Next-Generation Product Display, Customization, and Selection Technologies Balance Brand and Business to Streamline the Entire Conversion Funnel, from Site Arrival to Sale
Fluid, Inc., creators of innovative online retail solutions that drive conversion and brand loyalty, today unveiled Concept Retail(TM), a suite of online merchandising tools designed specifically to simplify, automate, and optimize online merchandising from the time a shopper arrives at a site to the time they perform a transaction. Concept Retail for the first time seamlessly integrates highly flexible front-end product presentation tools with the back-end data that businesses utilize to maximize revenue, such as conversion rate and inventory levels. The result is a merchandising suite that enhances the entire shopping experience, supports business goals, and increases conversions and sales for online retailers.
With the ability to use interactive display technology informed by business intelligence throughout the conversion process, retailers can strategically converge the competing interests of their brands and their business. In some cases this convergence means featuring high-demand products that sell optimally while in others it means prominently promoting new product lines that support the company's marketing objectives. Every product of the Concept Retail suite, in either stand-alone or integrated deployments, has already delivered substantial increases in conversion rates and returns on investment for major retail brands including Timberland(TM), JanSport(TM), Reebok(TM), and The North Face(TM).
Beyond Dynamic Imaging
With its unique combination of design-driven product presentation defined by data intelligence, Concept Retail sets a new benchmark for online merchandising that leapfrogs simple dynamic imaging. Whereas most dynamic imaging is isolated in a popup from the product detail page, Concept Retail delivers true interactive merchandising, connecting online presentation with external business drivers such as conversion rate, inventory or even local weather.
This integration allows retailers to execute the fundamentals of offline merchandising in the online store. In the offline world, store managers intuitively combine an understanding of their customer segment's preferences with knowledge of what is in stock and what supports the company's strategic objectives. A storekeeper can display a selection of spring raingear and related items in colors that sell well and are in stock -- and switch merchandise or colors when inventory gets low to optimize the 'selling power' of the store window. Before Concept Retail, this level of integration was extremely difficult to achieve online. Concept Retail offers this type of integration natively, without customization.
Concept Retail Components
Designed for use by marketers and merchandisers, Concept Retail unifies three products created by Fluid during its consulting engagements with leading retailers. The products let any retailer optimize key conversion points of their online store while retaining control throughout design, production and deployment. Mirroring customer movement from initial site interaction through product review and final selection, each Concept Retail product, individually or combined, enables interactivity that is relevant to the specific shopping stage of the user. Specifically:
-- Concept Discover(TM), built to help retailers connect the right customers to the right products faster, lets shoppers quickly identify products of interest to them through visual interaction. As a non-threatening entry point to the shopping experience when there are hundreds or thousands of products to choose from, Concept Discover combines brand introduction with product introduction, quickly presenting the handful of products that meet their needs. Further, Concept Discover provides retailers with valuable insight into shopper behavior and preferences by capturing consumer actions.
-- Concept Display(TM) delivers the new, highly interactive visual presentation technology in use on The North Face and JanSport sites, enabling shoppers to inspect merchandise in unprecedented detail. Concept Display provides interfaces for integrating with back-end data feeds such as inventory and analytics, and lets online retailers rapidly and easily include zoom, rotation, color change, hot spots, and product personalization on their sites in less than a day. Such interactive merchandising techniques have been shown to increase conversion by up to 90 percent, while decreasing product returns by 5 percent.
-- Concept Configure(TM), based on technology deployed on the Timberland and Reebok custom apparel sites, enables advanced product customization and visualization, letting retailers offer a more engaging brand experience and drive more customer conversions. Its innovative client-side imaging capabilities allow shoppers to see, rotate, change the color or even the entire design of personalized merchandise instantly, without increasing server load or waiting for an image to download. Concept Configure technology has yielded increases in overall web site conversion rates of as much as 100 percent while more than doubling conversion rates for customized products when compared to previous-generation, server-side imaging technologies.
Top Retailers Already Realize ROI
Several leading online retailers have already realized measurable returns on investment using components of Concept Retail. The Timberland Company (NYSE:TBL), a Stratham, New Hampshire-based outdoor footwear and apparel manufacturer and a Fluid customer, recently revealed that the company website's overall conversion rate increased by 100 percent after implementing Concept Configure technology, and that conversion on the first customizable boot more than doubled. San Leandro, California-based JanSport (parent company, VF Corporation; NYSE:VFC), the leader in backpacks and other outdoor gear, has experienced similar benefits after implementing Concept Discover technology, including an increase of close to 30 percent in the amount of time customers spend on the site. The North Face (parent company, VF Corporation) saw conversion on some key pieces of merchandise increase by as much as 90 percent with the deployment of Concept Display.
Positive bottom-line results have customers like JanSport poised to optimize the full potential of data-driven interactivity on their sites. "The result of the work Fluid has done for us has really had a positive impact on the shopping experience itself and ultimately on our consumer conversion rates," said Todd Yates, Vice President of Marketing and RD&D for JanSport. "Our consumers are very web savvy, and Fluid has helped us create an experience that engages them more completely and showcases our great products."
The Concept Retail blend of data-driven merchandising with brand-driven design -- together with an open architecture designed for integration and minimal IT involvement -- arrives in time to reenergize the current state of online merchandising. In her recent report, "Online Configurators," Patti Freeman Evans, Senior Retail Analyst for Jupiter Research, observed that, "Online retailers feel they have basic site operations and experiences down by this point -- things like checkout and search. Now they're looking for ways to provide new experience tools to help consumers make a purchase more effectively."
"It's simply no longer enough to embed zoom functionality in a pop-up window from a product detail page and hope people like what they see," concurs Andy Lloyd, Fluid's vice president of Marketing & Products. "Fluid customers can use better online merchandising earlier in the conversion funnel and integrate analytics and supply chain data into the presentation. Concept Retail helps them strategically drive the 'front end' of their online offering -- in real time -- with decisions based on their business goals and capabilities, as well as practical considerations, such as inventory."Pricing and Availability
The Concept Retail suite is available immediately. Pricing is usage dependent and starts at $6,000 per year for Concept Discover, $3,600 per year for Concept Display, and $18,000 per year for Concept Configure.
About Fluid, Inc.
Fluid creates engaging online retail experiences that drive conversion, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Founded in 1990, Fluid has a customer list that includes major online retailers such as Reebok, Timberland, JanSport, Design Within Reach and The North Face, among others. More information about Fluid is available at www.fluid.com.
Contact:
Evans Public Relations, Inc.
Nicole Conley, 310-743-5052
nicole@evanspublicrelations.com
Source: Fluid, Inc.