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Prime Day alone set a record of over 375 million items purchased worldwide,...":1,"#Supply Chain":1,"#Below are a few charts, links, and descriptions to help you keep up on the business implications and potential solutions to help you gain as insights to make informed decisions for your business. We hope you find this information helpful. As always, please reach out to you Syndigo account professional if you have any questions.":1,"#The adjectives to describe the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) and its impact on the world, business and consumer economy have been powerful : “Alarming.” “Unsettling.” “Unprecedented.” For businesses that make consumer products in particular, monitoring the COVID-19 outbreak has become a high-risk proposition. With the uncertainties around how long the virus will continue, it becomes a challenge to plan for the longer term. On the other hand, it is times like these where consumers can attach loyalty to the brands that serve them well.":1,"#Like you, here at Syndigo we have been monitoring the online activity of eCommerce sites as well as the industry at large. We’ve compiled some information from across thought leaders and our own information to help to build a more complete picture on what is happening in the marketplace.":1,"#Information to Help You Manage Your Business Today and for the Future":1,"#CivicScience report how COVID-19 influences grocery eCommerce":1,"#GLOBAL CHANGES IN ECOMMERCE USAGE":1,"#SYNDIGO INSIGHTS ON SHOPPER BEHAVIOR AND CONTENT OPTIMIZATION":1,"#Valassis Communications consumer study on behavior change after the outbreak":1,"#RODUKTDATENPFELGE (CONTENT CURATION)":1,"#Witnessing the evolution of eCommerce":1,"#Watch our on-demand webinar, to kick off the year with important highlights and insights on how you can make the most of your product data and content to deliver even better performance this year.":1,"#The battle for shopper attention is constant. With so many options and channels, the consumer now has more control than ever! To succeed, brands and retailers must ensure they are winning at every shelf—not just online, not just in-store.":1,"#Rapid shifts in the competitive landscape, consumer expectations, supply chains, and regulations have made grocery retailers more dependent than ever...":1,"#2. Meeting Customer Expectations – Accuracy is Non-Negotiable":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Specifications:</strong> Don’t miss the details, dimensions, materials, and care instructions matter.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Visual Assets: </strong>High-quality images and videos provide a virtual touch-and-feel experience. Showcase your product from every angle and provide that in-store feeling.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Rich Descriptions:</strong> Elevate your product detail pages (PDPs) with engaging descriptions. Paint a vivid picture of what the consumer will find.":1,"#Actionable Steps":1,"#How can brands reduce this costly churn without sacrificing satisfaction? One answer lies in comprehensive product information. When consumers find accurate, detailed content – whether it’s sizing charts, ingredient lists, or usage instructions – they make informed decisions. Fewer surprises mean fewer returns.":1,"#Returns are a double-edged sword. While they are an integral part of e-commerce customer satisfaction, excessive returns hurt the bottom line.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Personalization: </strong>Tailor recommendations based on browsing history and preferences.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Interactive Elements: </strong>Quizzes, how-to guides, and FAQs keep shoppers engaged.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Storytelling: </strong>Go beyond features. Share product stories, use cases, and benefits.":1,"#Engage consumers at every step, make them feel confident about their choices.":1,"#Picture this: A shopper adds your item to their cart, hovers over the checkout button, and then, out of the blue, they just vanish. Abandoned carts plague e-commerce. Often, it’s due to lackluster product content.":1,"#4. Engaging and Informative Product Content – The Cart Abandonment Solution":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Localized Adaptation: </strong>Tailor content to regional nuances without compromising core brand values.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Cross-Channel Alignment: </strong>Ensure your brand story remains intact across platforms.":1,"#1. Cutting Down Returns – The Power of Product Information":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Brand Guidelines:</strong> Establish clear guidelines for tone, imagery, and messaging not just for your marketing and communications but for your product content as well.":1,"#Actionable Steps:":1,"#Whether a shopper encounters your brand on Amazon, Walmart or other marketplaces, consistency should be prioritized. A unified voice, visual style, and messaging create a seamless brand experience.":1,"#Consumers navigate a maze of e-commerce sites, each with its own flavor. But even across different online environments, it’s important for a brand to preserve a consistent identity.":1,"#3. Consistent Brand Representation – Across Sites and Beyond":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Transparency: </strong>Be honest about product limitations to manage expectations proactively.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">User-Generated Content:</strong> Leverage reviews and ratings; authentic feedback builds credibility.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Real-Time Updates:</strong> Regularly review and update product details, compare your PIM data to your product content across different sites constantly to avoid outdated content. Leverage innovations like <a ljsid-2=\"\">Syndigo’s Compare with Live</a> to leverage real-time visibility through various platforms to compare your PIM data to live data side-by-side.":1,"#Brands must deliver on promises. Accurate product information isn’t optional – it’s fundamental.":1,"#Imagine a shopper eagerly awaiting their order delivery, only to receive something that doesn’t match the online description. Disappointment sets in, trust wavers, and brand loyalty hangs in the balance.":1,"#Connecting with Consumers – The Blueprint for Loyalty":1,"#In the crowded e-commerce arena, brands engage in an unrelenting battle for consumer attention.":1,"#Supplier Checklist for managing content":1,"#Here are just a few tidbits:":1,"#How to leverage PIM for more effective eCommerce sales":1,"#New templates and how they reduce the time to post and speed the time to decision":1,"#Tools & tips to deliver more sales on every Product Detail Page (PDP)":1,"#New retailer tools and connections to operate more effectively—for both sides of the industry":1,"#Syndigo User Interface: What’s new (and improved!)":1,"#New tools to making online Brand Management easier":1,"#Check out our Neutrogena Client Success Story":1,"#Neutrogena recognizes the value of providing an engaging digital shopper experience to drive sales and loyalty, and needed to provide the content and tools to help customers find right products.":1,"#While some products are easy to compare online, some may take a bit of a closer look. It’s especially a challenge for fashion and beauty brands, where colors and styles may look different online.":1,"#In addition to creating an immersive product detail page with rich enhanced content, Neutrogena also worked with Syndigo to produce a custom interactive product selection tool to guide consumers with a series of questions in order to recommend the cosmetic product(s) that best met the needs of each individual shopper.":1,"#In today’s marketplace, winning that shopper experience at the digital shelf requires a continuous feedback loop on eCommerce product performance, including shopper interactions with content, add-to-cart and conversion rates, and competitor activities.":1,"#When asked “Which of the following are most important to executing on your top business priorities,” the top three responses were improving the customer experience, driving growth, and growing their eCommerce presence. Decision-makers ranked these three elements higher than reducing costs and customer retention.":1,"#It’s no surprise that CX is on the list. After a year of accelerated online activity, no one disputes that engaging customers is important to driving sales, and the way consumers are able to interact online is incredibly important. More than half of survey participants cited it as a top business priority this year.":1,"#This process requires several capabilities: ingesting and enriching created content; syndicating the information to recipient requirements; enhancing product page listings; and optimizing it a optimized through reporting and analytics. This will allow accurate, verified information – critical for product listings and shopper sales – across retailers and other recipient sites, with added capabilities for driving engagement and optimization.":1,"#According to the Forrester survey, the “’Must Win’ Battleground” is the digital customer experience. To win the shopper experience at the digital shelf, both suppliers and retailers need more than their legacy PIM or a DAM. The data from this survey, as well as continually evolving shifts in shopper behavior, underline the need for businesses to develop a more comprehensive content management process that creates a continuous feedback loop for content improvement.":1,"#Syndigo has noted anecdotal confirmation as well, including strong growth in Latin America-focused eCommerce platforms such as <a ljsid-1=\"\">NuSpace</a>, a digital platform for Brazil’s Drogarias Iguatemi customers, or <a ljsid-3=\"\">L’Oreal’s online activities</a> across the region. In addition, online shopping holidays such as Hot Sale and El Buen Fin in Mexico and other parts of Latin America highlight the emphasis on mobile eCommerce, which echo the Black Friday / Cyber Monday pushes online in the US.":1,"#If 2020 taught businesses anything, it was that being able to pivot plans quickly could mean the difference between company failure and survival. ECommerce has been at the forefront of supplier and retailer plans in 2020 for a combination of reasons, and the increased share of shopper purchases is predicted to be a permanent trend.":1,"#Let’s look at each of these three top-ranked elements.":1,"#Interestingly however, at a regional level, the importance ratings did show a clear ranking difference between EMEA and Latin America. Latin America ranked customer experience improvements as significantly more important than their EMEA counterparts (60% vs. 48% rating CX as one of the top important elements). This may be due to several reasons, including a more established infrastructure of large retailers across EMEA (especially Europe) and a generally average older population that tends to shop physically in stores, compared to the average younger and more mobile-use shoppers in Latin America.":1,"#Winning the Shopper Experience":1,"#Driving growth was a fairly consistent choice for the number-two top concern, and while more than half ranked growth as one of their 3 top concerns, slightly more people chose it as their top concern above improving the customer experience (23% vs. 20% overall). Regionally, more North America respondents chose growth as the number-one concern above EMEA and Latin America. On an aggregate basis, both EMEA and North America were ahead of Latin America when listing driving growth as a top-three concern (56%, 59% and 51% respectively).":1,"#Similar to the rankings around improving the customer experience, Latin America led as the region with the highest prioritization around growing an eCommerce presence. More than half (55%) of Latin America respondents ranked eCommerce presence as a ‘top 3’ concern, and 25% ranked it number one. this is a significant difference from EMEA, which lagged both Latin and North America, with less than 10% ranking it number one, and only 39% ranking it as in the top 3.":1,"#When it comes to digital transformation, all organizations are looking to improve. We surveyed global product content leaders, commissioned from Forrester Consulting,* to find out what they thought about customer experience and digital transformation around product content, including their business priorities.":1,"#Interestingly, there was a pronounced difference in rating growth as a driving concern based on department, and perhaps counter-intuitively. Both Marketing and Sales leaders ranked growth as a lower priority concern than Product leaders, with product leaders ranking growth as the number-one priority more than ten percentage points higher than both – (Product- 34%, Sales- 24%, Marketing 20%).":1,"#Growing an eCommerce Presence":1,"#Driving Growth":1,"#With the Syndigo Product Selector, Neutrogena created a virtual personal shopping assistant online, providing the most relevant product recommendation to the shopper. By educating shoppers, the brand helped to deliver higher purchase intent.":1,"#Amazon Featured: Maximizing Success on Prime Day 2023: Strategies for Visibility, Sales, and Buy Box Dominance GDSN Featured: Demystifying GS1 and GDSN: The Jargon Retail [...]":1,"#In addition to meeting the Privacy Shield’s requirements, we also worked with VeraSafe (a data protection consultant), who assessed our data governance and data security within CXH for compliance with the <a ljsid-1=\"\">VeraSafe Privacy Program Certification Criteria</a>. These criteria are even more stringent than the Privacy Shield requirements.":1,"#In order for us to get our certification, we were required to formalize our practices relating to personal data. This includes listing what information we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, and who we share it with. We’ve also worked hard to ensure that all our service providers who handle personal data on our behalf live up to the same data protection standards that we do (and we’ve entered contracts with them that require as much). Finally, we have updated our Privacy Policy to contain all of this information in addition to information about the Privacy Shield program, dispute resolution, and how to contact us.":1,"#What is the VeraSafe Privacy Program?":1,"#What is the Privacy Shield?":1,"#We will re-certify annually with the Privacy Program, which keeps us focused on our data protection practices.":1,"#What does that mean? Let’s talk a little bit about these efforts.":1,"#Privacy Shield is a framework for securely transferring personal data between the United States and the European Union for commercial reasons. For example, if a European user logs into our CXH platform, information like their username and account information that is sent to us for processing is now protected under the Privacy Shield framework.":1,"#We hope that the hard work we have put in to update our privacy practices makes your own compliance journey easier and gives you confidence in the treatment of your personal data.":1,"#Generating incremental lift from online content":1,"#Important alerts to monitor for eCommerce success":1,"#Finally, you can access Syndigo’s approach in response to COVID-19, published back in March of this year. Syndigo’s management team chose an early-response methodology to protect our clients’ ability to manage their businesses during the outbreak, and as of this date are continuing at full capacity.":1,"#How retailers can utilize Syndigo’s proven process to ensure their site is compliant":1,"#Join us for an insightful webinar where you will learn about:":1,"#Best practices, including tips and tricks on creating content (e.g., intuitive and semantic HTML, enriched metadata, and inclusive assets, etc.)":1,"#The latest ADA Compliance trends and WCAG requirements across retail sites":1,"#Tools and templates brands and retailers can leverage to ensure content is compliant (e.g., standardized HTML, designed layouts, closed captioning, etc.)":1,"#How brands can best prepare for these trends and publish compliant content":1,"#Earlier this summer, The International Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA) hosted one of the first in-person industry events since Q1 2020. The annual event, IFDA’s Sales & Marketing (SMart) Conference, hosts companies from distribution and manufacturing communities in foodservice, bringing together leaders from across the country to explore the state of industry, showcase thought leadership, and promote collaboration to improve the supply chain.":1,"#Now with proliferation of grocery delivery, the ability for a manufacturer to discern foodservice from retail has become challenging. This sudden shift in consumer behavior—or what I described last year as a “violent shove” into the virtual marketplace—has changed the way retail and foodservice companies think about how they present their products to people throughout all channels, especially online.":1,"#Well, that came to fruition! Mixed packs of portion-controlled condiments are now available in retail packs—and they sell like crazy. It turns out consumers were not afraid of bulk-packed anything. They’ve been buying from big-box retailers for years, so why not take advantage of convenient packaging, like these smaller condiments that one could usually only find by ordering from a broadline distributor?":1,"#Why was consumer behavior shifting? Younger generations, often Millennials, who tend to seek convenience, more information, and consumer-backed endorsements to guide their purchase decisions. This is where Anthony came into our presentation and told a story of a friend of his, a mother of two, who after picking up a week’s worth of groceries at the end of her work day, flew by the ‘take-n-make’ section to grab a meal kit for that evening. Why? So she could quickly assemble something for her family and maximize time with them, rather than having to spend the rest of her evening toiling away in the kitchen.":1,"#As the foodservice supply chain shut down in February & March of 2020, retail was back on top of consumer spending. Manufacturers were having to quickly figure out how to move products that were traditionally reserved for foodservice through a different supply chain.":1,"#It’s easy to see that Millennials have been steering generations, both ahead and behind them, to embrace an on-demand shopping experience (which has translated to improved online shopping experiences).":1,"#For those of you who weren’t able to attend this year’s IFDA SMart Conference, here’s a recap of what we shared on behalf of Syndigo.":1,"#34% lift in food away from establishment (compared to previous year)":1,"#Meanwhile, Anthony shared that he had already been buying bulk-packs of Kraft products for years, simply because they were available to him. Think big packages of Kraft singles, but instead of the 20 slices you might find in the cheese section of the dairy aisle, he was getting the kind a restaurant might buy, with 120 slices per pack. Maybe the average household wasn’t ready for 120 slices of cheese, but what about individual portion-controlled condiments? A.k.a. those tiny packets of ketchup, mustard, and mayo that you might find at a service counter or in your to-go bag from a restaurant. Why wouldn’t parents want to have those for kids’ lunches? Or maybe an office employee who takes their lunch to work and doesn’t want the sandwich they made to be soggy by mid-afternoon.":1,"#90% of consumers were using drive-thru or pick up":1,"#60% of food was being consumed off premise":1,"#Retail, meet foodservice":1,"#For decades, retail grocery out-sold foodservice. If you look back to the early 90s, consumers spent nearly 30% more with a grocery store than a restaurant. By the time 2014 came around, there was no gap, and going into 2019, going out to restaurants had surpassed shopping at grocery stores (not by much, but it was happening).":1,"#My thesis was: Foodservice is already in flux, which means the industry is prepared for this kind of shift in consumer behavior. I said on Zoom that day, “Foodservice is getting a violent shove into a virtual marketplace.” A few statistics I included were:":1,"#53% of consumers were using third-party apps to get food delivered":1,"#Foodservice and retail/CPG are not that different anymore":1,"#Even before the world was shaken by COVID-19, we were seeing these two industries begin to take similar forms. It was the core of my presentation at the virtual IFDA SMart in 2020, where we unpacked the behavioral changes occurring in foodservice as traditional consumers began to reshape the way they shopped for, and ultimately consumed, their meals.":1,"#This year, I took the stage with fellow industry veteran and Syndigo SVP of Product, Anthony Marshall, to talk about how foodservice leaders should be thinking about eCommerce and leveraging data, especially post pandemic. In my time at Syndigo, I’ve gotten a clear lens into how retail approaches eCommerce and the way that data is exchanged between retailer and brand owner. So I thought, <em ljsid-1=\"\">let’s show foodservice how retail is blowing away online shoppers</em>. I knew Anthony would be exactly the right person to cover this with, as he comes with 20 years of experience in the CPG world at Kraft-Heinz, driving eCommerce and category leadership initiatives.":1,"#It turns out, these are often the same people who go to work at hotels, hospitals, and restaurants to order products for their customers. According to Cleveland Research, more than 77% of foodservice operators are buying at least some of their products online. Brands must drive this visibility and relevance of their products across all digital touchpoints by optimizing how they create, manage, and deliver their content experience—all with the end goal to increase conversions and drive market share.":1,"#Syndigo OpenAI Connect":1,"#Understanding the value of sustainable data management is only the first step—organizations must now translate this knowledge into concrete, strategic action to realize the full potential of their sustainability initiatives.":1,"#Transparent information builds consumer confidence, strengthens supplier relationships, and generates data-driven insights that promote eco-friendly product development. Ultimately, these integrated solutions not only support environmental responsibility but also create tangible business value by increasing customer trust, improving operational efficiency, and enhancing market competitiveness.":1,"#Implementing a robust sustainability data management strategy delivers measurable returns across multiple business dimensions. By integrating Master Data Management, enhanced content, and syndication, organizations gain competitive advantages through improved operational efficiency and stronger brand positioning. This approach transforms sustainability from a cost center into a strategic driver of innovation, customer loyalty, and long-term business growth.":1,"#Syndication completes the sustainability data management ecosystem by distributing information across various platforms and stakeholders. This approach ensures consistent and accurate transmission of product data and sustainability information throughout the value chain. By maintaining cross-channel consistency, enabling real-time data sharing, and supporting market expansion, syndication promotes transparency, facilitates collaboration, and helps organizations effectively communicate their sustainability credentials across different channels and global markets.":1,"#The Connective Power of Syndication: Building a Sustainable Future":1,"#Enhanced content—detailed product information that goes beyond basic descriptions—plays a vital role in sustainability strategies. This includes information on product lifecycle, environmental impact, sourcing, and compliance with sustainability standards. By providing customers with detailed information about product origins, materials, and environmental impact, organizations can build trust and encourage sustainable purchasing decisions. Rich content also allows companies to evaluate suppliers based on sustainability criteria, ensuring alignment with overall sustainability goals. Furthermore, detailed content helps design teams understand the environmental impact of materials and processes, leading to more eco-friendly product development.":1,"#By consolidating product information from multiple sources, MDM enables organizations to generate precise sustainability reports, track performance metrics comprehensively, and ensure regulatory compliance. This approach allows companies to maintain a consistent and reliable sustainability score, helping them meet environmental regulations and prepare for emerging requirements like the <strong ljsid-1=\"\">Digital Product Passport</strong> by maintaining up-to-date and accessible data across all operational areas.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Performance Tracking</strong>: With MDM, organizations can track sustainability metrics across different departments and operations, gaining a holistic view of their performance.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Regulatory Compliance</strong>: MDM ensures that all sustainability data is up to date, facilitating compliance with environmental regulations and preparing organizations for upcoming requirements like the Digital Product Passport.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Unified Reporting</strong>: By consolidating data from various sources, MDM enables accurate sustainability reporting and provides organizations with a clear sustainability score across products and suppliers.":1,"#Master Data Management (MDM) offers a comprehensive approach to managing an organization’s critical data, providing a single, accurate view across the enterprise. When applied to sustainability initiatives, MDM ensures that all relevant data is consistent, accurate, and accessible. Key benefits include:":1,"#Unlock the Power of Your Sustainability Data":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Inefficient Communication</strong>: Disjointed communication channels hinder collaboration between stakeholders, slowing down sustainability initiatives and reducing the marketability of sustainable products.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Compliance and Reporting Hurdles</strong>: Meeting evolving regulatory requirements demands robust data management frameworks.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Limited Visibility and Transparency</strong>: Without comprehensive visibility into supply chains and operations, identifying areas for improvement becomes nearly impossible.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Data Silos and Inconsistencies</strong>: Fragmented data across departments makes it difficult to track and report on sustainability metrics accurately.":1,"#Organizations across industries face several common challenges when working toward sustainability targets:":1,"#Organizations today face unprecedented pressure from consumers, investors, regulators, and competitors to integrate sustainable practices into their operations. Despite this imperative, many companies find themselves struggling to effectively implement, measure, and communicate their sustainability initiatives due to fundamental data management issues. The path to sustainability excellence is filled with complex challenges that span organizational boundaries, technological capabilities, and data management practices. Without addressing these fundamental issues, even the most well-intentioned sustainability strategies risk falling short of their potential impact.":1,"#Businesses face mounting pressure to demonstrate their environmental responsibility as sustainability has evolved from a nice-to-have initiative to a fundamental business strategy. However, many organizations struggle to effectively track, measure, and communicate their sustainability efforts due to fragmented data systems and inconsistent information across departments and supply chains.":1,"#Start Building a Data-Driven Sustainability Ecosystem":1,"#The ROI of Sustainable Data Management":1,"#Building Trust Through Transparency":1,"#Maximize Master Data Management for a Unified Approach":1,"#The Sustainability Challenge":1,"#Contact us to learn how this partnership can help you reach new heights in the global marketplace.":1,"#Unlock Global Growth with Syndigo and Productsup":1,"#Fortunately, Syndigo has been working with Walmart, and we can be your advantage to ensuring proper content submission. Recently, Walmart developed their <a ljsid-1=\"\">Connected Content Partner</a> program as a way to ensure all solution providers submit their content in the proper format. Syndigo is the <strong ljsid-3=\"\">only</strong> service provider that has been approved across all three categories of Syndication, Enrichment and Enhanced Rich Media. This means we can help in content creation, enhancement, and syndication to Walmart (and other retailer recipients as well).":1,"#Walmart’s success in both eCommerce and in-store sales are well documented. In addition, their delivery and BOPIS services have also grown. It’s clear that one path to supplier growth is to work with Walmart.":1,"#Now is the time for 2020 planning. Make sure your content is complete for submitting to Walmart. And please check out Syndigo’s resources for learning more about developing winning content programs.":1,"#Finally, we can ensure your supply chain and warehouse data complies with <a ljsid-1=\"\">GDSN</a> specifications. In addition to being a Connected Content Partner, Syndigo is also a GS1-certified data pool for GDSN.":1,"#Next, Enhanced content is what drives conversions – as much as 36% greater than Core content alone. <a ljsid-1=\"\">Enhanced content</a> helps to engage shoppers and strengthen your value message through more interactive displays, including videos,":1,"#Here are a few ways we can help. First, your <a ljsid-1=\"\">Core content</a> is critical for delivering brand consistency across in-store and eCommerce platforms, enabling an omni-commerce experience to drive sales and supply chain efficiency. Whether it’s product descriptions, weights and measures or ingredients and wellness information, Syndigo delivers Core content in retailer-required formats to the largest global trading network.":1,"#However, the combination of in-store and online requirements for product content can present a complex challenge for suppliers. Walmart provides specific requirements for syndicating product information, and compliance is critical in order to be listed prominently.":1,"#Click to read this handy tip sheet: Five ways to drive sales on Walmart.com":1,"#“As a data provider for Manufacturer Center, Syndigo provides verified product content and images for better brand consistency, which leads to the transparency that consumers today require,” said Chris Barnes, SVP, Corporate Development and Solutions Delivery at Syndigo. “There are many factors that influence the way a shopper searches, such as life stage, health and diet to name a few. Having all the necessary product content verified in proper format is essential. Syndigo provides this across many product sectors.”":1,"#Wicks Capital Partners is a private investment firm based in New York City that invests in lower middle market information businesses that create and deliver niche content and services to the business, consumer and education markets. Since its founding in 1989, Wicks has invested over $1 billion of capital in more than 30 platform companies and approximately 100 add-on acquisitions. The firm has applied a consistent investment strategy since its founding, partnering with high-quality, experienced management teams to build businesses organically and through acquisitions. Learn more at www.wicksgroup.com.":1,"#More than 5,000 brands use Google Manufacturer Center to improve their presence on Google. This creates more effective listings on Shopping Ads, other Google services, and across the web.":1,"#Company Provides Accurate Enhanced Product Content":1,"#TJC (www.thejordancompany.com), founded in 1982, is a middle-market private equity firm that has managed funds with original capital commitments in excess of $11 billion since 1987 and a 36-year track record of investing in and contributing to the growth of many businesses across a wide range of industries including Industrials, Transportation & Logistics, Healthcare & Consumer, and Telecom, Technology & Utility. The senior investment team has been investing together for over 20 years and it is supported by the Operations Management Group, which was established in 1988 to initiate and support operational improvements in portfolio companies. Headquartered in New York, TJC also has an office in Chicago.":1,"#Our <strong ljsid-1=\"\">Product Experience Cloud</strong>, which integrates with Master Data Management (MDM), provides enhanced content capabilities and strategic syndication for a powerful solution to meet these challenges. By creating a single source of truth for sustainability data, these integrated approaches enable companies to not only meet regulatory requirements, but also build consumer trust, improve supplier relationships, and drive innovation—all while maintaining their competitive edge in an increasingly eco-conscious marketplace.":1,"#Discover how the strategic partnership between Syndigo and Productsup can revolutionize your product experience management. By combining Syndigo’s AI-native platform with Productsup’s global commerce network, this collaboration empowers brands and retailers to seamlessly scale product content across international markets, enhance ad performance, and accelerate growth.":1,"#At Syndigo, we recently introduced <strong ljsid-1=\"\"><a ljsid-1-0=\"\">Compare With Live</a></strong>, a new feature within CXH to help ensure that a supplier’s product content is consistent with what is displayed live. The <strong ljsid-3=\"\">Compare With Live</strong> solution allows a user to gain a side-by-side comparison view of product detail page marketing content, images and videos on retailer websites compared to what’s listed in your PIM attribute data. With this capability, it becomes manageable to analyze content either item by item, across all core content assets and attributes, or match content online with what is posted online.":1,"#Syndigo solutions include: detailed and verified product information with audit analytics to help facilitate buying decisions; syndication of data to GS1 global standards via GDSN; store optimization services for effective in-store layouts and shelf merchandising; publishing of rich product content integrated into retail sites globally; and interactive tools to allow restaurant and foodservice brands to organize and share nutrition data with their customers.":1,"#Syndigo helps clients grow sales by providing extensive product content, nutrition information and digital media that power engaging experiences across brands, distributors and retailers. Clients in industries such as automotive, consumer goods, DIY, foodservice, grocery, hardlines, and healthcare all benefit from Syndigo’s integrated platform, Content Experience Hub – which enables clients to collect, store, manage, syndicate and publish their content for consumers across the largest trading network in the world.":1,"#A Unified Approach to PXM Excellence":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Future Growth in APAC</strong>: Both companies plan to extend their combined reach to the Asia-Pacific region and collaborate on advanced integrations and innovations for future rollout.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Expanded Reach in EMEA</strong>: Syndigo customers can now seamlessly access Productsup’s extensive global commerce network, enabling product content syndication across major platforms, such as Google Manufacturer Center, bol.com, and Kaufland Marketplace throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.":1,"#Key Highlights of the Partnership:":1,"#“With this collaboration, our joint customers can now manage the entire commerce funnel more effectively—leveraging high-quality product data to improve ad performance, enhance product detail pages, and increase conversions across multiple channels,” he added.":1,"#“This partnership is a major step forward in enabling brands and retailers to scale efficiently across global markets,” said Tarun Chandrasekhar, Syndigo President and Chief Product Officer. “By combining Syndigo’s AI-native platform with Productsup’s extensive commerce network, we’re eliminating friction in product content distribution—helping businesses accelerate time-to-market and drive growth seamlessly.”":1,"#Productsup enables global companies to create perfect product content journeys for every channel and target consumer worldwide. Processing over two trillion products a month, the highly scalable feed management and syndication platform is equipped for the most sophisticated enterprise customers, helping them overcome commerce complexity to create consistent product, brand, and service experiences. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Berlin, Productsup works with over 1,000 brands, including Sephora, Beiersdorf, Redbubble, and ALDI. <a ljsid-1=\"\">www.productsup.com</a>":1,"#About Productsup":1,"#Learn more about how Syndigo and Productsup empower brands and retailers to compete in the rapidly evolving global marketplace.":1,"#“At the end of the day, all we want is to make our customers’ lives easier and help their brands be more successful,” said Productsup Chief Innovation Officer Marcel Hollerbach. “This partnership opens up new opportunities for brands and retailers to reach millions of potential buyers without straining their operations. They unlock new growth opportunities, while maintaining complete control over their product content.”":1,"#The new alliance allows these two industry leaders to equip B2C and B2B businesses to navigate the complexities of industry standards, country-specific regulations, and channel-specific requirements—ensuring faster time-to-market and optimized campaign performance.":1,"#Their combined network of global commerce channels empowers businesses to seamlessly scale product content across international markets":1,"#This potential for online growth will continue, which is why Lowe’s and Syndigo are working to educate suppliers on the importance of having high quality assets that engage shoppers. Lowe’s has seen a 10-15% increase in conversions online with quality Core Content, and even greater increases with <a ljsid-1=\"\">Enhanced Content</a>.":1,"#While Core details are crucial to helping shoppers make informed, efficient purchase decisions, <a ljsid-1=\"\">Enhanced Content</a> provides that something extra, enabling shoppers to engage even more and possibly consider products in ways they wouldn’t have otherwise. Greater engagement of course leads to more time spent on the page and ultimately, more conversions. At Syndigo, we’ve observed a lift of as much as 36% when shoppers are exposed to such high-quality content!":1,"#Syndigo Vendor Central":1,"#Be clear about the problems you are trying to solve – both near term and longer term.":1,"#How is data and managing product data in particular supporting you in achieving business value?":1,"#We have been providing Social Recognition since 1999. This is peer-to-peer employee recognition around the values and ethos of the organization the employees work for. Employees can nominate each other for awards, and if these awards are approved, their peers can see these awards on the company awards feed and celebrate the recipient.":1,"#Enlist the services of a Syndigo PIM consultant to review your data management “roadmap” and to consult with you as you plan and implement changes in the MDM/PIM.":1,"#What would you advise someone who is just starting on their PIM journey?":1,"#Recently, Frank Kennedy, Product Director, Ecommerce, shared his perspectives about Workhuman and his company’s product information management experience with Syndigo. We thank him for his thoughts and guidance for others.":1,"#Put in place version control processes for your Development, QA and Production MDM/PIM environments – and ensure your Syndigo consultant is on-board with these processes.":1,"#Avoid trying to “force” the PIM/MDM in a direction it is not intended to go. Complex customizations can be problematic to maintain and you may ultimately end up re-doing them.":1,"#Be open to change regarding how you solve those problems. It can be difficult to change legacy business processes and there will be temptation to cling to the “old way” of managing data but the MDM/PIM will give you the option to manage data in an industry-standard and efficient manner. If that doesn’t exactly match the way you currently manage your data – examine those legacy business processes to see if they really make sense.":1,"#What kind of objectives did you have for self-sufficiency when you started with PIM?":1,"#How important is getting the right training?":1,"#What were the top challenges you faced? And how did you overcome them?":1,"#At our core is a highly skilled software development group and we have been building sophisticated web and cloud products for over 20 years using Agile frameworks, releasing multiple product updates each week. Our goal was always to take over the implementation of new features and processes within the PIM as we knew we had the in-house skills and development frameworks to do it.":1,"#We can be far more nimble and can support our business team in a much more meaningful way. We no longer need to be dependent on the capacity of a 3rd party development team and development roadmap. We are “masters of our own destiny” from that perspective.":1,"#We have a relatively lean Ecommerce team managing a huge product assortment, supplier network, merchandising and promotional strategies etc. so we needed a single system for managing all this. Having automation and business rules is vital to ensuring data quality within our product catalogue… and the Syndigo MDM solution is central in allowing us to achieve this. The right products, available in the right regions, for the right price with the right product information is essential for a complex global operation. We couldn’t achieve this without a PIM.":1,"#The awards give recipients points to spend on our global Ecommerce Stores.":1,"#Partnering with a Syndigo Solutions consultant was a terrific way for us to quickly come up the learning curve as we started developing within the platform. The ability for our product managers, architects and developers to have weekly sessions and ad-hoc sessions with the solutions consultant was vital in ensuring we were adopting the best Syndigo techniques for solving the Workhuman process problems.":1,"#At Workhuman, our Mission is to make work more human for every person on the planet. We do this through our Social Recognition and Continuous Performance Management platforms (the Workhuman Cloud).":1,"#While the training is very good, you do need hands-on experience developing and implementing changes within the platform and also guidance along the way from Syndigo experts.":1,"#Why is it better to be self-sufficient?":1,"#We have Ecommerce Stores in over 100 countries and 35 languages with hundreds of thousands of locally fulfilled products and gift cards from all the top brands and merchants.":1,"#A few key things:":1,"#We found the Syndigo University Platform training very important and a great foundation for taking the first steps to becoming self-sufficient, designing data models, business rules etc.":1,"#The VeraSafe certification criteria include mapping where we get personal information and who we share it with; setting up internal policies and procedures; keeping all of our security measures up to date; and reviewing our contractual relationships with vendors, among other things. As a member of the VeraSafe Privacy Program, Syndigo is constantly working to ensure that our privacy and data protection practices are up to date and reflect the best practices of our industry.":1,"#Wild Planet Foods":1,"#The first thing to measure is Content Integrity. With all the resources you spend organizing and curating your content, you should know if the content is successfully syndicated. Tracking whether your content meets all the different retailer site standards can be a challenge if done manually; with an analytics engine to evaluate the available assets, you can have a scorecard to show you where content needs additional support (and why). In addition, having the capability to evaluate how your submitted information compares to the content that is displayed live on site is a powerful tool to have for conversations with your retailer partners.":1,"#We’ve heard the phrase ‘you manage what you measure’, but in some cases, the idea of analytics seems more difficult and confusing. At a high level, businesses need to understand whether their product content is constructed properly; whether it is performing; and how it can be improved. But in a complex consumer and commerce ecosystem, what exactly do you measure in order to manage your product content?":1,"#Additional Reports":1,"#To make the most of your online content, it is important to optimize – to continually improve and enhance – your product information over time. Using analytics to understand how your content is performing and learn how to improve it, online and in real-time, is one of the benefits of utilizing a provider with these tools available. With a bit of understanding around the process and a robust set of tools, you will be far ahead of the game in optimizing your PDPs.":1,"#Once the information is correctly displayed, you will want to know how shoppers are interacting with your pages. This is perhaps the most familiar element of analytics – the tracking of online behavior, and learning “what’s working, and what’s not?”. In addition to the standard web monitoring tools, you should also consider ways to monitor shopper engagement compared to the competition. Syndigo has developed a few analytics reports that you can monitor to optimize your PDPs and improve add-to-cart rates and total cart value over time.":1,"#Beyond content integrity, engagement and the digital shelf, sometimes you need to monitor a more specific variable. That’s when it helps to have other means of reporting available. Based on Syndigo’s experience, there are quite a few variables that clients have found helpful, including: Capturing detailed customer reviews; Minimized Advertised Price (MAP) monitoring; First Mover reports to view price changes across retailer websites; and Geo-Reporting for understanding KPIs (out of stock, pricing, buy box) across multiple geographies.":1,"#When measuring physical in-store activity, the shelf is front and center. And there are many options to measure things like sell through, promotional lift, and out of stocks to name a few. In the online world it is no different – even though it’s a newer discipline, the digital shelf should be tracked as well. For example, do you know how your pricing compares to competitors online? Which competitor items are listed out of stock on retailer sites? What is your overall share of digital shelf? By having a means to track these metrics consistently, you can build a profile and understand how to optimize your offerings – and where to focus your efforts.":1,"#Here’s a quick overview of the areas where a business should focus:":1,"#The Connective Power of Syndication Building a Sustainable Future":1,"#Product attributes are continually changing, and it is important to ensure your data is enriched to meet your global and multilingual requirements.":1,"#Syndigo — updated daily and reflected in real-time so brands can remain agile and adapt. On average, there are 15,000 changes per month. By using Syndigo, customers get alerted to changes taking place, so they don’t have to manage individual retailer updates.":1,"#Attributes often include information like label content, dimensions, packaging information, health and safety claims, SEO, and everything else you need for the supply chain. In addition, our platform enables clients to create custom attributes specific to their business needs. In fact, Syndigo has built-in attributes for over 25,000 product categories.":1,"#Your product content is complex, but there is another layer—the way retailers classify and categorize products. For example, a carbonated fruit beverage may be considered a juice drink by a brand, but a soft drink by a retailer. The way to reconcile this data categorization across your data recipients is through taxonomies. It’s critically important that the content is classified appropriately according to their different taxonomies in order for your product data to be listed where it needs to be on sites and marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and more.":1,"#This also powers our Product Information Management (PIM) capabilities, meaning that product content can be ready for syndication to recipient standards, as well as link back to the original golden record.":1,"#Riversand — recognized as a Leader in the <a ljsid-1=\"\">Forrester PIM Wave</a> — as providing “best-in-class data onboarding and creation, with references crediting it as a ‘very elegant’ solution for complex data aggregation.”<sup ljsid-3=\"\">4</sup>":1,"#(What is PIM? <a ljsid-1=\"\">Download our eBook</a> to learn more)":1,"#“It’s our responsibility as the retailer to provide them what they need, whenever they need that,” commented Whitten. The results of this intense online focus were demonstrated by their sales performance, as Lowe’s saw 135% growth in eCommerce sales in the first quarter.":1,"#The recorded webinar also highlighted the Lowe’s Intake process for new items, which streamlines the overall product process for suppliers, and representatives answered many questions about details of the process. Together, Lowe’s and Syndigo are helping to bring about a better understanding on how to deliver quality content on the Lowe’s website and drive more sales.":1,"#It’s no secret that Lowe’s has one of the most ambitious product content programs around. It was designed as part of an overall upgrade in their systems and processes.":1,"#Many of <a ljsid-1=\"\">Lowe’s</a> new technology capabilities were pulled forward this year to meet this challenge of focusing more on the online product experience. Since many shoppers were doing a great deal of hopping online, the focus shifted to strengthening content on their website.":1,"#This year, the added challenges of COVID-19 made these upgrades even more important. Health and safety regulations changed the way that consumers could shop, and for retailers like Lowe’s, it made sense to operate with a greater emphasis on eCommerce.":1,"#Whitten, along with members of the Syndigo Retailer Services team, helped to lay out for suppliers how important it is to have accurate product information to help shoppers in their purchase decisions. Together the two organizations are working together to simplify the process while also helping to deliver a high-quality online experience.":1,"#Why does this matter? Gartner explains that “Master data is a ‘hygiene’ factor — meaning it must be available and trustworthy, but on its own, it isn’t sufficient for a customer to complete their purchase journey.”":1,"#While the benefits of creating data into an integrated platform are clear, organizations struggle to pull in content and assets from a wide variety of sources. Riversand and Syndigo help companies overcome these barriers with three options for a streamlined process.":1,"#Centralization comes with several key benefits, including:":1,"#Understanding the Four Types of Content":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Self-Service Data Entry. </strong>This approach allows brands to load their content directly into the database. Data gets entered through a self-service user interface, bulk uploads through our APIs, or file uploads.":1,"#Increasing sales by providing rich and dynamic content for your customer.":1,"#Accelerating speed to market by making it easier to manage content from a single source of truth.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Data Entry as a Service. </strong>This approach takes brand-created content and handles all data Creation. We ensure your data is clean and correct, whether we bring it in via bulk uploads or as one-off entries when new products are deployed.":1,"#However, the rapid pace of digital commerce also causes many businesses to struggle, exposing gaps in their approach to data management.":1,"#In bringing together <a ljsid-1=\"\">Syndigo and Riversand</a>, enterprises can benefit from a single commerce ecosystem encompassing the leaders in multi-domain Master Data Management (MDM), Product Information Management (PIM), Digital Asset Management (DAM), Syndication, Enhanced Content, and Digital Shelf Analytics (DAS).":1,"#When you create data, you consolidate all accurate and validated product content into one centralized database.":1,"#Why is Data Creation Critical to Commerce Success?":1,"#Our first post covered the five steps required to address a company’s end-to-end commerce needs. Today, we’re unpacking the first step — Create — and discussing how Syndigo and Riversand deliver a single commerce ecosystem to close the loop and deliver continual improvement.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Core Content</strong>. This is the foundational information like product descriptions, weights and dimensions, label images, feature sets (such as colors or flavors), and SEO attributes. Sometimes, retailers also require certain types of attributes based on the product category.":1,"#First, it’s important to understand the types of content you need to be successful in digital commerce. As you grow your product offerings, rich content will not only serve your customers and retailers, it will also provide better analytics to make more informed decisions.":1,"#In other words, the online product experience is critical — and you can’t deliver all this content without getting the data into a platform first. That makes “Create” a critical first step.":1,"#Throughout this five-part series, we’ll provide tips and best practices for implementing an end-to-end commerce strategy.":1,"#A recent report from Gartner states that “retailers and distributors turn to brands and manufacturers for detailed, consistent product information to populate digital channels, but these organizations struggle to gather, disseminate, and optimize the information customers need in a timely fashion.”":1,"#The explosion of data has accelerated digital commerce. Consumers now expect rich product experiences to make informed purchasing decisions. And enterprises leverage data insights to drive better business decisions.":1,"#Three Ways to Approach Creation":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Nutrition Content</strong>. Food items require a unique data set that includes ingredients, recipes, diet, and allergen claims. Syndigo maintains certified nutritionists on staff to ensure products meet FDA compliant claims and filters that can categorize products on a digital shelve around a diet type or other groupings.":1,"#There are four main types of content for digital commerce:":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Content Creation and Data Entry as a Service. </strong>This full-service approach lets you rest easy, knowing your content is created to spec and your data entry is clean. Some retailers won’t accept brand-created content. They require Syndigo created and verified content to flow into their systems. This helps the retailer maintain consistency of data across their site. Our service handles content creation for all four types of content.":1,"#When it comes to data Creation, every enterprise has different needs. There are three core ways Syndigo and Riversand approach the Create step in the growth cycle:":1,"#Finding the Right Approach":1,"#Removing data silos, which increases data transparency.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">GDSN Content.</strong> In many cases, you will need data on weights, measures, palletization, storage, shipping temperatures, HAZMAT data, and other logistical or supply chain information, formatted in a specific way. Syndigo is the second largest GDSN data pool in the world, covering both brands and manufacturers as well as food service recipients and retailers. We have an entire suite of GDSN capabilities.":1,"#Finally, <strong ljsid-1=\"\">a lack of expertise </strong>among the project participants can cause anything from massive underperformance of the solution to total failure of the project. Oftentimes industry expertise is a potential blind spot for customers. They might feel confident that they understand the needs and use cases of the business, but no single business possesses the breadth of understanding and knowledge of the needs of an industry the way that a vendor catering to that domain does. Bringing in subject matter experts, whether internally or from the vendor or an implementation partner can go a long way to ensure the success of the project.":1,"#Poor corporate culture and <strong ljsid-1=\"\">ineffective change management</strong> regarding MDM: Culture beats strategy, and even the best products and planning cannot overcome all the issues that arise from lack of attention to change management, implementation follow-through or siloed/protective departments. Due to the way MDM integrates into the tech stack of a business, it ends up changing the way a lot of people in the business work. From communicating with product vendors to synchronizing customer data across different systems and even to the way how changes to master data are made, an MDM brings about significant changes to a business that can be disruptive if not paired with detailed communication and training to all users of the system.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Absence of metrics</strong> for success: It’s a management cliché but you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Sometimes MDM projects are started with vague understanding that it will improve their business. Still, while going through their own implementations, customers fail to establish metrics and KPIs that they can track. Without these metrics, it becomes difficult to communicate the value of the MDM project to stakeholders and business owners. Laying out a clear set of metrics before the project launches can help improve buy-in into the project but it can also make it easy to track areas that aren’t improving and attempt to fix those too.":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Improper alignment with the business use cases </strong>of the customer: Even the best MDM solution can seem ineffective when it’s not aligned with the business case. Before implementing MDM, a comprehensive business process review can help establish the areas that can benefit from an MDM. During this process, the specific areas that need improvement can be laid out to gauge the effectiveness of the MDM project. Throughout the implementation, these areas can be monitored and improvement in value can be communicated to show impact more clearly to all business owners. (Also see the point below about metrics)":1,"#<strong ljsid-0=\"\">Lacking a senior business sponsor</strong> can be detrimental to the project overall: Not having a business sponsor can lead to a lack of strategic alignment for the project, insufficient funding and resources, poor stakeholder engagement, and inadequate change management, all of which will severely impact the ability of the project to succeed. Conversely, a senior sponsor of the project – like a CIO or CFO – can play a key role in providing regular updates to the organization and reminding participants of the underlying business value gained. All key parties must therefore establish a senior business sponsor of the MDM project to ensure smooth implementation.":1,"#MDM that is <strong ljsid-1=\"\">categorized as a technology project</strong> that’s solely the purview of the IT department: When a business embarks on an MDM project, it is important to ensure that the sponsor of the project communicates the business value of the MDM project to all stakeholders. This will ensure that the team (business owners, purchasing managers, head of compliance etc.) understands what an MDM truly is, and how many aspects of the business it will affect and improve – faster time to market, fewer compliance errors, single source of truth. In addition to framing the implementation more accurately, this will increase buy-in into the project, which will have significant benefits down the line.":1},"version":33450}]