Smart Merchandiser Blog

When it comes to online merchandising, the quest to optimize and improve conversion rates can feel tantamount to Captain Ahab's quest for the White Whale, Moby Dick—elusive, essential and all-consuming.

What if, when you were designing your storefront and product pages, you were able to put yourself in your customers' shoes—not just at the outset of your site's design and launch, but anytime you wanted to? What if you could always see your storefront as your customers would so that, as you made changes, you could see the effects of those changes in real time?

When weatherman Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray,labels himself a god in the mid-90s classic, Groundhog Day, it's as much a declaration about how much he knows as it is about his apparent immortality.

"Maybe God isn't omnipotent," he posits, after rattling off intimate details about seemingly perfect strangers in a diner, "Maybe he's just been around so long, he knows everything."

Knowing everything about shopping habits and customers’ preferences has long been a retailer's dream. But until big data analytics came on the scene, that "everything" was elusive.

Did you know that retailers across the globe lost $69 billion due to out-of-stock conditions in 2013?

In the classic tale of the Little Red Hen, the protagonist finds herself alone when she seeks assistance in planting and harvesting wheat. Undeterred, she sets about the task herself and refuses fresh bread to the ones who didn’t take the time to help her make it.

In the world of business, good software is essential to success, and on-premise solutions tend to follow the logic and lessons of the Little Red Hen. Namely, that no one should expect a reward when they haven't put in effort, and sometimes, unless you do all the work yourself, you'll never get what you're after.

The major job of merchandising your online catalog to increase conversion rates can be overwhelming!

 
Just the sheer amount of data an online merchandiser needs to digest in order to make smart digital merchandising decisions can require a huge team of employees:

When it comes to nifty add-on tools, IBM WebSphere Commerce has generated quite a few. And it's no wonder, because, as far as application and integration platforms go, few are as robust and responsive as IBM's.

Companies around the world use the platform to conduct business, and while plenty of add-ons expand the software in helpful and useful ways, few are as merchandiser-friendly and able to make efficient use of WebSphere's analytics as Smart Merchandiser.

We’ll be in San Diego May 11-13th for IBM’s Amplify 2015, and we’d love to see you at the San Diego Convention Center! Our team will be on-hand to answer your questions about Smart Merchandiser and provide demos of the platform that is changing the way digital merchandisers sell online.

As a successful eCommerce merchandiser, you understand how easy it is to get lost in the seemingly never-ending flow of data available at your fingertips.

Although shopping trends have changed significantly during the past 10 years, the importance of personalizing the shopping experience for customers hasn’t. With today’s consumers doing a larger portion of their shopping online, eCommerce retailers are facing the challenge of translating aspects of the customer service experience into the digital realm.