Learn top strategies to succeed in e-commerce in 2024, including platform selection, marketing, branding, and technology tips.

How to Succeed in E-commerce Business
The e-commerce industry has seen explosive growth over the past few years, and this trend is set to continue in 2024. With the increasing shift towards online shopping, it’s essential for e-commerce businesses to adopt effective strategies to stay competitive. This article explores various tips and strategies that can help you succeed in the e-commerce business in 2024, covering key areas such as platform selection, user experience optimization, marketing techniques, branding, financial management, and leveraging technology.

Blockchain Salaries Statistics: A Glimpse into the Future
As we look towards the future of e-commerce, one significant trend is the integration of blockchain technology. This advancement is not only transforming the way transactions are handled but also creating new career opportunities within the sector. For a detailed overview of blockchain salaries and career prospects, check Katherine Phillips’s blog, an experienced educator and career advisor, who provides valuable insights into this evolving field.

Key Strategies for E-commerce Success
Achieving success in e-commerce requires a well-rounded approach. Here are the key strategies that will be crucial for your business in 2024.

Choosing the Right E-commerce Platform
Selecting the right e-commerce platform is fundamental to your business’s success. Popular platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento each offer unique features. Shopify is known for its ease of use and scalability, making it an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes. WooCommerce offers high customizability, which is ideal for businesses that require specific functionalities and want more control over their store. Magento, on the other hand, provides robust features and scalability but may require more technical expertise to manage.

Optimizing User Experience
A seamless user experience is critical for retaining customers. Focus on improving site speed to reduce loading times, ensuring mobile responsiveness to cater to the growing number of mobile shoppers, and creating an intuitive navigation system that makes it easy for customers to find what they are looking for. These elements enhance customer satisfaction and drive repeat business.

Effective Marketing Techniques
Marketing is the lifeblood of any e-commerce business. Here are some effective techniques to consider:

• Leveraging Social Media Marketing – Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are powerful tools for reaching your target audience. Utilize these platforms to create engaging content, run targeted ads, and interact with your customers. Social media marketing helps build brand awareness, drive traffic to your site, and foster a community around your brand.
• Utilizing Email Marketing – Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to engage and retain customers. Create personalized email campaigns to keep your audience informed about new products, promotions, and company updates. A successful email campaign should have a catchy subject line, a personal greeting, valuable content, a clear call to action, and a conclusion that thanks the recipients for their time and provides contact information.

Building a Strong Brand
Branding is essential in differentiating your business from competitors. Here are some key aspects to focus on:

• Creating a Unique Value Proposition – Your unique value proposition (UVP) is what sets you apart from the competition. Clearly communicate the unique benefits of your products and services to attract and retain customers. Your UVP should highlight what makes your business special, whether it’s superior quality, exceptional customer service, or innovative products.
• Implementing Consistent Branding – Consistency in branding across all channels helps build recognition and trust. Ensure that your brand’s message, tone, and visual identity are uniform across your website, social media, and marketing materials. Consistent branding reinforces your brand identity and makes it easier for customers to recognize and remember your business.

Managing Finances and Inventory
Efficient financial and inventory management is crucial for the sustainability of your e-commerce business.

Budgeting and Financial Planning
Create a detailed budget and financial plan to manage your business expenses effectively. Track your cash flow, forecast future financial needs, and ensure you have sufficient funds to cover all operational costs. Financial planning helps you allocate resources wisely and avoid financial pitfalls.

Inventory Management Techniques
Proper inventory management ensures you can meet customer demand without overstocking. Techniques like just-in-time inventory help minimize excess stock, while dropshipping allows you to sell products without holding inventory. Utilizing inventory management tools can streamline your processes and improve efficiency.

Leveraging Technology and Innovation
Technology plays a pivotal role in modern e-commerce. Embrace the latest innovations to stay ahead.

Implementing AI and Machine Learning
AI and machine learning can enhance personalization and optimize business operations. Use AI to analyze customer behavior, recommend products, and automate customer service. These technologies can improve the shopping experience and increase customer satisfaction.

Using Data Analytics for Decision Making
Data analytics helps you make informed business decisions. Track key metrics like customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, and conversion rates. Analyzing this data provides insights into customer behavior and business performance, helping you refine your strategies and achieve better results.

Conclusion
In conclusion, succeeding in the e-commerce business in 2024 requires a strategic approach that includes choosing the right platform, optimizing user experience, employing effective marketing techniques, building a strong brand, managing finances and inventory, and leveraging technology. By implementing these strategies, you can position your e-commerce business for success in the rapidly evolving digital marketplace.

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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.

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Jordan Boggi, executive vice president of customer experience, president of online, The Home Depot Inc.

For a company known for ushering in a new customer experience the home improvement industry, The Home Depot Inc. isn’t skipping a beat in how it manages CX both online and in its cavernous stores.

The retail chain said Jordan Boggi, president of online, will also take on the role of executive vice president of customer experience across all channels.

Ted Decker, chairman, president and CEO, said, “In his role as president of our online business, [Boggi] brought data-driven innovation and value to the millions of customers and suppliers who use our website and mobile app. I look forward to his leadership and expertise as we continue to remove friction from our customers’ interconnected experience.”

Home Depot, which sells online and in stores to professional contractors as well as consumers, is No. 4 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of the largest online retailers in North America.

Anne-Marie Campbell, senior executive vice president for outside Pro sales, The Home Depot.

In another senior executive change, Home Depot named Ann-Marie Campbell as senior executive vice president for outside Pro sales efforts as well as the retailer’s installation services business, the company said in its 2024 Proxy Statement. She will also continue to oversee Home Depot’s U.S. stores and operations and its Canada and Mexico business units.

Home Depot has also established a base for growth in building supplies by closing recently its $18.25 billion acquisition of roofing supplies company SRS Distribution, which operates an ecommerce site at RoofHub.pro. The home improvement retailer says SRS will expand its total addressable market by to approximately $1 trillion, an increase of $50 billion.

“SRS is an excellent fit for The Home Depot – it’s both complementary and additive to our growth,” Decker said in a statement announcing the acquisition.

Getting beyond sales declines

For Home Depot, the changes come at a crucial time. For its most recent financial quarter, the fiscal first quarter ended April 28, the company reported a 2.3% year-over-year drop in net sales to $36.42 billion. For the fiscal year ended Jan. 28, 2024, it said revenue 3% to $152.7 billion.

In the role of executive vice president of customer experience, Boggi will be responsible for “leading the vision, design, and development of new and innovative solutions to drive a seamless experience for the millions of customers who turn to The Home Depot for their home improvement projects – in stores, online, or on mobile devices,” the company says.  Boggi will retain leadership of the company’s ecommerce business as president of online, overseeing online operations, merchandising strategy and customer experience for the retailer’s digital properties.

Boggi has also served as senior vice president of finance, where he was the primary finance partner to the company’s U.S. business and was responsible for planning, forecasting and guiding execution of the company’s P&L and capital plan.

In addition, he held roles across merchandising finance, supply chain finance, financial planning and analysis and strategic business development. Prior to joining the company, Broggi held various positions in finance and strategy at LexisNexis and Bain & Co.

How Matt Carey transformed Home Depot

Matt Carey, who was most recently executive vice president of customer experience, will retire from the company on December 31, after 16 years with the company. Until then, he will continue to serve as an executive vice president in an advisory capacity.

Matt Carey, former executive vice president, customer experience, who will serve as an EVP in an advisory role until he retires on Dec. 31.

In announcing his planned retirement, Home Depot said Carey “led the transformational efforts to re-imagine all aspects of The Home Depot’s IT infrastructure and approach to software development. Under his leadership, The Home Depot successfully built the technology infrastructure of an advanced retailer including store mobility, price management, auto-replenishment, global sourcing, interconnected retail, advanced analytics and much more.”

Decker added: “Matt leaves a legacy of exceptional accomplishments that have helped The Home Depot evolve to meet the changing needs of our customers. Since he joined the company in 2008, he has spearheaded an enormous technology transformation across our stores, supply chain, merchandising and digital presence.

“Today, The Home Depot is one of the largest truly interconnected retailers in the world. The Home Depot is a better company because of Matt’s tremendous contributions.”

Home Depot, which sells online and in stores to professional contractors as well as consumers, is No. 4 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of the largest online retailers in North America.

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

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Piyush Chaudhari, CEO, Salsify

Piyush Chaudhari, a former CEO of global brand services firm SGS & Co., is the new top executive of product experience management company Salsify.

He succeeds Jason Purcell, a Salsify co-founder who has been the company’s CEO for the past 12 years and will remain as a board member and company advisor. “I am personally excited about the vision, energy, and experience Piyush will bring to power the next decade of accelerating growth for Salsify and our customers,” Purcell said in the company’s announcement of Chaudhari’s appointment as CEO.

Chaudhari is joining Salsify at a time when the company is  rolling out new technology products designed to improve how companies can manage and syndicate branded product descriptions and images to attract online customers and boost conversion rates.

Last year, 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. And in this year’s first quarter, Salsify announced the general availability of Salsify PXM Advance, the newest version of its Product Experience Management platform.

“But in truth we have only scratched the surface of the business impact and global scale that Salsify is capable of,” Chaudhari said in a statement announcing his new position.

He added, “I am humbled and thrilled to assume leadership towards the next phase of growth that Salsify’s Board and entire team of Salsifarians are ready to invest in.”

Jason Purcell, co-founder and former CEO, Salsify

The company says it’s in good financial condition to invest in its growth. “Purcell leaves the company in the best financial shape of its history,” Salsify said in a statement. “It is growing, profitable, and holds over $300 million in cash and no debt.”

Chaudhari most recently was CEO of SGS & Co., which provides brands with advertising services across more than 30 countries. Prior to SGS, he was president, Americas and global strategy, at IRI (now known as Circana), which provides companies data on consumer demand to foster sales growth. Chaudhari has also held senior executive positions at Aon Hewitt, a provider of human capital and management consulting services. In addition, he has worked at Aon Consulting, Motorola and IBM, according to his LinkedIn page.

Salsify works with thousands of brand manufacturers, distributors and retailers worldwide to develop technology designed to help companies produce and share product content that wins over online buyers.

The company’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.

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

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Joshua Silverman

Many retailers have historically fashioned their product data ingestion processes into “walled gardens,” narrowly architected systems that required their suppliers to pay for access to portals to submit product information.

These walled gardens make the collection of data extremely challenging. Brands would have to go through one system to submit GDSN (Global Data Synchronization Network) data, another for ecommerce setup, and another just for submitting images. This web of single-purpose systems created manual work for brands that delayed product launches, led to error-prone data that resulted in fees, and ultimately worsened the quality of product detail pages and jeopardized the shopper experience.

While some retailers still have these traditional processes in place today, many more have begun to rethink how to offer their suppliers a better experience. This new trend has been driven by several factors:

1. Recognition that high-quality product information drives conversion. The  latest consumer research reports found that 78% of consumers will abandon a product purchase when the product information is incomplete. Additionally, the 2023 Forrester Wave^TM for Product Information Management states: “The macro trend shaping product information’s criticality is that consumers find online shopping more convenient than offline shopping in stores…Product information quality [is] the North Star to drive conversions. Bad content on product pages is a barrier to sales.
2. The rising importance of retail media as a revenue source. According to new research from Stratably and the Digital Shelf Institute, brands reinvest, on average, 7.2% of their digital sales into retail media spend with their retailer partners — and that figure is steadily climbing. But 67% of brand leaders say that content quality is a meaningful part of this investment equation, meaning that brand leaders will reconsider additional investments until the data on the product detail pages their ads connect to are best-in-class. Inaccurate or incomplete product data means lower return on ad spend (ROAS) for the brands. For any retailer looking to derive revenue and margin from their first-party data, the quality of the product detail page (PDP) is critical.
3. The introduction of AI is giving retailers the ability to scale content quality checks in a way that simply wasn’t possible before. Part of the walled-garden approach was an attempt to force data consistency through a narrow submission channel. AI allows for data checks at scale, without the need for a limiting submission mechanism.

A key way retailers have begun to tangibly invest in better collaboration with their suppliers is through “omniconnectors,” new application programming interfaces (APIs) that are purpose-built to support data ingestion for all content for both the digital shelf and brick and mortar.

These omniconnectors create a single, streamlined process for brands to submit information and reflect the omnichannel shopping habits of today’s consumer (eg., through BOPIS, an industry that is forecast to grow at a double-digit. compound annual growth rate of 19.3% until 2027, globally). The technology of APIs, as opposed to submission portals, also offers the ability for AI-propelled quality checks and two-way feedback between the retailer and their suppliers, driving collaboration at scale.

Leading retailers are investing in this technology now. Walmart recently launched its new Omnispec API, a new product information submission process for suppliers that combines all of the data requirements for both online and brick-and-mortar item setup. Other retailers like Kroger and Albertsons have also “opened up” their existing walled gardens, allowing their suppliers choice when it comes to which syndication provider they prefer to use when they submit their product information. This means that brands no longer need to pay multiple providers to get content to the same retailer. The Home Depot is another retailer now rethinking how it can create more agile ways for its thousands of suppliers to submit product content updates.

Over the next couple of years, it will become possible for any retailer to efficiently offer similar capabilities at a reasonable cost, transforming the industry.

What should brands and retailers do now to prepare for an open, collaborative, omnichannel, future?

Retailer Executives:

1. Think strategically about where supplier collaboration sits in your roadmap of priorities, given its impact on consumer experience, retail media ROAS, and PDP conversion rates.
2. Complete an analysis of all the various disparate methods across teams for product ingestion from suppliers today and how they might be streamlined.
3. Start conversations with leading suppliers and their chosen product data management and syndication technology providers to begin designing a roadmap towards your own omniconnector capabilities.

Supplier Executives:

1. Consider how and where your product content is stored and managed today. Are you still using spreadsheets, or do you have a product experience management solution in place? How ready are you to scale processes to automate delivery of your content to all endpoints?
2. Think about which teams will need access to product content and whether it’s easy for them to access. How will you power your product enterprise and break down silos, allowing your legal, support, ecommerce and retailer media teams to access the same set of optimized, complete and accurate product content?
3. Talk to your retailers about any pain points you experience in the content submission process today and the consequences (e.g., delayed product launches or stale information on PDPs). Your influence could help to get improvements on the roadmap.

A focus on open and easy collaboration between retailers and their brands drives efficiency and revenue, impacting both top- and bottom-line growth by creating product experiences that drive conversion.

About the author

Josh Silverman, is senior vice president of retail and distribution at Salsify Inc., a provider of product information management and related technology applications.

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Charlotte Tomlinson

Brand awareness, customer engagement, traffic, leads and sales can all be achieved through the production of high-quality content.

But before the content is produced, planning and preparation needs to take place. That’s where a content strategy can help.

A content strategy is an overarching plan for all of your digital content. From blogs and whitepapers, to social media and video content, a strategy is essential for understanding the purpose behind your content.

Why are B2B content strategies important?

Not all content drives traffic, and not all content converts. To ensure your digital content meets your objectives and reaches the right audience, you’ll first need to consider a few points:

What kind of users are you targeting with your content? Which format are they most likely to engage with? How should your content look? Where should you position the calls to action? And what exactly do you want your content to achieve?

An effective content strategy should include the answer to all of these questions. From the user research and content formats to the frameworks and design, a good strategy covers it all. Focusing on the bigger picture enables you to have a clear plan and structure for all of your content efforts, ensuring they’re successful and produced with your goals in mind.

8 steps to create a B2B content strategy

So, before you jump into content creation, how exactly do you put together an effective B2B content strategy?

1. Identify your target audience

First things first: Who are you creating content for? By understanding exactly who is going to read your content, you can ensure it’s written with those people in mind.

A useful way to understand your target audience is through the use of customer personas. These are defined as semi-fictional characters which represent your ideal prospect. Through demographic reports, user interviews, forums, social media and surveys, you can identify key insights into the people and businesses who are likely to read your content.

Identifying your target audience is key for developing content that resonates with them. By understanding their pain points, how they engage with content and how they make decisions, you can tailor your messaging and streamline the conversion journey.

2. Decide on your objectives

Your objectives should drive your content strategy. But not all content will have the same aims.

For example, is it topical content to build authority? Are you aiming to build brand awareness and secure the top ranks within search engine results pages, or SERPs? Which pieces of your content are to generate leads?

Knowing what your goals are for each piece will help you understand the purpose behind the content you’re creating. Following the SMART objective method is a useful way to set realistic goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART).

3. Choose which content formats to opt for

Once you’ve identified your target audience and decided on your objectives, you’ll need to establish which content formats are best suited.

Each stage of the buyer’s journey (awareness, consideration and decision) will also require different types of content, each with a unique aim.

Some of the most popular B2B content formats include:

• Blog posts – this form of content is extremely versatile and can include topical blogs, product/service comparison blogs, search-led blogs and even conversion-led blogs.
• Case studies – these are a great way to demonstrate the benefits of your business by highlighting how your service or product solved a challenge and offered a solution.
• E-books – these can be detailed “how-to” guides that educate the user on a certain topic, giving them helpful advice on the solution to their challenge.
• Whitepapers – this is long-form content that delves deeper into a specific topic or offers a solution to a problem that your target audience faces. Whitepapers are often used as gated-content, which can only be accessed after filling in a form/exchanging information.
• Infographics – this type of content is a useful way to succinctly convey complex information, making it easier for your audience to engage with key concepts quickly.
• Interactive content – this could be in the form of quizzes, checklists, animations or even calculators. Interactive content helps to keep the user engaged, whilst enabling you to collect audience insights.
• Social media carousels and posts – social media is an effective tool for brand awareness, helping you to reach a wider audience.
• Video content – video content has continued to grow in popularity. Whether it’s customer testimonials, a service/product explainer or even a how-to guide, videos offer an engaging way for users to connect with the business.
• Email content – emails, such as newsletters, can be used to nurture customer loyalty and keep users connected. Emails can feature product/service information, along with repurposing content you have previously created.

4. Create a content calendar including industry events

A content calendar is an easy way to organize your content plan for the year ahead. Not only is this an effective way to keep track of your content plans, it also helps you consider exactly when this content should be published.

Are there any key industry dates that you could create content around? Are there any upcoming changes within the industry that you need to keep in mind? Is your content aligned with relevant seasonal events? By mapping out your content month by month, you can focus on creating relevant and timely pieces that your audience will engage with.

5. Produce detailed frameworks including CTAs

A content framework or copy brief is a plan or template that acts as a guideline for the person producing the content. Having a framework in place improves efficiency, organization and ensures that everything is produced with your goals and target audience in mind.

So, what exactly does a content framework include? Whilst there are many different ways to produce and lay out a framework, it should include information on:

• The content format
• The purpose and objectives of the piece
• Information on the target audience/customer personas
• The tone of voice to use
• Key products/services to promote within the piece
• The structure of the content (what will the different sections include)
• SEO information (meta data, keywords to target and internal links)
• CTAs to include and where they should be positioned
• Key images/visuals to include
• Competitor examples
• When and where the content will be distributed
• Key points on how the content should look/design elements

6. Decide where best to distribute your content

Different types of content perform best in different places. It all comes back to your objectives for the piece. Are you offering valuable, in-depth content that should sit on your website or blog? Are you trying to raise brand awareness through a social media post? Do you want to generate leads through gated content?

Understanding the purpose behind the content you create is key to ensure that it reaches the right audience on the right platforms.

7. Consider design and layout

Content isn’t just about the words on a page. You’ll need to consider where each section should sit and how you’ll maximize engagement. From CTA positioning to content formatting, there’s plenty to consider.

When designing the layout for your B2B content, keep the following in mind:

• Branding consistency
• Clear messaging
• Readability and content formatting
• Visual hierarchy
• Making use of whitespace
• Incorporating imagery and data visualization
• Ensuring responsive design
• Design and positioning of CTAs
• Accessibility

8. Report on performance, keeping KPIs in mind

So, how did your content perform? Whilst your initial thought might be to report on how many leads were generated, it’s important to remember what the aims of the piece were. Was it to generate brand awareness and traffic? Was it a piece aimed at boosting topical authority, therefore less likely to generate leads? Perhaps your content was repurposed on social media where it then performed the best?

Whether it’s sessions, conversions, qualified leads or ranks, keep your objectives in mind when reporting on performance.

Content plays an essential role in B2B marketing. The more thought that goes into your content process, the more results you’re likely to achieve.

About the Author:

Charlotte Tomlinson is head of SEO & Content at London-based digital marketing agency Distinctly. With experience in both B2B and B2C marketing, she has worked with companies ranging from startups to global enterprises.

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The post How to grow ecommerce with a B2B content strategy appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Dale Edman

I’m sure many of us have seen Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk “Start with the Why.”

In the talk, he introduces the golden circle, which consists of what, how, and why.  Sinek suggested that every company knows what they do; some can even articulate how they do it, but few get to Why they do it.

Companies looking to replace their ecommerce system often know what they are doing: replacing their ecommerce system. Some even get to the how, deciding on technologies and partners. But from my experience, few understand why they are replacing their platform. The re-platforming project will be complicated and expensive, and you will need a ‘Why’ to align everyone in the company.

Here are some of the whys that I have heard over the years:

• Legacy systems that are no longer supported.
• Security concerns.
• Increasing total cost of ownership.
• Looking for modern functionality.
• Board/CEO/CIO/CMO — want something new and shiny.

There are other reasons why, so make sure you understand yours. Often, it will have multiple layers. For example, who doesn’t want modern functionality? However, you need to ask yourself what you think you are getting.

Is it enough for the investment? Technical debt and legacy systems can force your hand, but your Why must be bigger than “we have to do it” to get you through the difficulty of the project.

One last word of caution: while having your C-suite on board might be enough, wanting something new or shiny is not enough to sustain your project over the long run.  Your Why is likely to be multi-faceted, and the better you can get to the bottom of it and get transparent with all stakeholders, the more you will set yourself up for success.

Setting Requirements

To accomplish your Why, you must decide on what you are building and establish requirements.  Requirements are an iterative process, starting with high-level requirements often defined by your Why.

For example, I have been a part of many projects that required analytics. “Enable Google Analytics” would be recorded as a project requirement. That is a high-level requirement from the Why, but you will need to define what types of data you need, what you want your dashboards to look like, and whether you have internal resources to build them. There are a couple of other watch-outs when defining requirements; over- and under-engineering.

Once you start to understand your requirements, it is important to consider prioritization. One question that an architect on one of my projects used to ask was, “If this was the only thing not ready, would you still go live?” You will eventually have to make those decisions, so understanding what is necessary versus nice will make the project smoother.

Over-Engineering

As you define your requirements, you may over-engineer the problem. Industry trends, such as “composable or headless commerce,” can cause additional work and overhead.

I worked on a re-platforming project to implement headless commerce.  We needed a high-level strategic resource to design the system, then an architect for the front-end work, an architect for the commerce work, and two or three developers for both the front- and back-end work. Requiring a headless commerce system added overhead to the project. You may have an excellent Why for using more complicated architecture, but make sure you know what you are gaining and what it will cost you.

Another common reason for over-engineering is to future-proof your platform by ensuring you get every requirement in the first build. Not understanding or prioritizing your requirements can lead to everything being important and nothing being important. It also could prevent you from seeing times when an “out-of-the-box” solution could have been adopted with a few tweaks to the requirements, saving costly customization. Remember, you don’t just build these systems; they must be maintained and expanded to meet your consumers’ needs.

Under-Engineering

Under-engineering can also be problematic; phrases like “Lift and Shift” or “Out of the Box” are often used to simplify requirements. With “lift and shift,” you focus on moving the existing site’s functionality into the new technology platform. It may seem the easiest way to avoid scope creep and constrain the project. But it doesn’t work because not every requirement can be ported over.

Most legacy systems were engineered over a decade ago, and there is a reason you are considering a re-platform. At the same time, you may have built those into your legacy system, but the new system tends to handle them differently. Another common mistake is using the “Out of the Box” functionality. You should select a modern ecommerce platform because they have already figured out many of the challenges you are dealing with.

Technology Platform and Partners

You have your team identified; they are clear about the Why and have started the hard work of defining the requirements. The question is, have you already decided on a technology platform? It is tempting to lean heavily on the IT department to make this decision. They will, after all, be responsible for maintaining it, so shouldn’t they have the final say? Since a re-platforming involves more than IT, it should be more than their decision. Your chosen platform has business, merchant, and marketing implications, so you must ensure everyone is comfortable with the decision.

Some things to consider as you look at different platforms:

1. Are you B2C or B2B? Do you need to support other marketplace channels?
2. How do your requirements line up with the functionality of the platform?
3. Will this platform scale with your growth?
4. Support and community: are there resources to turn to? What does the broader partnership ecosystem look like?
5. Interfaces and integration: will this platform integrate with your back-end systems?
6. What is the total cost of ownership, and what do maintenance, licensing, and support costs look like? How do they increase over time?

One last thought on platform selection: Make sure you talk to customers using the platform. Ask the vendor for references, but also do your homework. Reach out to folks in your network to get a sense of how people use the platform, what challenges they have had, and how they feel about it post-launch. You can’t have too many of these calls; they will help you understand what and how the platform works day to day.

Funding and ROI

You will need to understand the total cost of ownership and the benefits or gains the new system will bring. If your Why is technological debt, and you have been in a maintenance mode, it’s more than likely that your new system will cost more. Your old system doesn’t cost anything and feels like a freebie. Not since the early days of commerce have I seen a new system with double conversion rates, so you will need to get creative about what benefits the business and your customers will derive from the project. Having the team bought into the Why will pay dividends. Hopefully, they will  see the benefits, which could be as simple as freeing up your sales teams to have more time to sell and not take orders.

Once you understand your ROI, you can decide how to structure your project and its costs. I have seen two different ways.

1. Only fund the upfront work, requirements gathering, and UI/UX that informs the cost of the development portion of the project. I prefer this method, but most CFOs/CEOs won’t sign off on a project if they don’t have at least some idea of the total cost.
2. Get a bid for the entire project up front. If you have done enough requirements gathering, you can look to get a bid for everything. Your system integrator should know what they typically charge, although none are typical builds. If you go this route, add 40% internal contingency to your request so that you have room for surprises. The last thing you want to do is have to go back and ask for more money.

The other way to manage costs is to be flexible with your requirements. From my experience, this is hard to manage. Most people feel they will never get the functionality if it doesn’t happen at launch. At one company, there was an internal joke that there “was no 2.0,” meaning that once something launched, it was there for good, and nothing would change or get upgraded.

Conclusion

The decision to re-platform your ecommerce business is always a challenging one.  As technology author Rick Watson once said, “No one ever got fired for not re-platforming, but plenty of people have been fired for botched re-platforms.”

Starting with the Why, getting clear about your requirements, resisting the urge to over-/under-engineer, and selecting the right technology platform are crucial to having a successful re-platform project. Hopefully, this will help you understand the importance of firmly setting the foundation for your project.

About the author:

Dale Edman is an independent adviser on B2B and retail ecommerce and digital transformation. He has held ecommerce executive positions at companies including West Marine, Newell Brands and The Wasserstrom Co. He posted an earlier version of this article on LinkedIn.

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The post Replacing your ecommerce platform? First, figure out ‘the Why’! appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The food-service distributor, which reported $19.4 billion in sales for its fiscal third quarter ended March 30, said at its annual Investor Day conference yesterday that digital was one of its core strategies in its “recipe for growth.”

The company launched the online Sysco Marketplace, where it will expand its scope of product offerings by forwarding online orders on for drop-shipping by third-party suppliers, and it laid out the details behind its digital personalization program across its Sysco Shop ecommerce platform.

Sysco said the marketplace, built on Mirakl technology, will let customers access “over 15,000 niche products” across such categories as grocery, canned food and dry products to supplement the distributor’s regular offerings.

“Maybe you’re buying from Sysco already, but if you need a heater for your outdoor patio, you can now get that,” said Neil Russell, Sysco’s chief administrative officer.

Victoria Gutierrez, senior vice president and chief merchandising officer, Sysco Corp.

Victoria Gutierrez, senior vice president and chief merchandising officer, said the marketplace product offerings complement Sysco’s digital personalization program, which uses data on customer demand gathered from across Sysco’s sales operations to tailor product offerings and shopping experiences to customers. “One way we’ll be expanding that is by introducing more breadth and depth of products offered online.”

Gutierrez demonstrated how Sysco compiles data on customer purchasing activity and then displays product recommendations tailored to different types of restaurants after they log into their personalized content pages. A high-end steakhouse, for example, will see recommendations different from those offered to a lower-priced hamburger and sandwich cafe.

She added that Sysco is also using its digital data and personalized product displays to engage suppliers in cooperative promotions.

“This past November, we had a chance to run one of these campaigns with a very key supplier,” she said, without naming the company. “They supplied funding to support discounts specifically for customers [who hadn’t purchase] their products. And they worked with us to activate on a digital merchandising strategy that was coordinated with personalized emails and activation not only with our sales team in the field, but their sales team as well.”

Gutierrez noted that that marketing campaign resulted in “doubling” the number of customers buying that supplier’s products through Sysco.

Sysco said its digital personalization program has been operating for about three years and has already generated $450 million in incremental sales. The company adds that it expects the program to produce a 15% compound annual gross rate between 2024 and 2027.

Guiterrez will give a keynote address on enterprise digital commerce strategy at the EnvisionB2B Forum on Sept. 12 in Chicago.

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

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The post Digital plays a critical role in Sysco’s “recipe for growth” 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.

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

Rohit Goyal, CEO, inriver

Goyal, who took over as PIM vendor inriver’s chief executive last week, said in an interview that he sees significant potential in AI for enhancing both productivity and revenue.

One area where AI is already having a significant impact on digital content, he said, is through enhanced productivity, such as in multilingual digital content managers’ ability to generate copies of product content in multiple languages from a master copy “by clicking a button.”

“The fact that you can generate local copies and start to edit, that’s huge,” he said.

Goyal added that, beyond productivity, AI holds out promise for helping to generate more revenue through more personalized content targeted at segments of buyers.

Asking AI to help boost conversions

“Can you generate different types of content? The answer is yes,” he said. “But I think the entire industry is figuring out how to systematize that beyond a lab experiment or an innovation team experiment at a brand or retailer.

“There’s a ton of experimenting going on to say, ‘What if we ask AI to generate content that is targeted to a certain segment of buyers and push it down the channel?’ Will that help increase conversion or engagement?”

He added that the industry is heading in that direction. “There are green shoots … I think AI can help,” he said. “But it’s not clear that it’s ready to scale yet.”

Inriver, however, is already deploying and upgrading AI applications in other ways to enhance its technology platform. For example, inriver Inspire, which integrates the ability of ChatGPT with the inriver PIM, now offers AI-driven batch editing to streamline content management, plus a custom prompt editor to maximize relevance for diverse audiences.

In addition, Goyal said inriver’s technology platform is based on an “extensible and flexible” framework that lets companies extend their customized product information to all B2B and B2C channels and customer touchpoints.

He noted that users can build technology connectors and adapters and do customization work independently of inriver’s own ongoing platform upgrades. “So, the SaaS platform keeps innovating without disrupting the extensions and connectors around it,” he said.

Goyal added that inriver’s new Augmenta development framework frees up companies to use their preferred programming language instead of relying on a specific framework that inriver had previously required. “Now, you can use your favorite programming language to build customizations and extensions,” he said.

Inriver’s recently announced platform upgrades include:

• A suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) for standardizing inbound integrations for onboarding data to inriver’s PIM.
• Product data governance tools for maintaining compliance with new regulations by tracking product generations and using unique QR codes for product labeling and ecommerce.
• Enhanced content distribution via APIs through inriver Syndicate Plus to retailers and marketplaces.
• An automated configurable workflow system for product lifecycle management from onboarding product data and PIM management to merchandising operations.

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

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The post inriver’s new CEO on AI’s course in product data appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.