Edgenet’s Digital Transformation Summit – the leading edge of e-commerce
On Tuesday, June 26, professionals in the e-commerce industry from across the country descended on Nashville for Edgenet’s 2nd Annual Digital Transformation Summit. This sold out event expanded from last year’s inaugural event because of the overwhelmingly positive responses and engagement around the 2017 summit.
The Digital Transformation Summit was an exploration of how to increase the digital sales of retailers, brands, manufacturers and distributors. Much of this focused on the importance of product content and how it affects the purchasing behavior of customers and clients.
The main takeaway: Anyone that sells products or services online needs to optimize their digital customer experience.
The proof: Consumers are increasingly using the internet to research product information like price, reviews, features and benefits. This is true even when they’re shopping offline. One-third of surveyed shoppers reported using their phone in a store to look up product information and 26% reported looking up product reviews. Four out of 10 consumers say they regularly purchase things offline after conducting product research online.
While price drives most online shopping decision, businesses can influence the user experience of a shopper by optimizing product information and content. This content includes product descriptions, images, search filters, features lists and anything else that appears on your product pages.
This optimization can occur through improving your product content creation, management, quality and delivery. By optimizing product content, you will maximize the benefits that consumers report about shopping online like easier access to information and better ways to conduct product research.
Of course, the benchmark for online retailers is Amazon. As one speaker put it: “There are two sides to e-commerce: Amazon and not-Amazon.” While Amazon was in attendance, a lot of time was spent discussing how to either work with the giant e-tailer or beat them.
Some of the tips for beating Amazon? Create relevant product content that aligns with the best practices in other content creation like SEO, content that aligns with customer segments and provides relevant information in the buyer’s journey.
Another key point was implementing a content management system that allows online retailers to easily access and edit their product content in one place. Edgenet has become an industry leader in providing product content management that allows teams to manage all of their suppliers’ product content from a single data source.
Overall, the event was an in-depth exploration of how businesses can better sell online. Though much of the focus was on product sales and content, there were lessons for any company that sells a product or service online on creating a user experience that works for your specific customers.
There were also some great digital engagement pieces in the conference itself. First, the use of the Slido app allowed attendees to submit and vote on questions for speakers. After each presentation, the most popular questions were answered which kept the conference moving and kept attendees engaged. A visual stenographer also took live notes along with each speaker, creating beautiful handwritten slides with key takeaways from each presentation. The slides were then shared with all of the attendees. To learn more about Edgenet and their product content management solutions for brand and retailers, visit their website at edgenet.com.