The Evolving Role of Online Merchandising

In the brick-and-mortar world, traditional merchandising was all about selection and presentation of products to the Customers. As Retailers have started to integrate their online and offline operations, the role of Online Merchandising has evolved into managing an end-to-end consumer experience. This experience starts from product search (via a Search Engine) to product purchase & fulfillment on the Retailer’s website (as well as in-store).

Online Shoppers are now looking for the easiest way to navigate to the right product. The exponential success of large online retailers like Amazon as well as Comparison Shopping Portals clearly indicates that online buying cycle is much more complex than a traditional in-store buying cycle. While an online retail site cannot take the place of a Store Assistant, it must be able to personalize the individual shopping experience by offering the right product to the right customer without any hassle. Websites that have poor Taxonomies and bad Navigation are just one click away from their competition.

The Six Steps in a typical online shopping cycle include:

1. Product Search
2. Landing Page
3. Product Filters
4. Product Detail
5. Up-sells and Cross-sells
6. Cart and Checkout

Each of these steps is totally dependent on the right product data and
content. This includes correct product categorization, metadata/
attributes, manual and automated cross-sells/up-sells, product
functionality, buying guides and pricing & promotions. The story
does not finish here. Online Shoppers now also expect User Reviews
about the products, media-rich features such as Color Swatches,
Multimedia Zooming and Product Videos.

All of this translates into an evolving role of intense ‘Data management’ for Online Merchants. Unfortunately, there’s no single technology tool out there that can automate product information management at the source level. The personalized nature of the web requires human interaction throughout the buying cycle. Online Merchandizing teams usually spend a lot of time on the field selecting the hottest products for their customers. Their key success metric is how well their assigned product line or category is performing in terms of new sales, NOT the management of this inordinate amount of data.

Our Smart Content Solutions for Smart Merchants

ShopaTEK is the Online Merchant’s Best Friend when it comes to product information management. We are your on-demand resource to research, produce and monitor quality content for your products. Our Global Talent Pool ensures your cost to produce and retain product data are significantly reduced which frees you up to focus on your core business growth activities. Our ‘Smart Content’ approach treats your product data as a Strategic Asset. Good content ultimately educates online shoppers about your category and product, which can serve to replicate the personal experience of an in-store shopping assistant. Websites that offer incomplete product information run the risk of not only lost sales but also unrecoverable damage to the brand.

Online Shoppers spend the most amount of time on the Product Details page. This page offers smart online retailers the best opportunity to convert those online shoppers into online buyers. As an example, by adding 'How-to' Articles about your products, you can educate your shoppers during the buying cycle. Here’s what we can offer you to solve your pain points in making this page into a more Online Buyer-Friendly tool:

• Product Titles
• Product Attributes
• Product Description
• Product Pricing/Promotions
• Product Classification
• Product Imagery
• Product Videos
• Product How-to Articles
• Product Buying Guides
• Product Manuals
• Product Brand pages
• Product Reviews & Ratings
• Product Cross-sells and Up-sells
• Product 3-D Tours
• Product Competitive Research

	Build up to 500 new Product Details pages every month!
	Let us manage your Product Reviews as per set guidelines!
	Product Videos and 3D Tours Editing!
	Website Taxonomy Daily Quality Check!