CASE STUDY

PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENTECOMMERCE INNOVATOR GAINS AN EDGE WITH CLOUD-BASED PIM AND SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

APRIL 28, 2015

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A fast growing design-oriented ecommerce retailer planned to launch a series of limited time pop-up stores with a constantly changing assortment of limited time pop-up stores with a constantly changing assortment of unique and hard-to-find items from a variety of vendors.

They were bogged down with substantial challenges from the ongoing rapid pace of onboarding new suppliers and their product catalogs (Product Information Management) – something they needed to excel at for their unique business model to succeed.

RETAILER OVERVIEW: MULTI-BRAND ECOMMERCE SITE

About the Retailer

• Online only business

• “Pop-up stores”

• Multi-brand retailer

• Fashion & Apparel

• Product Information Management Challenges

• Led by ecommerce veterans

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Merchandising at Turbo-Charged SpeedsThe business model put tremendous pressure on the merchandising function. They had to find new products and add all the supplier and product details to the online store in days, even hours!

Onboarding Suppliers and Products Every Day All DaySpeed was not the only factor with this business model; volume upped the challenge. Onboarding can strain any merchant, but for this retailer, adding suppliers and product information wasn’t a one-time or seasonal struggle, but a massively relentless every day way of doing business

RETAILER OVERVIEW: ONBOARDING SUPPLIER CATALOGUES DAILY

“I could not afford the distraction of spending 25% to 30% of my time on a home grown IT project for product information management during this critical early project phase. And I knew an email and spreadsheet product information management process would be a disaster.”

CEO

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THE CHALLENGE: DRAMATICALLY SCALE SUPPLIER AND PRODUCT ONBOARDING WITHOUT ADDING STAFF

The ecommerce company needed an innovative approach to supplier and product information management that addressed three core challenges:

Continuous supplier onboarding

Rapid pace of adding new products and details

Scarce resources: Not enough people or time

Curating a unique assortmentof merchandise meant this company needed to handle a large number of suppliers, with new ones being added every day.

The suppliers ranged from large and efficient companies to tiny artisanal vendors.

Many were not technology savvy and almost all of them had different processes and capabilities.

Managing suppliers was simple compared to the product information management task. The retailer needed a way to handle the massive number and variety of products coming on daily. The sheer scale of effort and the relentlessly fast pace of the business model was complicated by the needto present the products across platforms, from the traditional Website to mobile, social, even search. While some SKUs shared common product attributes, many had unique elements that were the key to creating the rich product descriptions needed for stimulating sales and for sophisticated SEO.

Does any retailer have an oversupply of staff, cash and time? Our client had ambitious growth plans that absolutely demanded a scalable and automated product information management system.

They could not add employees fast enough to handle expansion plans. Their lean staff needed to focus on sourcing and selling amazing products, not managing a multi-month system-build and IT integration process.

They needed to spend wisely and avoid making a huge upfront investment with a long payback window.

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Buy Now or Never

Online retailing is about immediacy.

This company’s business model turbo-charged the impact of that immediacy. Because the stores were up for only a few days, shoppers needed to buy now, because the product might not be there tomorrow.

That put even pressure on the product information management function.

THE CHALLENGE: CONVERT SITE VISITORS WITH A CONSTANT FLOW OF ROBUST PRODUCT OFFERS

• Product details needed to automatically flow across platforms

• Product descriptions had to stimulate a “buy now” impulse

• Rich product information was a must for creating a sense of trust and confidence in the company and the items for sale

• Products had to be quickly findable through SEO

• The short retail window meant abandoned shopping carts were a serious negative—there was no time to try to recover them

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Merchantry Solution

Merchantry’s SaaS PIM software was built by retailers, for retailers, to address the online retailer’s critical ecommerce needs:

• Speed was of the essence. Merchantry’s fast implementation front-loaded value without requiring front-loaded investment.

• Merchantry created hundreds of product attribute and validation rules to automate the long-term management of product information across thousands of SKUs and suppliers.

• Merchantry implemented a fully automated supplier onboarding and product information management system.

• Merchantry’s Supplier Portal provided a single point of entry for all supplier and product catalog content, along with an easy and transparent process for self-onboarding and updating.

• Merchantry delivered training for the retailer’s staff and key suppliers to create instant experts who could make maximum use of the system from day one.

MERCHANTRY SOLUTION: CLOUD BASED SUPPLIER ONBOARDING AND PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

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SaaS PIM Speed to Market

Merchantry’s SaaS Product Information Management (PIM) solution optimized the online retailer’s speed to market with fresh, new products.

Richly detailed product descriptions, supported by flexible categorization, has generated increases in sales and improvements in SEO performance.

Clear, comprehensive and accurate product information builds trust and activates shoppers to buy.

SAAS PIM RESULTS: SPEED TO MARKET, SCALABILITY, AND SUPPLIER SATISFACTION

Success by the Numbers

• 7 weeks from start to finish • 1 point of entry for all suppliers,

items and platforms • Onboarding over 200 suppliers

per month • Handling over 1,400 item

validation rules “Speed to market with a curated and constantly changing offering of unique products that have expansive descriptions is where we excel. Merchantry is our product information management secret that keeps our competition guessing, our suppliers happy and our customers buying.” –CEO

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SaaS PIM Scalability

On the operational side, Merchantry’s SaaS PIM software enables the company to:

• Onboard hundreds of new suppliers and thousands of products every month—incredibly fast, without sacrificing accuracy.

• Automate validation of supplier information, preventing mistakes and also feeding online, mobile and social platforms seamlessly.

• Focus on their core competency of curating cool products. With suppliers able to quickly and effectively self-onboard, the company avoided pushing spreadsheets and building and modifying IT systems and

And the solution will enable them to continue growing without adding staff.

SAAS PIM RESULTS: SPEED TO MARKET, SCALABILITY, AND SUPPLIER SATISFACTION

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SaaS PIM Supplier Satisfaction

• Suppliers love the solution too!

• Merchantry makes doing business with this retailer easy—even for small suppliers with low technology skills. The process is clear and simple so that suppliers can self-onboard and effortlessly, completely, and accurately supply information that will make their products sell.

• First impressions count. Merchantry helped this company create trust from suppliers with a well-thought-out, solidly functioning process and easy tools. This retailer now is master of a function that is differentiating and mission-critical to the success of their business model.

SAAS PIM RESULTS: SAAS PIM SPEED TO MARKET, SCALABILITY, AND SUPPLIER SATISFACTION

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PIM Implementation Phase

No hidden costs outside contract

• No hardware purchase or configuration

(vs. time and money spent purchasing servers and DBs, configuring, etc.)

• No PIM software customization or outside tech resources required(vs. large professional services contract)

• Rapid PIM deployment and adoption

SAAS PIM RESULTS: MERCHANTRY’S CLOUD-BASED SOLUTION SAVED TIME AND MONEY

Ongoing PIM Support

No IT infrastructure or software upgrades to manage

• No FTEs for internal IT management

(vs. ½ FTE for server and software maintenance)

• Upgrades managed by Merchantry

• Dedicated account manager and support team for client users

• Supplier support for catalog onboarding

Low Total Cost of Ownership

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Cloud PIM Advantages

• Product: Pre-configured for retailer and supplier use cases – no custom programming

• Infrastructure: No impact on IT infrastructure, no hardware sourcing or software install

• API’s: Open APIs in a non-proprietary format, connecting to any number of systems

SAAS PIM RESULTS: RAPID IMPLEMENTATION AND FASTE “TIME TO IMPACT”

Impact on PIM Implementation

2 Months after signature• 4,700 new products in system• 190 new suppliers

3 Months after signature• 7,700 new products in system• 300 new suppliers

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MERCHANTRY: SAAS PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT FOR MULTI-BRAND RETAILERS

About Merchantry

Based in NYC, Merchantry is the world's only cloud-based enterprise Product Information Management solution. Designed by retailers for retailers, Merchantry's SaaS PIM delivers speed, flexibility and scalability:

• Fastest PIM implementation• Fastest supplier onboarding• Robust dropship management module• Configurable enterprise-strength product

information management (no custom programming)• On-demand PIM scalability without hardware

purchases or management

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LEARN MORE ABOUT PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND SUPPLIER ONBOARDING

Links to Additional Free Resources

• Case Study Webinar: The Future of Ecommerce -How Bluefly Excelled at Supplier onboarding

• Whitepaper: 7 Product Data Inefficiencies Impacting Your Revenue Growth

• Blog Post: Unlocking Sales Growth with Product Information Management (PIM) Software

• Website: Managing Retail Product Information

• Demonstration: Schedule a SaaS Product Information Management solution demo