sales topped $1.1 trillion. And analyses suggest global retail ecommerce sales will surpass $8 trillion by 2027. Shoppers who receive correct estimates of incoming parcels can adjust their schedules accordingly, remaining available when they arrive.

Improving Resilience

Supply chain experts frequently assess their business models, identifying new ways to protect their networks from shocks that could severely disrupt their operations. Many search for process improvement options, knowing that even small tweaks can significantly improve outcomes.

These professionals must focus on the things within their control to minimize the effects of those that are not. Then, they remain better equipped to handle the various fluctuations common to their industries.

Freight indexes are nearly 10 times higher than pre-COVID-19 levels. However, leaders who use AGVs and other automated tools to strengthen their supply chains have more oversight and influence over the impact of supply chain fluctuations. Improvements could free up money in the budget for aspects outside their control.

Decision-makers may implement AGVs as part of more-extensive automation strategies, knowing targeted improvements will keep them competitive and profitable. A logistics company did that to prepare for Singles Day, which has become one of China’s most notable online shopping days. Business leaders created a robust, end-to-end system to support the supply chain from first-mile pickups to last-mile deliveries.

That all-encompassing effort allowed the enterprise to deliver more than 200 million parcels to customers who shopped for the occasion. AGVs played a significant role in the success. A single Thailand warehouse has 100 of the machines, which collectively reduce employees’ walking time by 90%. This example shows that AGVs can support higher efficiencies along the supply chain.

Planning AGV Utilization

Today’s supply chains pose increasing challenges, but automated guided vehicles can overcome many of them. However, any AGV-related plans must carefully consider worker training, traffic flow, tech infrastructure and other necessities.

Addressing those matters early in the process boosts the chance of success and provides a strong return on investment. Getting inspired by supply chain partners currently using AGVs in their processes is an excellent way to explore what is possible.

About the author:

Emily Newton reports on how technology disrupts industrial sectors. She’s also the editor-in-chief of Revolutionized, covering innovations in industry, construction, and more.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content. 

The post The new digital supply chain stars: automated guided vehicles appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Steve Brass, president and CEO, WD-40 Co.

In a recent earnings call, he said the manufacturer and marketer of industrial and residential lubricants, degreasers and cleansers is making progress on its four “must-win” competitive market battles:

• Geographic expansion worldwide.
• Increasing premium product sales.
• Growing its Specialist product line for mechanics and other professionals.
• Accelerating digital commerce.

Although Brass listed ecommerce fourth on the company’s must-win list, he said it was critical to the other three.

“We see [ecommerce] as an accelerator for all our other must-win battles, as it improves brand awareness and online engagement, leading to an improved customer experience and sales across all our trade channels,” Brass said on a recent earnings call, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha.

He added, “Some of our key objectives within this must-win [ecommerce] battle are to build our brand digitally, grow and develop the ecommerce pure play channel, accelerate growth of the omnichannel, and continue capability-building for our employees.”

Brass went on to note that WD-40’s digital commerce strategy resulted in an 18% company-wide year-over-year ecommerce sales increase through the first nine months of its current fiscal year, “with double-digit growth across the company’s three trade blocks of EIMEA (Europe India Middle East Africa), the Americas, and Asia-Pacific.

The company said total net sales rose 9.4% to $155.05 million for the fiscal third quarter ended May 31; net income increased 5.0% to $19.84 million from $18.90 million.

For the nine months ended May 31, net sales increased 9.5% to $434.57 million from $396.80 million as net income rose 7.0% to $52.86 million from $49.42 million.

Growing sales through online distributors

The company has said its sharpest growth is via ecommerce sales through such business-to-business ecommerce sites as Grainger.com, MSCDirect.com, GlobalIndustrial.com, Fastenal.com and MotionIndustries.com and such online retailers as Amazon, Ace Hardware and Aubuchon Hardware. WD-40 customers can link directly to these ecommerce sites from WD-40.com.

WD-40 is also taking other steps with digital technology to build on its online interactions with customers and drive up operating efficiency.

An online contest WD-40 launched in 2021, Repair Challenge, has invited customers across more than 40 countries — including “doers, makers, fixers and builders” — to show how use WD-40 lubricants and other products to extend the lifespan of their tools, bicycles, cars and other items. Brass said that, so far, the contest has created over 0.5 billion online marketing impressions worldwide.

WD-40 is also “making foundational investments in systems and  data that will allow us to grow faster,” Brass said. For example, he said WD-40 had rolled out Salesforce Inc.’s CRM technology in the U.S. and will be expanding it in the near term, “driving sales efficiencies and effectiveness.”

“Use of data analytics and automated tools, leveraging data is increasing and can be a real enabler for the business,” he said. “The foundational work we are doing now around data governance, centralizing our data architecture and data quality management will allow our people to leverage our data quicker and drive better decision-making.”

Brass added that WD-40 has engaged an investment bank to seek suitors for its U.S. and U.K. home-care and cleaning product brands, which account for about 4% of total sales, and expects to sell them in the company’s 2025 fiscal year.

“Post divestiture, WD-40 Co. will be a more focused company with a higher sales growth and gross margin profile,” he said.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The post At WD-40 Co., ecommerce underpins all “must-win” battles appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Trent Guyler, vice president, digital and marketing, The Grasshopper Co.

But in recent years, the company has realized a pick-up in parts sales following the usual end of its peak season in July, says Trent Guyer, vice president, digital and marketing.

One reason, he says, is the mid-July Amazon Prime Day promotional event. Although designed primarily as a big promotional day for retailers and retail consumers, Prime Day also helps to generate spikes in traffic and sales on the Amazon storefronts and product listings of B2B sellers. Amazon scheduled its 10th annual Prime Day this year for July 16 and 17.

Grasshopper is a manufacturer of high-end grass-cutting equipment used to maintain such properties as corporate campuses and the White House lawn. It sells grass-cutting equipment priced at up to $20,000 or more per mowing unit. It also has a network of about 1,000 North American dealers and has customers in about 42 countries. On GrasshopperMower.com, it displays equipment and parts images and details, a request-a-quote feature and a dealer locator. It sells parts through the Amazon.com marketplace and Amazon Business.

Trent notes that Grasshopper customers don’t typically plan their purchasing around promotional events, because if they need a part, they want it immediately.

Manufacturers benefit from Amazon Prime Day

A Grasshopper mower.

Still, he notes that the extra Prime Day traffic has helped Grasshopper experience some of its strongest July sales days for equipment parts.

“The July Prime Day in 2022 actually helped us to have a best day of that month,” Trent says, adding, “Our sales on Day One of Prime Day 2023 uplift us to have one of our three best days in July of that year.”

Trent says Grasshopper runs ads throughout the year to promote its parts sales on Amazon, but nothing specific to Prime Day events. He adds that the reliable rise in traffic is enough to generate increased customer activity through a “halo effect of just being on the platform on Prime Day.”

Dynabrade takes a similar approach regarding Prime Day promotional activity. It relies on an expected boost in traffic rather than specific promotions. Dynabrade is a pneumatic power tools manufacturer.

B2B sellers capitalize on Amazon Business and B2C sales

Ronald Veiders, global brand manager, says the manufacturer tried running a limited Prime Day promotion a couple years ago for one of its popular SKUs and realized only a minor direct benefit. In addition to referring customers on Dynabrade.com to its distribution partners, the manufacturer sells some of its products through a Dynabrade Amazon storefront. Like Grasshopper, Dynabrade has received advice on Amazon marketplace strategy from Enceiba, a digital marketing agency.

Ronald Veiders, global brand manager, Dynabrade

The Prime Day promotion “wasn’t worth it to us,” he says. “We just like being on Amazon, because we know there’s more eyes. And I guarantee we’ll get at least a couple more sales out of it.”

Veiders agrees that Dynabrade benefits at least somewhat from a Prime Day halo effect. But he figures that the boost in activity sparked by Dynabrade’s Amazon presence is tied in large part to the trend of today’s B2B buyers to search online for Dynabrade products and to seek out deals like Amazon’s Prime two-day delivery service.

“Think about the procurement buyers out there nowadays,” he says. “Their first step is Googling, and Amazon is going to come up first or close to it if they’re looking for one of our products. And they’re going to go there to shop, price and compare. And because we’re FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), it’s Prime and ready to go … for two-day delivery anywhere in the country.”

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The post How two manufacturers get a B2B sales boost from Amazon Prime Day appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Piyush Chaudhari, CEO, Salsify

A veteran executive involved in helping brands connect with customers, Piyush Chaudhari joined product experience management company Salsify last month as CEO, succeeding co-founder Jason Purcell as the top executive. Chaudhari joins Salsify as the company invests millions to roll out new technology products, including AI and automation, designed to improve how companies manage and syndicate branded product descriptions and images to attract online customers and boost conversion rates.

In this July 2 interview with Digital Commerce 360, he shares his views from Salsify’s corner office on the future course of product experience management and how brands can win the digital shelf.

Interview with Piyush Chaudhari

Digital Commerce 360: What excites you most about joining Salsify now as CEO? Please comment on one or more of the experiences in your career that will help you bring unique value to Salsify and its customers, including B2B as well as retail companies.

Piyush Chaudhari: I’m two weeks in at Salsify as we speak, and I have spent it talking to Salsify employees (or Salsifarians, as we call them) and Salsify customers in both the U.S. and Europe. These conversations have confirmed what I hoped for coming in — that my colleagues, our customers, and digital commerce are hungry to take advantage of significant growth opportunities on the digital shelf over the next few years. My past experiences at places like Aon Hewitt and IRI, driving continuous improvement in the quality of the products and services, will serve as a great foundation for expanding the business value our customers realize from their Salsify partnership.

DC360: What do you see as Salsify’s most significant strengths, and how do you plan to build on them? Are there particular technology applications and/or services you want to introduce or explore to expand Salisfy’s product suite?

Chaudhari: Our market position starts with our people, and their passion for helping our customers win on the digital shelf. Our customers’ ambitions drive everything we do. There’s a reason that Salsify was named a “Leader” in the most recent Forrester Wave in our space. Since our founding, we have focused on delivering a platform that will enable our customers to optimize the product content on every digital shelf touchpoint.

Salsify lets our customers centralize their product data and be sure it meets the data requirements of every retailer. We then connect that data everywhere it needs to go across an open network that’s continually expanding. Finally, we make sure they can do all this at scale, with automation and AI to drive all this with maximum efficiency.

We have all this in one unified platform — and over the next few years, we are going to continue to innovate by expanding our network and embedding AI throughout the product experience management (PXM) lifecycle to realize the goal of optimizing every touchpoint, everywhere.

DC360: How well do you think most companies (including existing Salsify clients and prospects) recognize and act on the importance of deploying comprehensive technology systems for effective product data management technology? What can help bring more companies further into effective product data management strategies, including through extended sales and distribution networks?

Chaudhari: There is no question that the period of COVID — when the digital shelf was the only shelf — brought product experience management (PXM) front and center into executive suites for retailers and manufacturers across all categories. They had to invest not only in the right technology, but also reshape the ways in which their cross-functional processes and teams designed, marketed, and sold their products to consumers and B2B buyers.

We have been fortunate enough to be their partners and advisors in the first decade of Salsify, and have witnessed companies like Mars and L’Oreal and many others go from implementing PXM in one team or region to executing global digital shelf excellence in every market. At the same time, retailers like Amazon, Kroger, Wayfair and Intermarché make it seamless for their suppliers to quickly understand and meet their product content requirements through automated APIs rather than outdated spreadsheets.

We are excited to work with B2B distributors like Affiliated Distributors (AD) and Grainger and their suppliers to extend digital shelf best practices into the industrial space. B2B buyers have the same expectations as consumers and want to self-serve their buying experience as much as possible. We believe this industry will transform in half the time of companies adopting PXM in the first decade, given the paths that have already been tread and the impact of AI.

DC360: What are companies (including both merchants and brand suppliers) missing regarding effective technology and strategies for effectively competing for sales and brand recognition through the digital shelf? What are some of the newest and most effective strategies merchants and brands should deploy?

Chaudhari: We believe that the single most important driver of growth that will emerge over the next several years is AI-propelled personalization at scale. We have seen the improvements in conversion in areas such as email marketing when brands are able to apply deep knowledge of the consumer through permission-based first-party data to demographic, behavioral, and other predictive data insights to drive higher click-throughs and conversion.

Imagine the growth potential when a merchant is able to apply similar intelligence at scale to personalize a product detail page (PDP) for each visitor instantaneously.

Achieving this future will require deep data collaboration between retailers and their suppliers to make sure there is the product data necessary to support merchandising that supports the correct persona, occasion, and use case. Retailers must invest in the technology and data infrastructure to power these experiences through collaboration with their suppliers, and suppliers must be testing and learning their way with generative AI and the automated processes to be able to support personalized merchandising at scale through their retailers.

DC360: Are brands and merchants today collaborating more effectively than in the past to build customer loyalty and grow sales and profits? How do you see Salsify helping them along these lines?

Chaudhari: Quality product content is the foundational fuel of two things that modern retailers care very much about.

One, accurate, complete product content powers both search discovery and conversion on the product page. 78% of online shoppers cite product images and descriptions as “extremely” or “very” important to their buying decision.

Two, in recent research from the Digital Shelf Institute and Stratably, 71% of digital leaders from 78 global consumer brands said Product Detail Page (PDP) quality significantly influences their return on ad spend (ROAS). In a time where many retailers hope to boost their balance sheet by monetizing their audience with brands, ad buyers are refusing to increase investments until product data quality is best in class.

In response, leading retailers have invested heavily in the processes and API connections that enable suppliers to meet constantly shifting data requirements in a more automated and reliable fashion. For retailers such as Walmart and Kroger, we are seeing a trend toward OmniConnectors, APIs that are purpose-built to support data ingestion for both digital shelf and brick-and-mortar. Salsify is democratizing these 2-way, automated connections between suppliers and retailers through innovations like our Open Catalog. Continually optimized quality product content will be a minimum requirement for entry into the future world of a personalized digital shelf at scale.

DC360: How will AI and other emerging technologies help companies better engage customers with digital content that is personalized to their needs and will boost conversions and sales? How do you see AI and other emerging technologies adding to Salsify’s product offerings?

Chaudhari: Salsify is a no-hype AI zone. By that I mean that we really try to clearly differentiate between what may become possible in the future, and what is available now for our customers to use on their test, learn, and scale journey. So today, you’ll see from us AI-propelled capabilities like our Grocery Accelerator, which uses AI to rapidly validate grocery suppliers’ against regulatory, industry, and retailer-specific requirements, and proactively surfaces content recommendations to speed accurate and compliant product content to market.

Our customer Uma Home Decor introduces one to four thousand new products a year. Content creation for that many products was a serious impediment to getting to market. With AI connected to Salsify, they were able to reduce their production of content from six months to six weeks!

In the future, you will see AI deployed across the entire PXM lifecycle — data modeling, content creation, data quality validation, automated mapping to each retailer’s requirements, and the ultimate goal of PXM, continuous optimization of every digital touchpoint.

The Salsify App Store will be a busy place over the next several years, where best-in-class AI providers will be able to easily hook their latest capabilities into Salsify and customers can implement the ones that deliver the value they need in the PXM lifecycle. Exciting times ahead!

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

The post Q&A: Salsify CEO Piyush Chaudhari on winning the digital shelf appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The company, which reported $536.9 million in 2023 revenue, up 19% from 2022, has 120,000 customers across 85 countries. Companies using the SPS retail network include W.W. Grainger Inc., The Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp.

Jason Popillion, director of technology, SPS Commerce Inc.

“SPS sits in the middle of the transactions that happen in retail — including basic transactions like purchase orders, ship notices, invoices — all those things that are key to allowing commerce to happen,” says Jason Popillion, director of technology, adding, “We also have things like inventory files in ancillary documents that show what inventory is available on hand at any moment.”

“What we’re able to do with all that data — which is really super interesting about AI — is dissect it and get analysis done in ways that we haven’t been able to do before.”

He adds: “Transactional data tell many stories about the life and cycle of our economy, customer sentiment and buying habits … what products seem to be stronger in times of the year, or how you might look for things in the coming future.”

Popillion says SPS defined its data structure to make it more understandable by AI. “We create a schema that says, ‘this is the data that we’re going to be working with; these are all the pieces that we have available.’”

As a result, “AI did a very, very, very good job of understanding the data” and produced useful machine learning evaluations related to supply chain operations, he adds.

For the last several years, SPS Commerce has been experimenting with AI. “Early tests have primarily focused on internal projects with the goal of increasing efficiency of the work we do in service of our customers along with validating effectiveness of potential market-facing solutions,” Popillion says. “In every test we run our goal is the same — find ways to help our customers run the most efficient supply chain possible.”

So far, the company says it has found AI produces levels of efficiency, including speed and accuracy, ten times higher than non-AI methods for such efforts as making demand forecasts.

For example, SPS used AI to predict order volumes for a future time period based on past order volumes over an extended time period.

“If you’re trying to think about how to plan for the upcoming holiday season, what we’re doing is looking at the last two years and see what the data is showing us, to give you an idea of what you can expect in this upcoming season,” Popillion says.

Other methods SPS is using with AI include:

• Faster onboarding of supplier product data. Using an in-house developed AI chat client tool, SPS is enabling its internal supply chain professionals to help expedite commerce for retailers by more quickly and accurately compiling retailers’ requirements for onboarding merchants’ new suppliers into the SPS retail network. “When you’re trying to get connectivity to your supplier base that’s feeding your commerce engine, the sooner you can get them on board, the sooner you can acknowledge the revenues from those suppliers,” Popillion says.

• Customer personas. To help retailers tailor marketing communications, SPS uses AI to customize marketing language to the needs of managers in particular roles in companies, such as director of sales, or who have communication preferences based on their U.S. location, such as the East Coast or in the South or West.

Popillion, who is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, says SPS has addressed security concerns many people have regarding AI by working with established AI technology providers Microsoft Corp. and Amazon Web Services and by setting data management standards.

“It’s all about data,” he says. “It’s about training individuals so they know how to use it effectively, and it’s about creating the right access policies to allow only [authorized] people to have access to it.”

He adds that he’s noticed a shift in thinking among companies concerning AI. As with the early days of the internet, when companies realized they could use the web to grow their businesses and make them more efficient, organizations realize AI offers practical ways to improve business operations — for example, possibly generating a demand forecast in minutes instead of hours.

For now, SPS is using its AI technology internally to provide value-added services to customers as it continues to develop it, Popillion says. But he adds that SPS also expects to introduce as early as later this year AI applications that its customers will directly access and use.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

The post How SPS Commerce is using AI to enhance retail supply chains appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Whereas Q4 revenue decreased about 2% from the same period a year earlier, Nike full-year revenue reached a new high in its fiscal 2024.

In an earnings call with investors, chief financial officer Matthew Friend attributed the decline in Nike Digital sales to “softer traffic, higher promotions and lower sales of certain classic footwear franchises.”

Although Nike Digital has grown at about a 26% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since the retailer’s fiscal 2019, Friend said, the company missed its targets in its fiscal Q4. Nike Digital sales “underperformed” in April and May, continuing into June, he noted. This comes as Nike continues “to drive retail sales growth at a high full-price realization,” Friend added.

Friend had said in Q3’s earnings call that Nike’s target has been “to achieve the 40% digital metric.” So far, Nike has not disclosed how far along it is toward hitting that share of sales through digital channels.

In the earnings call, president and CEO John Donahoe said Nike is “taking our challenges head on and we’re regaining our edge.”

Nike ranks No. 8 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of the largest North American e-retailers by online sales. It’s also the highest-ranking Apparel/Accessories retailer in the Top 1000.

Total Nike revenue in fiscal 2024

For its full 2024 fiscal year, Nike revenue totaled $51.4 billion. That’s up 1% year over year from $51.2 billion. The full-year revenue growth comes despite a 2% year-over-year dip in Q4 Nike revenue, to $12.6 billion.

With the exception of the first COVID-19 pandemic year, 2020, Nike has grown its annual revenue in each year since 2011.

Total Nike revenue fell to about $12.61 billion in its Q4, which ended May 31, 2024. That’s down from about $12.83 billion in the year-ago period. This marks the fourth year-over-year drop in Nike revenue in a quarter since Q1 of the retailer’s fiscal 2019.

It’s the third such drop to happen in the retailer’s Q4 in that time frame — the first of which was at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Moreover, Q4 2021 rebounded to outperform the same period in the two prior years.

The only non-Q4 drop in the past five years was Q1 FY21, though the drop was moderate (less than $100 million) compared to the Q4 FY20 drop of about $4 billion. That was the second quarter to have been affected by the pandemic.

Before Q4 this year, the last year-over-year drop in Nike revenue was in Q4 of its fiscal 2022.

Revenue from Nike’s namesake brand accounted for $12.1 billion of the company’s $12.6 billion total revenue across brands, which include the Jordan brand and Converse.

Nike Digital sales drop again in Q4

Nike Digital, encompassing global sales through the retailer’s website and mobile app, decreased 10% in Q4. That follows a 4% year-over-year decline in Q3 Nike Digital sales.

Similarly, Nike Direct revenue fell 8% year over year, to $5.1 billion. Nike Direct refers to the retailer’s direct-to-consumer sales, both in physical stores and online. On the opposite end, Nike wholesale revenue increased 5% year over year, to $7.1 billion, in Q4.

In North America, Nike Digital sales decreased 11% in Q4. Meanwhile, Nike store sales decreased 5% while wholesale grew 6% in the region.

In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Nike Digital sales declined 14% in Q4. Nike Digital sales also declined in Asia-Pacific and Latin America (APLA), down 12% while wholesale grew 9%. However, Nike Digital sales in greater China grew 8% in the quarter; wholesale grew 15% while in-store sales dropped 6%.

Nike outlook for fiscal 2025

Nike expects Q1 fiscal 2025 revenue to decline about 10%, Friend said. That includes lower Nike Digital growth, “especially in the first half of the year due to lower traffic on fewer launches.”

“This reflects more aggressive actions in managing our classic footwear franchises, continuing challenges on Nike Digital, muted wholesale order books with newness not yet at scale, a softer outlook in greater China, and a number of quarter-specific timing factors,” he said.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s Nike report.

Do you rank in our databases? 

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Nike Digital sales drop in Q4 as retailer reaches highest-yet annual revenue appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The new Digital Commerce 360 report, B2B Marketplace Growth Strategies, covers the growth strategies of these and other companies and is available for free download.

B2B ecommerce can be complicated for both buyers and sellers.

The spirits industry is a good example.

Advanced Spirits, a Houston alcoholic beverage distillery and services company, has launched Barrel Hub, an ecommerce platform for the wholesale bulk whiskey market.

Like other marketplaces featured in the DC360 report, Barrel Hub offers online tools designed to smooth out the purchasing process.

“From our soft launch, we know one of the most pressing questions that buyers and sellers have is around purchase price,” says Advanced Spirits president Rob Arnold. “What is the current value of this whiskey barrel?”

But he adds: “The lack of transparency in the wholesale bulk whiskey market makes this question hard to answer. Therefore, Barrel Hub has introduced a bid feature, so that buyers and sellers can collectively set fair market values.”

At Science Exchange, “our supplier orchestration platform sits on top of P2P [peer-to-peer] and ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems and includes a powerful workflow engine and integration platform, automating the entire process of collaborating with suppliers from intake to payment,” says CEO Elizabeth Iorns. “This improves how life sciences companies collaborate with suppliers, enabling faster project execution, improving compliance, significantly reducing costs, and ultimately bringing therapeutics to market faster.”

Science Exchange features include:

• Users can access Science Exchange’s existing network of 3,800 suppliers under a standard legal agreement and synchronize existing suppliers they use daily.
• Automated guided buying tools also help each transaction comply with purchasing and third-party risk management (TPRM) policies.
• Configurable workflow automation supports purchasing and compliance requirements across sites, teams and purchase categories, among other areas.

The B2B Marketplace Growth Strategies report also covers statistics on marketplace industry growth and provides an inside look at marketplace strategies in case studies on OnlineMetals.com, electronic components and hardware distributor Bisco Industries, and the apparel business FashionGo.

In addition, the report also covers how the used-vehicle marketplace is using AI and computer vision technology to help buyers evaluate vehicles online before  purchasing, and how a new AI-powered catalog management tool from marketplace technology company Mirakl expedites how online sellers list their products.

B2B Marketplace Growth Strategies  is available as complimentary download.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Submit a nomination

Nominate a game-changer for the Global B2B eCommerce Industry Awards from Digital Commerce 360 and the B2B Ecommerce Association.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

The post What’s behind the rapid growth of B2B marketplaces appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Without constant learning and adoption, existing biases can prevent product managers from identifying the most persistent and intense challenges for clearly defined user personas that other products in the market have not addressed. As a result, many product managers build for the “average user” since this approach increases the total addressable opportunity during early assessment. This approach results in products that lack differentiation and scalability that create a durable competitive advantage over a period of time and are easily replaceable.

In today’s market, the most successful company leaders and product managers understand that product development starts with a deep understanding of previously unarticulated customer needs captured by closely observing customers in their workflow. An essential product competency is familiarity with new technologies like generative AI when approaching customer discovery, including at the earliest stages when diving deep into targeted user personas and identifying potential opportunities to address specific pain points.

The value of using extensive amounts of data from various user settings during discovery becomes magnified when the same datasets funnel into the development of personalized solutions. One powerful example of AI revolutionizing product development is the last-mile delivery systems companies develop and utilize for organizations’ delivery fleets, which they even sell as delivery-as-a-service white-label solutions. Fueled by massive growth in online shopping, the last-mile delivery market is expected to grow to more than $200 billion by 2027.

Using AI to make last-mile delivery more efficient

Not long ago, using generic routing algorithms and mapping technology and identifying the fastest, most efficient delivery routes with a simple “traveling salesperson problem” was considered sufficient in delivery systems.

Now, machine learning, advanced optimization techniques, and AI have enabled product managers to go deeper into each part of the driver’s delivery journey and create last-mile delivery products using the most optimal routing constructs for dynamic factors that influence driver’s on-road decisions, like the predictability of parking in dense metro areas, weather conditions, a customer promise to deliver within certain hours, street-crossing safety, and more. These enriched, real-world datasets combined with the ability to “productionize” them to optimize each delivery or pickup make last-mile deliveries more reliable, efficient, and much safer.

For instance, with today’s routing algorithms and advanced optimization techniques, it is possible to determine whether it is more efficient for each driver to park in a central location and walk to multiple delivery addresses or drive to each address. With historical datasets and generative AI, drivers can also access specific information about where they are making deliveries, including access codes, business hours, customer notes, and even photos of buildings.

With AI and other advanced technologies incorporated into delivery workflows, drivers can receive details on connected devices from past successful deliveries, along with important information such as guidance on the presence of lockers and directions for alternative delivery locations, which could be spread across multiple floors. Because of these advancements, uncertainty and inefficiency are replaced by streamlined operations that ensure packages are received optimally based on up-to-the-minute delivery conditions.

Drivers will consider various delivery applications and unit economics when delivering in various marketplaces. If all factors are equal, they are more likely to choose the companies that make delivering packages as convenient and reliable as possible. McKinsey & Co. reports that AI-based delivery solutions can save companies up to 15% in logistics costs, 35% in inventory levels, and 65% in service expenses. In one recent example, OYAK Cement used an AI-based solution to lower fuel and other delivery costs by $39 million annually.

Generic solutions for average users are no longer enough

The same degree of product specificity occurring in the delivery market is also happening in other areas of product management. As AI advances rapidly, the key to success for product managers today is “going deeper,” or using advanced technology to identify actionable insights from detailed datasets about users in their workflow.

Product managers leverage that information to create expansive lists of pain points organized by themes, test and validate hypotheses, and analyze results from surveys and focus groups to ultimately work backward from the user when envisioning product prototypes that achieve a higher level of differentiation.

Effective product managers understand that the most critical skill they bring to software development teams is acting as the user’s voice in the room. In this role, they prioritize product ideas likely to make the most significant difference to the user journey and ensure the development team designs features and solutions using the most advanced technologies that resonate deeply with consumers.

One example of this is a recent agreement between Mars, which creates a variety of food and pet care products, and PIPA LLC, a company that accelerates nutrition science and innovation by embedding AI in R&D, manufacturing, and commercial businesses. The partnership allows Mars to utilize PIPA’s advanced AI technology to design new products that meet the health benefits demanded by customers. The technology taps into clinical trial data, biomedical databases, scientific publications, and additional sources to identify market trends. The partnership and AI technology access have already led Mars to create a state-of-the-art diagnostic tool that predicts cat kidney disease.

The most effective product managers leverage AI, ML, and deep learning techniques to build specific customer personas and craft innovative solutions that meet their needs. On the other hand, product managers who stubbornly continue to focus on the average customer will likely see suboptimal user growth and retention by delivering products that fail to stand out and satisfy specific user needs.

Designing for the average customer is a mistake in most industries because increased competition has divided demand among many players and made differentiation necessary for product-driven growth. AI and other advanced technologies complement existing techniques that product managers can leverage to ultimately become faster and more effective in their jobs.

With the tools now widely available, differentiation has become more important than ever for product managers. In a recent Fictiv survey, 97% of senior decision-makers said AI will impact their organization’s future product development and manufacturing processes. In that same survey, 78% of respondents said they are currently evaluating technology tools to develop new products more efficiently.

AI is quickly changing the way product managers work

Advanced technologies are transforming the entire product development process. AI empowers product managers to make better, more informed decisions and design highly personalized products for users. There is almost no limit to how granular product managers can understand user needs as they strive to improve and grow their products.

In last-mile delivery, for example, product managers use enhanced map datasets driven by ML models to optimize delivery based on traffic lights, predicted street traffic, and parking availability instead of just determining the shortest map route for deliveries — a capability that is easily available in consumer map products. These capabilities are why 83% of CEOs say AI and advanced technology are critical to the success of their companies.

Paul Daugherty, chief technology and innovation officer at global information technology consulting firm Accenture, recently said, “The playing field is poised to become a lot more competitive, and businesses that don’t deploy AI and data to help them innovate in everything they do will be at a disadvantage.”

About the author:

Hrishikesh Paranjape is a senior product manager with experience across ecommerce, real estate, customer service and financial industries.

Submit a nomination

Nominate a game-changer for the Global B2B eCommerce Industry Awards from Digital Commerce 360 and the B2B Ecommerce Association.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

The post Product managers: Don’t miss out on the rewards that AI unlocks appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The third annual Automotive Aftermarket Digital Health Report reviews nearly 13,000 product pages across eight auto parts categories on the ecommerce sites of seven merchants: RockAuto.com, Advance Auto Parts, Amazon, Auto Zone, NAPA, O’Reilly Auto Parts and Walmart. The report was produced recently by Content Status, a digital content management technology provider, and Pivotree, a digital agency and systems integrator.

For displaying products online effectively, the report notes the significance of developing:
● An effective product data taxonomy for helping online buyers discover products across multiple categories.

● Comprehensive and accurate product descriptions with images to help buyers decide on purchases and become loyal customers, leading to increased conversion rates and sales.

But the report found that only about half of the reviewed merchants’ ecommerce sites followed effective product data management procedures.

For example, it found:

● 49.4% “adhere highly to category taxonomy and intermediary category page guidelines.”

● 50% “adhere highly to product image and gallery user interface (UI) guidelines.

● 40% “adhere highly to product information and specification guidelines.”

● 66% of displayed products have only four or fewer images.

● 82% of displayed products don’t include 360-degree spin images.

● 82% of products have no videos.

The report also notes the challenges merchants face in receiving and managing often incomplete product data, often in various formats, from multiple suppliers. “Incomplete or inaccurate product information hampers your customer’s ability to make informed decisions, resulting in decreased conversion rates and diminished customer trust.”

Automotive aftermarket lags in digital content

It adds that, despite digital technology improvements for automating and streamlining data management, “the automotive aftermarket industry remains heavily reliant on manual entry, review and normalization of data,” resulting in a lack of efficiency and accuracy in managing effective online product content.

The report breaks out performance scores for the seven retailers by overall content management, data taxonomy, and content by eight auto product categories, including brakes, car batteries, fuel pumps and oil filters.

Although the report singles out Amazon and Walmart as overall leaders, its retailer scores vary widely across the multiple scoring areas. For overall content, it cites Amazon as tops for “providing more content than other retailers.”

For taxonomy, the report scores AutoZone highest, followed by NAPA, while giving Amazon a “poor” score.

Among the eight product categories, the report calls out several retailers for effective content strategies, such as Advance Auto Parts with detailed product descriptions in brake rotors and O’Reilly in spark plugs for detailed product descriptions and 360-degree images.

The report found that car batteries had the most effective content overall among all retailers, and it cited Rock Auto for providing specification documents for all of its featured battery products.

It found oil filters to have the most lacking content overall but cited Walmart and Amazon “as the clear leaders in this category by consistently providing more content.”

But while the report gave Walmart and Amazon the highest scores for oil filter product descriptions, it gave Walmart a “poor” imaging score for lacking documentation and rich images.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Submit a nomination

Nominate a game-changer for the Global B2B eCommerce Industry Awards from Digital Commerce 360 and the B2B Ecommerce Association.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

The post Want to sell that oil filter online? Spruce up the product data. appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

At the company’s annual Digital Shelf Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, last week, about 800 attendees shared information about how Salsify is using AI, automation and other cutting-edge developments to improve how branded product descriptions and images are managed and syndicated to attract online customers and boost conversion rates.

Salsify’s clients include brand manufacturers Mars, L’Oreal, Coca-Cola, Bosch, McCormick, Kenvue, Danone and ASICS; and such retailers and distributors as Albertsons, Carrefour, Metro, Glass Warehouse and DoorDash.

Salsify AI investment

In 2023, Salsify invested $38 million in production innovation across several areas, including AI and automation, to enhance its product experience management technology for engaging and converting online buyers with helpful digital product content across multiple channels.

In this year’s first quarter, the company announced the general availability of Salsify PXM Advance, the newest version of its Product Experience Management platform. PXM Advance features technology enhancements across several areas:

• AI and automation in generating and syndicating product content
• Improved efficiency in product content governance and syndication.
• Enhanced below-the-fold content for increasing conversion rates.
• The new Salsify PXM App Center, a base for innovative PXM applications from Salsify and its technology partners.

Salsify adds that PXM Advance enables brand manufacturers to:

• Centralize their product content into a “single source of truth” product information management (PIM) system unified with their syndication application.
• Connect to every product detail page (PDP) “on every destination their shoppers are at, with conversion-driving product experiences that grow sales.”
• Automate processes and reduce manual work with AI, workflows, and automation for more efficient PXM operations.

“A redesigned product content setup process helps you send the right content the first time with less mapping effort,” Salsify says. It adds that PXM Advance “validates content against the latest retailer-specific requirements in real time, saving customers days in the mapping process.”

Among other enhancements, Salsify says PXM Advance uses AI large language models (AI LLMs) in its workflow capability, enabling users to develop and refresh product content at scale while also providing for efficient human review and approval. The company notes that its platform uses AI “that is based on more than 740 million products published across 950 destinations worldwide” to “power real-time validation of product content, ensuring retailer requirements are met before submission.”

In March, Salsify and technology partner Vizit, an AI-powered visual content platform for brands, retailers and content developers, announced that were integrating Vizit’s Conversion Optimizer App into Salsify PXM Advance to help companies boost their ecommerce sales.

Vizit notes that its patented technology “functions as a 24/7 merchandiser” to analyze, reorganize and present attractive product images for maximizing conversion rates.

Ghirardelli Chocolate Co. notes that the Vizit and Salsify technology platforms have proven essential for the candy maker’s ecommerce business.

Pam Perino, Ghirardelli’s digital content operations manager, says in a press release from Vizit and Salsify that the AI-powered capability in the conversion optimizer and PXM Advance provides digital management “across every SKU in your catalog, ensuring the visual presentation of your products is finely tuned to the exact preferences and desires of your target audience.”

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Submit a nomination

Nominate a game-changer for the Global B2B eCommerce Industry Awards from Digital Commerce 360 and the B2B Ecommerce Association.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

The post How Salsify uses AI to connect online buyers with product content appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.