What can we say about the year that hasn’t already been said? Rather than pontificate, let’s jump to the good stuff, all in one place for your handy reference. Here’s what you were most interested in, in 2021.
Learning from others…and how to navigate the ‘new normal’ online
It can be hard to uncover the challenges that the industry as a whole struggles with around delivering a better customer experience, which is why Syndigo commissioned an industry report with Forrester Consulting. Called Product Data Fuels the Customer Experience, it uncovers the issues that your peers are facing and the approaches they are looking to take.
Some of the things we uncovered were that nearly everyone (94%!) felt it would be valuable to have an end-to-end solution that could create, manage, syndicate, enrich, and optimize all their product content.
However, there were numerous challenges—including data in disparate locations, varied retailer requirements and lack of insight into shopper affinity for different content—that were keeping them from reaching their goals.
Fortunately, you can find out how your peers are planning to address these challenges by accessing the full Syndigo/Forrester Opportunity Snapshot here.
For those who were responsible for ensuring their products were moving smoothly online, our eCommerce resources around Syndication also were very popular—both to suppliers and to retailers and distributors. Our Truth in Syndication blog is the perfect place to start, as it highlights the challenges and techniques needed to manage information across trading partners and eCommerce platforms. From there, understanding the Evolution of Syndication (or, how we got to where we are today as an industry), was another highly popular post.
More than just Core Content…enter Enhanced Content
As shoppers continued to spend more time online (about 85% of consumers have shopped online globally1), the competition for attention got even tougher last year. After learning about syndication, our readers were very interested in how to maximize their sales online. This leads us to our second most popular topic, Enhanced Content. We all know that standard product label assets and images need to be complete and compliant, but beyond those table stakes, the game of customer engagement really took off in 2021. It’s probably not too surprising that our Enhanced Content Best Practices post was one of the most viewed resources last year.
The Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is always one that’s closely watched, but as we reported in our blog at the time, the typical compressed “peak” of that weekend saw a longer, slower buildup this year, with a lower peak than in years past. It’s been speculated that this was due to many factors, from supply chain worries to health fears of shopping in large crowds, to sales beginning earlier in the season. Whatever the cause, it seems to be an ongoing trend that the traditional beginning of the holiday shopping season wasn’t as popular as in years past.
However, the overall usage of Enhanced Content was still strong during that time. Based on the billions of page views of Enhanced Content that Syndigo delivers for our clients, we saw an incremental value lift of more than $5.5 billion between Thursday and Saturday of that Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. Whether shopping in-store is returning to pre-pandemic levels or people are remaining home, it is clear that Enhanced Content is driving strong sales lift.
Want a refresher on some of the basics of information management and product content in today’s ecommerce world? Check out some of our “101” level content, including: Taxonomy, Core Content, Enhanced Content, and PIM.
The BIG news: Riversand joins the team
Riversand, one of the leading and visionary companies in information management across master data and product information management, became the newest piece of the Syndigo solutions package in 2021.
With this acquisition, Syndigo gained an acknowledged leader in PIM and MDM solutions to enhance our comprehensive services and ultimately enable better commerce. Together as one Syndigo, we now enable an even more seamless process for data management and governance, plus content creation, syndication, and analytics, for a complete solution from a true cloud-based technology stack.
In addition to learning about the overall company ratings, our readers were also very interested in learning more about Riversand in general as well as their capabilities. Among the top posts for the year, we saw great interest in learning more about PIM solutions, MDM, and the differences between PIM, MDM and PLM.
Looking to the future
It’s only been a week, but it feels like we are all well into 2022, planning for growth, looking to stay active and healthy, and helping to make continued improvements in our businesses and the world.
Syndigo is definitely poised to do so, and we will be sharing some new and exciting updates soon. In the meantime, please check out our resources and be sure to subscribe to be notified when new content is available.
Best wishes for 2022!
1 “Online shopping behavior in the United States – statistics & facts”, Statista https://www.statista.com/topics/2477/online-shopping-behavior/#dossierKeyfigures
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