Copyright © 2015 Earley Information Science, Inc.

Applying Science to the Art of Digital Merchandising

Table of Contents

1 Digital Experience (DX) Defines the New Shopper Journey …..…. 03

2 The New Retailer Business Model .…………………………………... 05

3 AWA R E N E S S …………………………...................…….……….…. 08

4 C O N S I D E R AT I O N ……………………………………………..….… 12

5 E VAL U AT I O N ……………………………………………………....…. 16

6 P U R C H AS E …………...………………………………………………. 19

7 R E - E N G AG E M E N T …………………………………………..…..…. 21

8 R E F E R R AL ………………………………………………………….…. 24

9 Improving the Art of Digital Merchandising with the Science of

Digital Information Architecture ……………………………………..….. 26

Copyright © 2015 Earley Information Science3 Copyright © 2015 Earley Information Science

Product Taxonomy:

The Foundation for B2B Digital Commerce

Digital Experience (DX) Defines the New Shopper Journey

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1 | DX Defines the New Shopper Journey

Technology and easy access to information has

transformed the way that consumer’s make

purchase decisions and buy products and

services. Information is at the consumer’s

fingertips and therefore, control is in the hands of

the consumer.

The shopper journey can take many forms as the

consumer moves through the stages of

AWARENESS – CONSIDERATION –

EVALUATION – PURCHASE – RE-

ENGAGEMENT – REFERRAL. Information-

hungry, price-savvy, empowered consumers rely

on in-store associates and displays, but also turn

to retailer and brand websites, online review

sites, online marketplaces and social media.

Mobile device usage is now the norm rather than

the exception, enabling seamless and ‘always on’

purchase and engagement options from

anywhere in the world at any time.

Not only has the shopper journey been

transformed, so too, have customer expectations

for authentic, entertaining and relevant content.

Consumers have expectations for being enticed

by a captivating product experience, at the right

channel touch point, at precisely their inspired

shopping moment.

There is a need to satisfy the immediacy of

that moment with alluring, relevant brand

storytelling that engages.

THE NEW SHOPPER

JOURNEY OFFERS

RETAILERS BOTH

OPPORTUNITY AND

CHALLENGE

The New Retailer Business Model

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2 | The New Retailer Business Model

Retail organizations must be guided by the

strategic and measurable goals of greater

customer loyalty and less churn, as well as

tangible measures of conversion rates, average

order value, reduction in online returns and a

wide range of supply chain measures. The new

shopper journey offers retailers both opportunity

and challenge.

It enables retailers to lure consumers at any point

along the shopping journey to create customer

experiences that truly differentiate, and to

continually re-inspire customer loyalty in

innovative new ways. But it also means that for

most retailers – they can’t do things the way they

used to!

Retailers can no longer just rely on branding or

long campaign gestation cycles. This new

purchasing / real-time personalization paradigm

requires a stepped-up go-to-market execution

that applies a type of ‘science’ ― a more

disciplined approach to the art of creating a

captivating shopper experience. Let’s examine

how retailers can apply science to the art of

digital merchandising.

We’ll follow Sarah as she moves through her

own personal shopping journey.

MOST RETAILERS STRUGGLE

TO KEEP UP WITH THEIR

OWN PRODUCT CHANGES

ACROSS TOUCH POINTS,

LET ALONE SHOPPER

CONTEXT

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AWARENESS

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3 | AWARENESS Gotta have it!

At this stage of the shopper journey the consumer may not know they are looking for

anything in particular. A consumer can be made aware of a brand or product offering

with or without the desire to purchase. Awareness can be based on a

communications message, word of mouth or independent discovery, so at this stage

social media in particular is a very important place to engage.

Retailers should begin ‘storytelling’ in social media contexts, like Pinterest. With the

introduction of Rich Pins for Products, Pinterest has become the platform driving the

lion’s share of social commerce revenue (not just higher traffic) for e-Retailers and

should count as a big factor in any mobile channel strategy.

Sarah sees the room of her dreams on Pinterest. Since she’s noticed her sofa is

worn out, she has been thinking about a re-fresh and now she is inspired to

make it happen. She notices the products available in the room are shoppable

right from the Pinterest Collection, and clicks directly through to the website

landing page for details about all the pieces in the room.

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3 | AWARENESS Gotta have it!

Keeping up with the fast clock speed of sCommerce, and keeping product assets

social-media ready and ‘shoppable’ is a significant challenge for most retail

organizations. Information like price, color, availability, size and digital assets can

become out-of-date. The ‘shelf life’ of product assets and information varies a great

deal depending on the social media context. In Twitter, the shelf life may be

seconds, minutes or hours, where in Pinterest, Facebook, the shelf life can be

weeks, months or seasons.

Here is where the science begins….

Aside from just a Pin It button sitting passively next to featured products, what Rich

Pins do is tie a lot of product information directly to the Pinned content. Retailer

name, brand, price, SKU, product description, availability, color, up to 6 images,

even promotional sales dates and related product pages can now go with the Pin

across the social network – and since Pinterest grabs all that info from the retailer’s

website, it’s never out of date when a Pinner shares or clicks through it.

When coupled with the cue that Sarah arrived on your site from a social media

platform, the shopper context signals AWARENESS while the product assortment

interest signals a LIFESTYLE FURNISHINGS collection.

To use Rich Pins to drive revenue, retailers requires a Digital Information

Architecture (IA) for ‘social commerce-ready’ product attributes. Mapping product

category colors to the Pinterest-standard color attribute is just one example of the

Digital IA agility needed during product item on-boarding.

Establishing a robust Digital IA requires better management of product information

and product level assets. The deployment of Product Information Management (PIM)

and / or Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems may be required. If already

deployed, maturing the Attribute Framework to accommodate both product collection

interest and shopper journey context is critical to intelligent DX.

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3 | AWARENESS Gotta have it!

RETAILERS REQUIRE A DIGITAL

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

FOR SOCIAL COMMERCE-

READY PRODUCT AND

SHOPPER ATTRIBUTES

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CONSIDERATION

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4 | CONSIDERATION What are the options?

Consideration is one the most important parts of a shopper's journey toward a

purchase. In this phase shoppers are considering their options, such as similar items

that are available, cost of shipping, quality of the product, background information. If

done effectively, storytelling in social media will lure the consumer to the retailers’

websites where retailers can continue to engage the shopper to convince them of

the specific brand of products they should consider buying. This is the time to offer

shoppers objective information, such as reviews, ratings, comparison charts, and

educational information.

Once on the website two primary things become important―how well retailers have

been able to feature product collections in the ways that the consumer wants to

shop and how effectively shoppers can navigate and search the site to see the

collections they are most interested in.

Sarah has zeroed in on a 3-cushion, rolled arm style. She would like a linen

look, but wants it to wear well. She doesn’t shop for furniture often, and wants

to see more of what is new in the marketplace. She decides to browse, search

and compare online to see similar styles and options, with some pieces saved in

her cart and others in her wish list.

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4 | CONSIDERATION What are the options?

To ensure products are discovered by high potential prospects who are exploring the

site for consideration, retailers need to develop taxonomies that can reflect product

categories in the language of the key customer segments and provide adaptable

variations for product assortments by season, by lifestyle, by channel or device, and

by regional markets. With properly designed taxonomies, the online customer

experience enables shoppers to easily navigate to see full collections, including

related rich content assets.

In today’s digital commerce environment, each channel and customer touch point

requires a variation of a digital asset for the same product. Asset variations may

also be useful for situational shopping factors, such as seasonality, geography, local

weather condition, limited time marketing campaigns or even shopper journey

events (like weddings, household relocation, scheduled servicing, reordering or

replacement). The proliferation of channels and touch points is responsible for an

even bigger explosion in the number and type of assets under management by

retailers. It is no longer practical to rely solely on manual efforts to select the most

appropriate asset for a given context. Techniques in taxonomy and metadata design

are evolving to orchestrate dynamic presentation based on channel format, device,

customer segment, geo-location and other shopper journey events and

classifications. Touch point rules need to be defined as Marketing Attributes in the

taxonomy and assigned at asset tagging time by site merchandising teams.

Emerging trends include storing customer channel touch point rules directly in the

assets and organizing cross-channel asset collections with shopper event metadata.

Storing touch point rules with the assets enables the appropriate dynamic selection

and presentation of assets based on the channel being engaged.

Aligning asset collections, marketing content and product data with shopper

event metadata enables the appropriate assets and content to be shared in

real time when CONSIDERATION events occur, increasing shopper

engagement and differentiating the retailer.

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4 | CONSIDERATION What are the options?

TAXONOMY AND METADATA DESIGN IS

EVOLVING TO ORCHESTRATE DYNAMIC

PRESENTATION BASED ON CHANNEL,

DEVICE, SEGMENT, LOCATION, EVENT

AND SHOPPER PERSONAS

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EVALUATION

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5 | EVALUATION What’s the best value?

At this phase of the shopper journey, the potential customer has decided they want

or need a product similar to the one the retailer provides, and they are narrowing

their choices. They are likely to start reading reviews, comparing product features,

evaluating quality and service differences, weighing influential opinions, and using

online and print (yes! long live the glossy magazine and catalog!) to research value

in detail. They may visit a store, pop-up shop or showroom where they can have a

more direct, tactile experience with their ‘short-list’ products.

Once again, a robust Digital Information Architecture will ensure that retailers are

able to provide value even before the purchase. Product comparisons, curated

relationships to higher value products for up-sell and ensembles or complete

collections for cross-sell can influence evaluation and perceived retailer value. They

After reviewing variations online, Sarah decides to visit the store (which posted

her favorite room on Pinterest) to see the collection first hand. She sits on the

sofa and likes the dimensions. She also talks with a Sales Associate who

recommends fabric choices, tells her about leather upgrade options, and shows

her other pieces in the collection at the store kiosk. She compares dimensions,

fabric grade, fill, service and price against her 2 other options on mobile.

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5 | EVALUATION What’s the best value?

can also potentially convince the shopper to expand the immediate purchase

selection. And when the personal touch of a sales associate is equally

knowledgeable about product information, as well as empowered with ‘eService’

incentives, the experience is powerful and convincing.

The progression from item-focused “product-informing” to themed collection and rich

content ‘story-telling,’ and eventually to event-focused, moment of truth ‘story-selling’

is best executed with a light, personalized touch at important consumer decision-

making moments. Consistently designed and deployed Digital IA enables retailers to

flexibly offer promotions and limited time offer incentives at every touch point and

channel during the shopper EVALUATION stage (e.g. white glove delivery service,

BOGOs, etc.). Better curated product data, content and assets not only differentiate,

but lead to higher conversion rates, larger average order values and minimized

product returns.

More engaging content with aspirational lifestyle and ‘how-to’ assets reassure

shoppers during EVALUATION. Product information is still important, but the

emphasis shifts to Storytelling and value-add cross-sell techniques. Collection

shoots and interactive videos driven by Marketing attributes are critical for pointing

to the collection of related products, services, promotions and content.

PROGRESS

FROM

‘PRODUCT

INFORMING’ TO

‘STORYTELLING’

AND FINALLY

‘STORYSELLING’

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PURCHASE

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6 | PURCHASE OK, I’ll take it!

Once the shopper has made the purchase decision, the conversion process must be

easy and seamless, with information that correlates across channels whether they

make the purchase online, at a kiosk or in the store with the help of a sales

associate. Customers who have made a purchase expect that information to be

known and acknowledged.

Retailers must align and engage cross-department stakeholders to establish the

governance, content lifecycle and publishing policies needed to ensure that valuable

content is created, managed and published efficiently and consistently within a

distributed but unified omnichannel workflow.

Frictionless purchasing requires frictionless operations, from supply chain to

every selling channel and associate.

Sarah is now happy with all her research and her choice. She tells the Sales

Associate she’s ready to buy. She is offered a new loyalty member incentive on

“white glove delivery” service with the purchase of a coordinating item, so she

decides to also order the area rug and arranges delivery for the following

week. She receives an email receipt, a delivery appointment that is easily

added to her calendar, and gets a personalized thank you for her purchase.

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RE-ENGAGEMENT

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7 | RE-ENGAGEMENT Now I want that, too!

Once the consumer has bought, they will very quickly form an opinion on the

product. If the opinion is especially positive they may spread the news of the

retailer’s brand via word of mouth promotion and positive reviews. Retailers will

want to develop ways to follow-up with the customer to ensure that whatever the

review, it can be improved or strengthened.

It's an established marketing fact that existing customers are significantly more

valuable as return buyers than a completely new prospect. The retail strategy for

interactions post-sale must encourage personalized follow-up that feels

authentic and delivers the next right product, service or encouragement at the

right contextual moment.

After her sofa and rug have been delivered, Sarah gets another email from her

Sales Associate telling her about new arm chairs that will be perfect with her

sofa, with 2 personally selected fabric choices that will coordinate with the

colors in the rug. Sarah has so much confidence in the Sales Associate and the

quality of the products and service that she immediately orders 2 chairs online.

She will get white glove service and the confidence that her pieces will match,

and never has to leave home.

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7 | RE-ENGAGEMENT Now I want that, too!

Here again, a robust contextualized information architecture can help. Extracting

deeper meaning from data and analytics can provide insights and intelligence to

create an accurate profile of customers including their behaviors and interests in

order to continue to create highly personalized interactions.

Establishing and managing a shopper event attribute model that extends to post-

sale scenarios, can help to identify ‘next right product or ‘next right service’

opportunities that continues to harvest conversions and can lead to long term

customer loyalty.

A SHOPPER EVENT

ATTRIBUTE MODEL

EXTENDS TO POST-SALE

SCENARIOS TO

HARVEST LONG TERM

CUSTOMER LOYALTY

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REFERRAL

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8 | REFERRAL You will love this place!

It is at this stage that the fruit of the retailer’s merchandising efforts are potentially

harvested with a satisfied customer that shares their shopping journey experience or

possible feedback of the products and services purchased. Feedback, positive or

negative is often shared, not only by word of mouth but also through social media

channels.

Retailers should be on the alert with a social monitoring approach to harvest

insights, capitalize on emerging trends, reward influential customers and

address potential moments of churn.

Sarah is thrilled with her purchases, and the quality of products and service she

has gotten. She posts pictures of her new room on Pinterest and Facebook and

recommends this store and Sales Associate to her entire network.

Improving the Art of Digital Merchandising with the Science of Digital Information Architecture

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The bar has been set high and retail organizations must step-up their digital

merchandising execution with considerations for how people, systems, process,

content and context intersect. An intelligent approach, design and deployment of

Digital Information Architecture will bridge traditionally fragmented product

operations, marketing, online channels, in-store and merchandising organizations to

enable greater collaboration, and help choreograph a delightful and consistent

customer experience.

To realize a digital commerce vision, aggregating, cleansing, enriching and

syndicating information from a wide range of enterprise systems, including Product

Information Management (PIM), Digital Asset Management (DAM), Web Content

Management (WCM), eCommerce platforms, Site Search, Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) and more is essential. Harmonizing, modeling and analyzing

cross-enterprise data from these systems is critical for taking retail execution to the

next level, and requires a DX information architecture framework that unifies data

and content for frictionless operations

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9 | DX Art & Science through Digital IA

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9 | DX Art & Science through Digital IA

Winning in today’s competitive marketplace is defined by a retailer’s ability to truly

differentiate the digital experience in order to drive greater loyalty. Differentiation

can only be achieved by creating a personalized and contextualized shopping

experience that showcases product lines in innovative and informative ways, while

providing seamless navigation through a relevant and meaningful shopper journey.

A winning DX takes the art of digital merchandising to a new level, reached

and sustained through the science of Digital IA ― producing effectively

choreographed product information, digital assets and content marketing from

the supply chain through to every channel.

SATISFY THE IMMEDIACY OF THE

MOMENT WITH ALLURING,

RELEVANT BRAND STORYTELLING

THAT ENGAGES, AND DELIVER ON

AUTHENTIC, SEAMLESS SERVICE

THAT SUSTAINS LOYALTY

EIS – Retail

We help market-leading

brands succeed at

the speed of digital agility

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