How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

We talked about this topic during our event at the NETCOMM Forum in Milan on May 17. With this article we go over the points discussed.

The Market Environment and the Product Content Chaos

Before explaining what headless technology is and why it has become increasingly essential to new business models, it is critical to understand the context in which brands currently operate. Indeed, they are increasingly adopting omnichannel strategies, in which the shopping experience and customer interactions occur seamlessly across multiple touchpoints, such as the website, marketplace, app, social, customer service, etc. As a result, the challenge for brands is to provide a seamless and personalized experience that meets customers’ needs and keeps them loyal to the brand.

The increase in touchpoints inevitably leads to the management of large amounts of content. To handle this load and thus adapt quickly to new business models, many brands have adopted different methods and technologies such as PIM, DAM, excel sheets, or other solutions. However, this approach has made the scenario increasingly fragmented, as numerous platforms are employed simultaneously offering only marginal improvement in content management.
We call this scenario Product Content Chaos.

Solution: centralization and new opportunities

The first step in solving Product Content Chaos is to centralize and thus make the process of creating, managing, and distributing product information content optimal and smooth.

Centralization is not applicable through several platforms integrated with each other but rather through the use of a single platform in which all necessary functions are accessible and where product information (contextualized for each touchpoint) can be easily accessed and managed by anyone who is authorized. For this reason, one PIM is not enough, but Product eXperience Management that incorporates both PIM functions and DAM functions is required.

The benefits of a centralized PxM system are unparalleled:

  • Total control over the creation and distribution of all content (media and copy) for all touchpoints

  • Reduction of error cases and no loss of information

  • no duplication of data

  • always up-to-date data

  • smooth and fast workflow

  • better impact on time to market

  • better impact on customer experience

  • Saving money on integration activities with other platforms

  • greater safety and better performance

Effectively solving the Product Content Chaos and opening the brand to further omnichannel growth opportunities.

Headless Technology

We have looked at the advantages of a centralized platform, but how does it relate to the concept of “Headless” so much mentioned these days?
First, by “Headless” we mean a system in which the backend is completely separate from the frontend, as the term itself suggests. In fact, in this scenario, product information resides exclusively in the PxM system and not in the e-commerce site, marketplace or any other touchpoint. This approach makes it possible to maintain the centrality of information, with all the advantages mentioned earlier, simplifying the process of distributing content across different touchpoints and actually lightening the very structure of end-user contact platforms.

In addition, through a headless approach, the Brand can increase opportunities for product exposure across multiple platforms, which become more flexible, customizable, and performant since they will only have to deal with front-end graphic representation.

The advantages of headless architecture

SCALABILITY AND CUSTOMIZATION

The separate back-end allows any interface to be fed via API.

END-TO-END CONTROL OVER CONTENT

Complete monitoring of any content for any touchpoint.

OMNICHANNEL APPROACH

Flexible and continuous content distribution for any touchpoint.

HIGH PERFORMANCEAND SAFETY

Improved security and better performance on content fruition.

SPEED AND SAVINGS

Quick updates
and timely.
Savings on data entry and integration activities.

Composable Product content

While the headless architecture facilitates the distribution of content across different user interfaces, it should be considered that the PxM platform makes product content available through a modular architecture that allows individual product information to be distributed via API to each touchpoint without duplicating it. This system is called Composable Product Content where precisely each touchpoint takes from the centralized PxM system only the updated information it needs.

The sum of these technologies offers brands many significant benefits.
In addition to simplifying content management for sales touchpoints such as e-commerce and marketplaces, the brand can leverage the efficiency of modular information management and headless technology to create customized portals and platforms at extremely low cost. For example, dedicated print or trade portals can be created that are fully customized to meet specific needs while providing significant savings.

Read the VIBRAM success story

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

We talked about this topic during our event at the NETCOMM Forum in Milan on May 17. With this article we go over the points discussed.

The Market Environment and the Product Content Chaos

Before explaining what headless technology is and why it has become increasingly essential to new business models, it is critical to understand the context in which brands currently operate. Indeed, they are increasingly adopting omnichannel strategies, in which the shopping experience and customer interactions occur seamlessly across multiple touchpoints, such as the website, marketplace, app, social, customer service, etc. As a result, the challenge for brands is to provide a seamless and personalized experience that meets customers’ needs and keeps them loyal to the brand.

The increase in touchpoints inevitably leads to the management of large amounts of content. To handle this load and thus adapt quickly to new business models, many brands have adopted different methods and technologies such as PIM, DAM, excel sheets, or other solutions. However, this approach has made the scenario increasingly fragmented, as numerous platforms are employed simultaneously offering only marginal improvement in content management.
We call this scenario Product Content Chaos.

Solution: centralization and new opportunities

The first step in solving Product Content Chaos is to centralize and thus make the process of creating, managing, and distributing product information content optimal and smooth.

Centralization is not applicable through several platforms integrated with each other but rather through the use of a single platform in which all necessary functions are accessible and where product information (contextualized for each touchpoint) can be easily accessed and managed by anyone who is authorized. For this reason, one PIM is not enough, but Product eXperience Management that incorporates both PIM functions and DAM functions is required.

The benefits of a centralized PxM system are unparalleled:

  • Total control over the creation and distribution of all content (media and copy) for all touchpoints

  • Reduction of error cases and no loss of information

  • no duplication of data

  • always up-to-date data

  • smooth and fast workflow

  • better impact on time to market

  • better impact on customer experience

  • Saving money on integration activities with other platforms

  • greater safety and better performance

Effectively solving the Product Content Chaos and opening the brand to further omnichannel growth opportunities.

Headless Technology

We have looked at the advantages of a centralized platform, but how does it relate to the concept of “Headless” so much mentioned these days?
First, by “Headless” we mean a system in which the backend is completely separate from the frontend, as the term itself suggests. In fact, in this scenario, product information resides exclusively in the PxM system and not in the e-commerce site, marketplace or any other touchpoint. This approach makes it possible to maintain the centrality of information, with all the advantages mentioned earlier, simplifying the process of distributing content across different touchpoints and actually lightening the very structure of end-user contact platforms.

In addition, through a headless approach, the Brand can increase opportunities for product exposure across multiple platforms, which become more flexible, customizable, and performant since they will only have to deal with front-end graphic representation.

The advantages of headless architecture

SCALABILITY AND CUSTOMIZATION

The separate back-end allows any interface to be fed via API.

END-TO-END CONTROL OVER CONTENT

Complete monitoring of any content for any touchpoint.

OMNICHANNEL APPROACH

Flexible and continuous content distribution for any touchpoint.

HIGH PERFORMANCEAND SAFETY

Improved security and better performance on content fruition.

SPEED AND SAVINGS

Quick updates
and timely.
Savings on data entry and integration activities.

Composable Product content

While the headless architecture facilitates the distribution of content across different user interfaces, it should be considered that the PxM platform makes product content available through a modular architecture that allows individual product information to be distributed via API to each touchpoint without duplicating it. This system is called Composable Product Content where precisely each touchpoint takes from the centralized PxM system only the updated information it needs.

The sum of these technologies offers brands many significant benefits.
In addition to simplifying content management for sales touchpoints such as e-commerce and marketplaces, the brand can leverage the efficiency of modular information management and headless technology to create customized portals and platforms at extremely low cost. For example, dedicated print or trade portals can be created that are fully customized to meet specific needs while providing significant savings.

Read the VIBRAM success story

WARDA Official Amazon AWS Case Study

WARDA Official Amazon AWS Case Study

WARDA has been included as an official Amazon AWS Case Study!
We are really proud to be officially introduced by AWS as a company that has been able to improve the customer experience of important Fashion, Luxury & Retail Brands worldwide, thanks to the use of native cloud technologies that are among the best on the market and guarantee our customers very high performance and security.

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How secure is your company’s data?

How secure is your company’s data?

Digitization is a process that now affects all companies, from the smallest to the largest, with enormous and necessary benefits in everyday activities. Data managed in cloud applications are therefore a very important asset to be preserved through all possible security systems.

How to make data secure from unwanted attacks?

As with technology, hackers’ skills evolve quickly. To cope with these threats, static tools are not enough, but methods and activities specific to each case are needed. For this reason, it is essential to subject IT systems to rigorous analysis and security testing.

These tests include the so-called Penetration Test, which aims to assess the security level of the infrastructure by exploiting vulnerabilities in protection systems. Indeed, through penetration testing, it is possible to analyze in depth the security level of an information system, then identify any anomalies in order to intervene promptly and make the system secure. These are certainly expensive and complex activities, but they are necessary to ensure secure and reliable platforms.

At WARDA we are committed to protecting customer data and the investment they have made in our product by investing in turn in these tests and corrective activities.

Indeed, we have increased the security of SeeCommerce by certifying the reliability of the system from the perspective of unauthorized access, data segregation, and phishing attack techniques. We stress the system through black and gray box attacks-that is, with and without credentials-by analyzing the user interface and all integration APIs.

These activities are carried out strictly by external teams specializing in cybersecurity, enabling us to identify any weaknesses in the system and resolve them quickly.

Closing the circle is the interaction with the AMAZON AWS engineering team, which supports us in constantly improving the use of cloud components to ensure the highest availability of SeeCommerce.

With this important and much-needed investment, SeeCommerce is at the forefront of enterprise-class solutions for customers who need extremely reliable and secure application solutions.

If you would like to learn more about the security assessment & penetration test report recently conducted and the organizational model put in place to continuously improve security in SeeCommerce, please contact us!

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Collaboration tools to create competitive advantage

Collaboration tools to create competitive advantage

I have always looked with extreme respect at e-shops with their perfectly organized and described pages, they always convince me in no time to buy their product. It is amazing how much a well-done presentation can elicit positive and reassuring emotions. The empathy that is created seems really natural in the eyes of those who will put that product in their shopping cart.

However, those who work behind the scenes know how challenging it is, how many teams are involved, and how risky the process leading up to the result is, especially when one considers that the target audience is large and multicultural, the sales channels different, and the number of products considerable.

It would be easy to focus on the presentation of a single product: you take the perfect pictures, add a bold name and an accurate description from a marketing perspective.
Instead, the products are often in the thousands and the teams involved commensurate with the enterprise. Each business compartment has its own expertise, and the product must go through several iterations before reaching final publication.

Let’s take a simple example: The ERP manager has catalogued the basic product information according to a nomenclature that is sometimes far too technical, then the e-commerce manager must coordinate all the steps leading to the marketing of the product, making it appealing to the target audience for which it is intended. So it has to involve and coordinate the shooting team, the copy team, the translation team, who have to get to work and share everything on spreadsheets, through e-mail or through sharing apps.

In the end, the result might be satisfactory, but how many mistakes were made to reach the goal? And how much time and money was spent?

SeeCommerce was created with the intention of taking this and many other headaches away from fashion and luxury brands. In concrete terms, it offers a fully centralized environment that provides all functions for product catalog management and enrichment, as well as file management typical of the marketing and communications department; avoiding fragmentation, hence loss of information, and speeding up product marketing.

Complementing these functions are refined collaboration tools that enable even more efficient and focused teamwork:

1. Assignment tool:

Good organization is the secret to efficiency, which is why SeeCommerce has an assignment system that allows the manager to assign, either to specific users or to entire teams, the completion of various parts of the product: for example, the front and back views of products X, Y, Z, are in charge of photographer Diego (an expert in wearable shots), while detail views 1 and 2, which involve still life shots, are taken care of by Sandro’s team.

Assignment, accompanied by strategic planning of dates, allows any employee to better organize his or her work by meeting deadlines and the manager to constantly monitor the status of activities.

2. Annotation tool:

To facilitate the work of those who check the quality of the shots, an annotation tool is included in SeeCommerce, timely and freehand. Users tagged in annotations will have immediate visibility of them through a notification.

3. Integrated video conferencing:

The quality with which teams communicate with each other inevitably influences the outcome and speed of product commercialization. Therefore, collaborating effectively and immediately in digital content management, production and enrichment decisions is essentially a necessity, especially if many users and partners are involved.

In SeeCommerce, thanks to the built-in video conferencing, you can share with your team the details of a photo or video, discuss with the photographer the changes to be made to an image or, with the editors, the translations of a text, without having to use external applications and therefore without having to resort to screen sharing with all its limitations, especially in terms of display quality. SeeCommerce users also expect an ongoing experience that promotes productivity, not discouraged by the friction of non-inclusive external tools.

4. Shares and Permissions:

Effective collaboration also means sharing, in total security, files and folders with specific users in your organization or with external partners and agencies. This tool allows any contributor to have access only to the content that is really necessary for him or her, with associated read and write permissions designed to limit unpleasant instances of error as much as possible.

In today’s omnichannel environment, brands need tools to match their increasingly complex and sophisticated work processes. Collaboration tools are therefore essential as they ensure maximum performance in daily activities and maximum control over workflow, positively affecting the end user’s perception of the brand.

Elisa Bonamigo

Product Marketing Manager, WARDA

Want to learn more about how our products can make the digital transformation process effective and organized?

Contact us. We will be happy to give you all the answers you need.

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