PRODUCT AWARENESS Get ready for a product-aware world in which the lines between online and real-world commerce are blurring.
With the explosion of smartphones, wearables, and instant connectivity, we are now living in an era of pervasive commerce where consumers want to get whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, and in a way that is most convenient to them. Every interaction with a consumer in the physical world or online is an opportunity to inform, educate, and buy or sell products and services. Not long ago, commerce was destination based, i.e., we had to go to a brick-and-mortar store or specific e-commerce website in order to make a purchase. Now with pervasive commerce, every interaction with a consumer in the physical world or online is an opportunity to inform, educate, and buy or sell products and services. Businesses will now connect with consumers through infinite channels. Today, the industry is abuzz with conversations around omni-channel retailing. However, omni-channel retailing is but a stop on the path to pervasive commerce. We are now moving to a challenging yet exciting infinitechannel model where there will be infinite ways in which to wow a consumer. Infinite channels will enable pervasive commerce by letting businesses sell through mobile devices, brick-and-mortar stores, websites, ibeacons, geo-fencing, social media platforms, interactive storefronts, wearable devices, and so on. As the ways to connect and interact with a consumer are increasing, consumer expectations with respect to relevancy, personalization, and customer service are on the rise. Shopper-centric retailing requires that businesses analyze past purchase behavior, browsing behavior, user-generated content and so on, to deliver a seamless and consistent experience across all channels. Businesses also need a deep understanding of their own and their competitors product assortment, mix, availability, promotions, and pricing, so that they can make the most informed decision about their offering. A critical component of pervasive commerce is the capability to deliver a product-aware experience to the consumer. In this new age of commerce, every app and website will become product-aware to deliver hyperpersonalized and hyper-targeted results. The Internet has layers of connectivity that have formed over the years. Facebook provides a layer that connects people, and Google Maps provides a layer that connects people with places. Products will now be added to the type of information that we take for granted in the daily flow of our lives. Just as apps and services are already location-aware and people-aware, they are also becoming product-aware. We are moving to a challenging yet exciting infinite-channel model where there will be infinite ways in which to wow a consumer. What does this mean exactly? Say you really like a jacket that your friend is wearing. What if you could wave your smartphone or wearable device at it and immediately find it in your size online or at a store 2
nearby? Combined with the amount of shopping history data that brands and retailers have about you, the product would be offered to you in your preferred colors, along with suggestions for accessories and related products. This kind of a personalized shopping experience is not too far away. companies to showcase their most popular pins on their own websites and mobile apps. This essentially converts a pin into a product offer using crowd-sourced and user-generated content. Nordstrom plunged into pervasive commerce by similarly incorporating social media platforms 2. They started displaying their most pinned items in their physical stores and online 3, enhancing the customer experience seamlessly across various channels. More recently, Amazon s announcement of the Fire Phone further crystallizes the need for product-aware In this new age of commerce, every app and website will become product-aware to deliver hyper-personalized and hyper-targeted results. apps and websites. The Firefly feature on the phone recognizes over 100 million items by image, text, or barcode, and enables one click shopping. Say someone is reading their favorite skiing blog. Based on the topics discussed in the blog, the reader could be presented with product offers that are tailored to their particular skiing style, brand preferences, etc. These examples show how commerce can become more efficient and increasingly relevant with hyperpersonalized product offers for consumers. Product-awareness today Product-awareness is already here in its early iteration. Target partnered with Pinterest influencers to build an e-commerce storefront powered entirely by Pinterest recommendations. In its beta form right now, the Awesome Shop highlights top pins that are updated every day 1. Also, Pinterest s developer API allows How can businesses ensure that they deliver the right product information to the right person at the right time at the right place? A fundamental building block of the solution is an infinite product catalog in the cloud one that offers comprehensive, dynamic, and up-to-date information on a broad selection of products to a deep level of detail attributes such as price, material, color, discounts, availability, ingredients, where designed, where manufactured, and so on. 3
Right now, nobody has access to a complete picture of the world s products because the information exists in innumerable silos all over the Internet and is categorized in many different ways. There is no standardization or uniformity. If the same product is listed under different titles and varying prices by the same brand on their website and physical store, the consumer is not getting a consistent view in terms of their shopping experience. Even when companies do try to provide a product-aware experience, they are limited by the number of products and attributes in their individual databases and business systems. A fundamental building block of the solution is an infinite product catalog in the cloud - one that offers comprehensive, dynamic, and up-to-date information on a broad selection of products to a deep level of detail - attributes such as price, material, color, discounts, availability, ingredients, where designed, where manufactured, and so on. For instance, Kiosked, a Finnish startup, gives online publishers a snippet of code to place on their pages. Then when a reader lands on that page, the code scans the material on it and offers related products that the reader can buy by clicking through 4. The fashion app ASAP54 helps you locate and buy fashion items that you have seen but don t know where to buy. All you need to do is upload a picture and the app finds similar items from its database 5. A standardized and normalized universal catalog of all the products in the world would enable such companies to focus on building more product-aware services and not the product database itself. This new level of contextual product intelligence will allow brands and retailers to provide information on products and services fluidly, whether you re at home or walking by a store. But simply aggregating product information is not enough. That s just raw data. In order to make the data actionable, it needs to be organized. The infinite product catalog will not simply be a collection of product data but it will be structured in a way that makes it ready for easy comprehension and consumption. To develop such a catalog, you need product data science. Product data science entails collecting, organizing, analyzing, normalizing, and visualizing product information so that it becomes convenient to draw insights and take action. The infinite product catalog will not simply be a collection of product data but it will be structured in a way that makes it ready for easy comprehension and consumption. Netflix is a good example of a company that has tackled motion picture data science. It has by far the deepest database of motion pictures today. They tagged movies with dozens of different attributes resulting in the formation of 76,892 micro-genres 4
To develop such a catalog, you need product data science. Product data science entails collecting, organizing, analyzing, normalizing, and visualizing product information so that it becomes convenient to draw insights and take action. About Indix: Indix is building the world s largest product database and APIs to enable brands, retailers and developers to deliver the right product to the right customer at the right place at the right time. Indix s cloud based product intelligence platform provides access to intelligence on offers and catalog, including price, promotions, channels, competition, assortment, and attributes. Indix APIs enable developers to build product-aware applications and websites to inform, educate and sell products everywhere. Learn more at www.indix.com like Post-apocalyptic comedies about friendship 6. This attribute data combined with the data that they have about their subscribers allows them to make personalized suggestions, while also allowing the subscribers to find exactly what they want. This is the level of precision and personalization that needs to be achieved in the business world for delivering the right products to the right customers. And it will be enabled by the infinite product catalog with its deep, rich, and organized information. The most relevant, hyper-personalized and targeted product offer is formed at the intersection of product intelligence, customer intelligence, and business intelligence. Overall, now we will see increased investment in product data science, particularly product intelligence, enabling apps, services, and websites to become product-aware. Overall, now we will see increased investment in product data science, particularly product intelligence, enabling apps, services, and websites to become product-aware. Combined with the investment that companies have made in understanding and predicting shoppers and shopping behavior, we will finally be able to deliver product offerings that are customized for a particular person, instance, and time, resulting in customer delight. Win-win. 5
Glossary Pervasive commerce: A new era of commerce where every interaction with a consumer in the physical or virtual world is an opportunity to inform, educate, and sell products or services. Product intelligence: Product intelligence comprises of Offers intelligence and Catalog intelligence. Offers refers to the data associated with the sale of a product, such as price, availability, channels, promotions, etc. Catalog data refers to the unchanging attributes and features of a product such as brand, color, material, dimensions, etc. Product-aware apps: Apps that have access to real time offers and catalog product data, generating the most relevant product offer for the consumer. Sources 1 http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/09/target-experiments-witha-pinterest-powered-online-storefront-dubbed-the-awesomeshop/ 2 https://econsultancy.com/blog/64313-how-nordstrom-usesfacebook-pinterest-twitter-and-google 3 http://www.geekwire.com/2013/nordstrom-experimentspinterest-showcasing-top-pinned-items-13-stores/ 4 http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2014/02/15/ photos-become-ads-with-new-technology/?_php=true&_ type=blogs&module=blogpost-title&version=blog%20 5 http://www.fastcodesign.com/3027120/a-new-apphelps-you-find-those-cool-boots-you-saw-on-thesubway?partner=newsletter 6 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/ how-netflix-reverse-engineered-hollywood/282679/ Product data science: The process of collecting, structuring, and normalizing product information followed by application of big data algorithms and machine learning to present actionable insights. Infinite product catalog: An infinite product catalog in the cloud offers comprehensive, dynamic and up-todate information on a broad selection of products to a deep level of detail with lots and lots of attributes such as price, material, color, discounts, availability, ingredients, where designed, where manufactured and so on. Infinite channels: The touch points at which to connect with consumers are now infinite - whether it s an e-commerce site, physical store, laptop, smartphone, tablet, wearable device, interactive storefront, social platform, etc. Shopping experience needs to be seamless and coordinated across all these channels. 6