Beispiel Mock-Up von einem Prospekt mit LAGO und DecoSIM

Optimising promo selection with AI to increase profit

Optimising promo selection with AI to increase profit

Discover how AI can enable grocery retailers to plan promotions that consider seasonality, unique pricing, and product data to engage customers, increase sales, and grow profits.

Add Intelligence & Harvest Profit

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) brought to market by Chat-GPT and GPT-3 is a clear signal that AI is a viable technology for retail marketing departments. Integrated with Comosoft LAGO, the AI-based DecaSIM promotion ranking tool adds an additional layer of intelligence to the existing planning process, adding measurably to the impact of the weekly ad and on store profitability. 

Implementing DecaSIM’s AI solution is easy. Our technology integrates seamlessly with existing processes and infrastructure.  To demonstrate this, a leading regional grocer implemented a live test and generated positive returns from week one. By optimizing which promos to feature in its advertising, their customers were more engaged with the offers, which increased weekly sales and grew profits (EBITDA) by 8%.

Customise promos on undiscovered shopping patterns

Retail price promotions serve as a catalyst for customer engagement, loyalty rewards, and shaping purchasing behaviors. However, as promotional strategies become more intricate, the challenge lies in leveraging these discounts to drive incremental shopping trips.

Customer behavior is complex and in the realm of promotions there are many potential unintended consequences. For example, different promotions often cannibalize one another by appealing to the same audience. The net effect can be a zero increase in customer engagement. In today’s inflationary environment, this can result in a missed opportunity to increase shopping trips from the growing audience of value-conscious shoppers.

Comosoft LAGO and DecaSIM work together leveraging DecaSIM’s advanced retail AI to create a predictive model that simulates the response of your shoppers to different promotional strategies. Through this innovative AI technology, we can discern the most potent promotions for drawing in customers. Our integrated solution adeptly pinpoints the promotions that resonate most with your price-conscious shoppers, fostering heightened engagement, increased sales, and amplified profits for our valued retail partners.

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Putting theory into practice

A 300+ store regional grocer selected a region and, using the Comosoft LAGO system, created a specific version of its weekly ad circular to optimize during a ten-week test period. Each upcoming week‘s promotional plan was run through the DecaSIM optimizer during the test. The results of this analysis were then used to select which items to feature on each page of the circular.

The test region consisted of 104 stores. An additional control region was created with 65 stores. To evaluate the intervention, the percentage of shoppers who engaged with the promos featured in the weekly circular was measured in the test region stores, and these results were compared to those from the control region stores. Total store sales in the test and control region stores were monitored carefully for changes.

Results show increased performance on all measures

Conducting these tests, the retailer established a set of measures to evaluate the performance of the recommendations, increased engagement with promos, impact on total store sales, and store profits. On every metric, the results showed a positive increase versus the control.

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    Im Vordergrund stehen zwei Frauen, die auf einen Laptop gucken. Im Hintergrund sieht man zwei Personen an einem Schreibtisch

    Email marketing tips to boost engagement

    Email marketing tips to boost engagement

    Email marketing is one of the most popular ways brands connect with their target audiences – far more so than traditional mail or almost any other marketing channel. But when the average person sends and receives around 121 emails daily, inspiring recipients to open up can be challenging.

    You can craft witty, motivating email copy and introduce it all with a catchy subject line, but these aren’t the only ways to boost email engagement. After all, it’s not just the assets in your email marketing that matters.

    Here are a few strategies to connect with your audience via email beyond just what’s on the page.

    Give empathy a go

    As the world of email marketing becomes increasingly focused on open rates and click-through rates, it can be easy to think solely of marketing dashboards and statistics. But it’s important to remember that every email your organization sends out goes to real humans.

    Of course, it’s important to analyze data and think about how to optimize your marketing efforts. But this data-driven approach should be paired with a just as essential factor: Empathy.

    Empathy is – and always has been – the pillar of a successful marketing campaign. That doesn’t mean that it’s always been put to good use. Think about the onslaught of marketing emails we all received after the onset of the pandemic that all used the phrase “unprecedented times –” some with more empathy (and more success) than others. More than three years after the first days of the pandemic, consumers are savvy about mass messaging and meaningless or opportunistic expressions of shared grief.

    However, as humans, we all still need – and crave – genuine empathy. While emotionally manipulative email campaigns come across as insincere, authentic empathy can help foster a long-term connection between you and the real people opening your emails.

    Here are some considerations to ponder for your future email marketing campaigns:

    • Look beyond the data. There may be a discrepancy between what your customers want and what the qualitative data tells you. So, while survey data may be helpful, you should also look directly at user behavior and compare the two. Add interactivity to discover more about your customers’ browsing patterns and shopping behaviors.
    • Put customers in the driver’s seat. Brands give the power back to customers (and show genuine empathy) through opt-outs. For some, holidays like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day might bring up difficult emotions, so many major brands allow their email recipients to opt out of these campaigns. When paired with thoughtful, considerate messaging, this can show the people on your email list that you are thinking of what’s best for them. Allowing customers to choose how they want to interact with your brand is a genuine act of empathy.

    Further proof that this idea works? When one luggage brand sent out the option to opt out of Mother’s and Father’s Day emails, 4,000 email subscribers chose to do so – and 250 subscribers even sent emails back, sharing their gratitude for their thoughtfulness. 

    • Make use of your visuals. Consumers today are smart; they pick up on insincere photos and stock images. You can use the visual design of your emails to set the tone and amplify your message. While it’s best to avoid images that perpetuate toxic positivity or sappy, greeting card-like visuals, you can use the images in your emails to show that you understand a wide range of perspectives and emotions.

    Consider agile marketing strategies

    Over 40 percent of marketers are taking an agile marketing approach. Agile email marketing is having a significant moment right now – and there’s a good reason. This marketing strategy is designed to be flexible, responsive, and put customer needs first. It uses self-organizing and cross-functional teams that work in short bursts or spurts to stay attuned to customers’ wants. Essentially, it means you can quickly shift or alter your campaigns or marketing strategies to respond to ongoing feedback and analytical data.

    Why is this becoming such a popular strategy? Marketers who employ an agile approach are happier and more confident in the outcomes of their initiatives because of benefits like:

    • An improved ability to stay on top of fast-paced work
    • A clearer understanding of how marketing efforts contribute to successes
    • A higher level of confidence in trying new marketing strategies

    At its core, agile marketing follows a set list of principles, incorporating values that include:

    • The prioritization of outcome over output: This approach puts your needs and customers’ needs ahead of marketing just for marketing’s sake because everyone agrees to the same outcome before the start.
    • Less focus on perfection: Since you act fast as opportunities arise, there’s less need to make everything perfect the first time. Instead, you hone in on what can be done now, refined later, and what can be executed with simplicity to get going.
    • Embracing data and experimentation: An agile approach is driven by analyzing data as it comes in. This means you have more opportunities to experiment and learn from what works rather than sticking with outdated conventions.
    • Cross-functional collaboration: Eliminating work silos and unifying across departments to foster collaboration is critical – it aligns everyone to work toward the same goals and puts the entire team on a level playing field.
    • Responsive action: An agile approach ebbs and flows to meet changing needs based on the market, customers, and campaign performance.

    Marketing tools like digital asset management (DAM) platforms are vital to an agile marketing approach because they eliminate work silos, clarify workflows, and support seamless communication between teams.

    Employ email automation

    Email automation is the ultimate tool to connect with subscribers right at the moment they are most engaged with your brand. This means that if you’re looking to boost engagement, automation is a can’t-miss strategy.

    You can use email automation to send emails regularly based on triggered actions or events. Not only does this help your team by streamlining your entire workflow and ensuring you’re sending messaging on a consistent timeline, but email automation also helps you send emails that are most pertinent to your audiences – at the moment, they are most likely to connect.

    You can use email automation for events like:

    • Signing up as a subscriber
    • When someone abandons their cart
    • On a subscriber’s birthday
    • To re-engage after a period of inactivity
    • And any instance when you want to connect based on a particular action, event, or behavior

    Email automation doesn’t just increase engagement. It also helps boost retention and conversions since it assures your messaging is always helpful and timely.

    Don’t forget about dark mode settings

    Chances are, many of your email recipients have their phone settings switched over to dark mode. Dark mode reduces the amount of blue light our eyes take in. It can help with interruptions to melatonin production and a good night’s sleep – and still maintains the minimum color contrast needed to keep things readable. But as a marketer, you should consider how dark mode may impact the look and feel of your emails or create inconsistencies.

    Today, more than 300 digital services offer dark mode to cater to consumers who want to limit exposure to blue light – and your customers have come to expect a certain level of readability within this format. This is why previewing your email in dark and light settings is essential – but also consider the different platforms where the people on your email list will be reading your emails. For example, your email will look the same in dark or light mode if a recipient opens it via the Apple Mail app on their phone.

    What are some things to keep in mind when it comes to planning for dark mode?

    • Select images that work well for dark and light backgrounds
    • Pick web-accessible colors and check the color contrast of your text
    • Add media queries to make changes to account for dark and light modes

    Make BIMI part of your email strategy

    Chances are you’ve heard of BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification). But if you haven’t, you’ve witnessed it right in your inbox. BIMI is an emerging security tool marketers use to authenticate emails, instill a sense of trust in their subscribers, and increase overall email engagement.

    So, what is it? BIMI is a security-based initiative to display brand logos in an inbox to help consumers avoid fraudulent emails. These logos appear in an inbox next to your message and subject line – an important way to show your subscribers, customers, and contacts (as well as their email services) that a message comes from your brand. Other emails might have a blank space or some generic image or icon, but your BIMI image helps you stand out.

    In an instant, BIMI helps your email recipients know and trust that an email comes directly from a legitimate source – not an imposter. And? It increases email open rates.

    Consumers don’t have the same general trust in emails the way they did before – and with good reason. In the latter half of 2022, there was a 61 percent increase in phishing attempts compared to the same timeframe the year before. In a time when email-based phishing is at an all-time high, and attacks are growing in frequency and sophistication, BIMI is a useful tool in helping increase trust among your email recipients.

    And as a bonus, your BIMI gets you noticed in a crowded inbox. When more than 300 billion emails are sent out every single day, the BIMI icon is a great attention-grabber to get your customers to open your emails.

    Your partner in email marketing engagement

    At Comosoft, we know that the tools you use to build your marketing campaigns are just as important as what you’re saying – which is why LAGO, our combined product information management (PIM) and digital asset management (DAM) tool, is so essential for crafting personalised and custom emails.

    With a combined PIM DAM solution, Comosoft can help you do things like:

    • Enhance email automation workflows with the most updated images and product information
    • Get better metadata on the images you incorporate into your marketing emails to discover which images are most impactful
    • Improve governance for the images your entire team uses in your marketing emails
    • Help you craft more responsive email campaigns by increasing your speed to publish
    • Optimise versioning, proofing, and approval for email campaigns with real-time collaboration
    • Manage and incorporate the most accurate, up-to-date product data

    Building an engaging email means working quickly and efficiently, making the most of your assets, and understanding what’s worked well in the past – and Comosoft can help you do just that.


    AI and Retail Marketing: Using data and AI to grow business exponentially

    AI and Retail Marketing: Using data and AI to grow business exponentially

    Without a doubt, Artificial Intelligence is the number one story of 2023, with breaking news and hyperbolic predictions popping up daily. Retailers and their partners are justifiably concerned. Retail marketing and advertising directors are asking what AI will mean for their current operations and the future of retail marketing in general.

    The first thing to remember is that AI and its related technologies – machine learning (ML) and “big data” – are nothing new. The idea of using large training data sets to automate routine activities or predict future outcomes, often called “narrow AI,” has been around for decades. But with all the advances in cloud computing and the November release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the floods of new information (and misinformation) have created more than their fair share of anxiety for some retail professionals. However, the secret to overcoming these fears is the same as it has been for any new technology – understanding its abilities and limitations.

    Basic concepts

    AI can be applied to almost any digital data, including structured data (usually alphanumeric fields with logical labels and relationships) and unstructured data. Think of structured data like a spreadsheet with clearly labeled rows (records) and columns (fields). Unstructured data does not have such neat labels and includes digital images and unclassified text, such as that found in social media posts. But even if a data set doesn’t have logical, structured labels (or metadata), it can still have meaning.

    AI is designed to detect patterns in large volumes of unstructured data. Those patterns, often confirmed with human assistance, are used in ML algorithms to train a system to recognize similar patterns – in images or text – and make predictive decisions automatically. An AI does not understand the meaning of those patterns as a human can, but it can simulate a human’s meaning-aware response far faster than human decision-makers.

    Let’s consider the difference between human understanding and how AI can simulate it. A retail marketing manager, for example, may understand the meaning of certain facts about a product:

    1. It has sold well at certain times of the year.
    2. It has a reasonably high-profit margin and a reliable supply chain.
    3. The manufacturer has supplied most of the product’s relevant information.
    4. It has had many favorable reviews on social media and elsewhere.
    5. It has been favorably described in various blogs and articles.
    6. There are publicly available images and videos of people using it.

    Items 1–3  represent structured data, typically found in sales history, inventory, or product information management (PIM) databases. Items 4–6 are unstructured, for the most part. But from those data points, a human might reasonably conclude that a sales campaign for that product is a good idea. But because there are so many different products and product variables, it would be impossible for one human being – or even an entire marketing department – to make those decisions on a massive scale. On the other hand, an AI-based system can detect meaningful patterns (as confirmed by humans) from all kinds of available data and automatically prioritize the most likely candidates for a marketing campaign.

    Doing this at scale would accomplish several things. If the AI’s pattern recognition is accurate – an easily testable hypothesis – then the effectiveness of retail marketing campaigns would be greatly increased. It would also lessen the cost and drudgery of combing through data to find meaningful, actionable insights. Finally, if marketing and advertising directors were freed from these burdens, then they could focus more on things that artificial intelligence will likely never do, namely consider the aesthetic and psychological preferences and biases of their audience. Creative and insightful humans will always have the edge regardless of how well or quickly AI can mimic human behavior.

    The retailer’s advantage

    In this area, large retailers already have a big advantage over other companies, namely their ready access to massive amounts of mostly structured, product-related data. This is only natural since they must handle thousands (or millions) of individual products from multiple manufacturers. Every product SKU must have an array of feature and component data, usually stored in a PIM system. At the same time, it must maintain all the images and descriptions of each product, typically stored in a digital asset management (DAM) system. Add an array of other data sources for sales, inventory, pricing, and other essentials. Many companies now also include e-commerce sales histories and customer reviews.

    That ocean of data has to be well managed, of course, which can be challenging. Fortunately, Comosoft’s data integration teams have helped many retailers unify their PIMDAM, and other structured data sources, using the LAGO system for meaningful, collaborative planning and efficient, InDesign-based workflow optimisation for multi-version print and digital campaigns.

    Of course, the difference is that the typical PIM, DAM, and other data sources are highly structured – as they should be. We are only in the early stages of adding structure to new varieties of data, such as customer reviews and customer-supplied images and videos. But those new data types offer incredible potential value to the retail marketer. And AI will only accelerate that value.

    Focus on data-readiness

    Before anyone can realistically tackle AI and masses of unstructured data, they must first master their structured data – turning it into marketing gold, as it were. Comosoft LAGO is a proven tool for doing just that.

    Once a large retailer has found a way to be “data ready” with what they already have, the next step into artificial intelligence will be a logical, powerful next step. With this readiness level, AI can only launch the retailer into new levels of efficiency and growth.

    Find out more about Comosoft’s custom systems integration and data strategy service and book a demo to see for yourself how LAGO can streamline your data workflow.


    Belcorp: The Beautiful Message

    Belcorp: The Beautiful Message

    How a multinational beauty company manages its vast array of product information to create (and future-proof) its vital marketing efforts.

    The modern beauty industry is complex indeed. Companies in this highly competitive arena succeed only when they connect their many products to the needs and desires of ordinary people. These are consumers looking for a brand they can trust and rely upon when it comes to their own self-image. Every product is a personal connection, not just a commodity. One such company – Belcorp – has successfully made this connection with its customers for years. But in today’s multichannel environment, that also poses an ongoing marketing challenge.

    When a beauty company offers multiple products, sells to customers in many countries, and supports a large, knowledgeable, in-person sales organization, it must have a strong, agile marketing presence. It must maintain a complex array of printed catalogs and other targeted marketing materials and plan for the same level of complexity in its digital media. This is a closer look at how Belcorp is meeting the challenge today – and planning for success in the future.

    A history of personal connection

    Belcorp was founded over fifty years ago, dedicated to the ideal of promoting beauty as a way to achieve personal fulfillment. It uses a direct, in-person sales model – a vast network of consultants throughout the Americas – to connect with individual customers. This go-to-market strategy has created a positive experience for many, helping thousands of women achieve economic independence. Belcorp CEO Erika Herrero notes, “day by day, we are transforming the lives of thousands of women and their families.” But the company’s purpose transcends the economic results. “We promote beauty to achieve personal fulfillment,” says Belcorp spokeswoman Joy Chion Li.

    “We inspire each person to give their best so that they and those around them achieve the extraordinary.”

    This lofty goal has guided the company to remarkable success. Since its founding in 1968, Belcorp has grown its in-person sales network to over 850 thousand consultants in 13 countries in the Americas. In addition, the company operates 54 physical retail locations, and in 2016 it launched a robust e-commerce presence.

    Today, Belcorp has three distinct but interrelated product lines. The Ésika line features an array of high-quality makeup, perfumes, personal care products, and jewelry – all designed to “inspire women to own their confidence and celebrate their power.” The L’BEL brand combines beauty, health, and technology in the form of personal hygiene and skincare products for both women and men. The third line, Cyzone, offers high-quality, affordable beauty products designed for younger women.

    In addition to its product lines’ impressive breadth and scope, Belcorp’s products reflect its commitment to sustainable development and manufacturing, including certification of its cruelty-free testing requirements. This is all carefully managed, along with the data related to each individual product.

    Download the full case study here!

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      The Planning Paradox

      The Planning Paradox*: How to Effectively Plan Multichannel Marketing Campaigns

      *The uncertainty of early-stage decision-making characterises the paradox of project planning. To plan appropriately, stakeholders must make early decisions to keep things moving but might not initially have the knowledge (or data). More information (or data) might be available later in the production process, but the decisions made in these later stages might be less important for its success or would be too late. That concept is the paradox.

      Large, national retailers – and even smaller, regional ones – often must cope with several logistical and market challenges. One of these is the rapid proliferation of media channels. In each one, they must establish a good relationship with current and potential customers, preserving the retailer’s brand without sacrificing accuracy or time-to-market with each campaign.

      Before digital, planning and executing an ad campaign or catalog took hard work and creativity. Now, the work is exponentially more complex, thanks to the demands of digital, mobile, and especially social media platforms. A single, well-planned, branded campaign must now feed multiple outputs – each with its own peculiar attributes and requirements. Each campaign also must be strategic, featuring products with ample profit margins, dependable sales histories, high brand recognition, and adequate inventory in the region(s) where they are promoted.

      All of these particulars are represented as distinct pieces of data. Some are contained in massive Product Information Management (PIM) systems. Others, like product images and descriptions, are housed in Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems. Still, others are found in separate, often proprietary databases or systems for pricing, inventory management, sales history, social media management, and content marketing. Sometimes, these databases can be more or less related or combined. But all too often, they are separate “silos” of information – rich in potential but difficult to handle efficiently and still leave room for creativity.

      Putting Marketing Managers in charge

      Marketing managers and directors have enormous responsibilities for creating profitable campaigns. To do so requires more than good instincts. They must also have a solid grasp of the data and how it relates to the campaign. For example, when planning a multi-region campaign, it’s vital to know which products have the greatest sales and profit potential in each region and their stock availability in those regions. With little time to spare for research, the best alternative is to let the data tell you which products are best. In the marketing ballgame, instinct counts, but data makes the rules.

      The problem is that most data is often not easily accessible – or easy to visualize. What is needed most is a comprehensive integration of all that product data, plus the ability to transmit a marketing manager’s decision directly to those designing the print or digital campaign output.

      In previous columns, we’ve discussed how Comosoft LAGO provides such an integrated marketing workflow. However, for those responsible for creating campaigns out of all that data, we must take a closer look at LAGO’s approach to planning.

      Nearly every modern business plan begins with a brainstorming or concept overview process. The universal metaphor for this is the ordinary whiteboard. In this century, physical whiteboards have been supplanted by digital ones, allowing multiple parties to collaborate on visual representations of an idea. LAGO provides such a tool for marketing managers but with a crucial difference. In addition to freeform notetaking and review visualization, the LAGO whiteboard is truly connected to the retailer’s integrated data.

      During the planning phase of a campaign, the manager or director can easily find the products best suited to the retailer’s bottom line. Once selected and placed on the whiteboard layout, the planner’s decision includes the product’s related PIM, DAM, and pricing information. This decision also sets a reliable reporting framework in motion, allowing the marketing manager to track a product’s success in a specific campaign and learn how to improve that performance over time. LAGO’s visual interface gives the planner the best of both worlds – conceptual awareness of a product’s appearance and attributes PLUS a frictionless connection to reliable product data.

      Making the handoff easy

      Once a campaign is mapped out with the LAGO whiteboard, an Adobe InDesign template is generated automatically, giving the production design department a head start in creating the output. The template includes each page’s product placement decisions, complete with links to the related PIM, DAM, and other data sources. Each designer is freed from the burden of tracking down all that data or, worse, replicating all the marketing manager’s choices. They are free to do what they do best – design.

      The connection between layout and data is preserved using a LAGO plugin for InDesign. If something changes in the data, such as an updated image or product specifications, the layout is updated automatically. The data flow is also bi-directional. When a designer makes a substantial change – via a documented approval process – the marketing manager is aware of it.

      One of the bigger challenges for larger retailers is making custom or regional versions of each catalog or other campaign output. LAGO makes this process simple, using the original layout (as conceived by the marketing manager) as a “master” version. Unlimited versions may then be created, preserving the piece’s universal elements (and the brand identity) while allowing the substitution of regionally relevant products or offers. Each version remains relevant to the overall campaign while also allowing each location to have the ability to optimize for their market.

      In addition, LAGO also gives marketing campaigns an effective way to replicate a campaign across multiple channels. The data, images, and presentation created by the original designer can be transmitted automatically to the retailer’s web, mobile app, or social media groups – allowing them to populate all marketing channels rapidly with the latest campaign data.

      Plans in motion

      Collaboration is always the key to a successful multichannel campaign. But the effort is broader than savvy marketing, creative, and production teams. Their tools must be smart as well. With Comosoft LAGO as the expert tool set, such a collaborative workflow is genuinely possible.


      6 e-commerce and retail trends driving demand for PIM systems in 2023

      6 e-commerce and retail trends driving demand for PIM systems in 2023

      In the course of digitization, consumer buying behavior has changed and, accordingly, so have consumer expectations of a brand’s sales channels. More and more customers are shopping online and interacting with brands in new and interesting ways, as new technologies also constantly offer new opportunities for contact.

      But any thriving business needs to find ways to keep up with these shifts in consumer expectations. They need to find processes to cater to the needs of their target audiences as e-commerce buying patterns evolve.

      Trends like hyper-personalisation, mobile and social media shopping, global retail, supply chain challenges, and complex tech stacks impact how brands manage their inventories. Here’s what you need to know about how these trends shift the way brands work and inspire them to adopt product information management (PIM) solutions.

      1. The introduction of hyper-personalisation

      It’s already apparent that personalised user experiences are making waves and helping customers feel more engaged with brands than ever before. In fact, around 80 percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase if the brand offers a personalised experience.

      But the same is also true for increased levels of personalization in the products brands sell. The average consumer is far less intrigued by generic products; they want something to help them stand out. Buyers find this level of personalisation to be incredibly appealing:

      • 81 percent of consumers would pay more for personalised apparel
      • 79 percent of consumers would pay more for personalised footwear
      • 77 percent of consumers would pay more for personalised jewelry and accessories
      • 76 percent of consumers would pay more for personalised furnishings

      Product customisation can be a great way to connect with consumers, attract new customers, and drive sales – but brands need strong strategies to make this level of personalisation possible, profitable, and efficient.

      An e-commerce product catalog – like a PIM solution – can be an incredibly useful tool here. A PIM solution gives you the power to store all kinds of variations on the items in stock and share product descriptions with customers.

      2. A sharp rise in mobile shopping

      Mobile eCommerce is surging in popularity—so much so that it’s been monikered: “m-commerce.” This term refers to online purchases made through portable devices like smartphones or tablets. Consumers are using their mobile devices to research products, compare prices, and purchase at higher rates than ever. In fact, at the end of 2022, almost one-third of US internet users made at least one online purchase per week using their mobile phones.

      In 2023, time spent on mobile retail apps will exceed 100 billion hours across the globe—and these apps seem to be the preferred way for consumers to shop online on the go as they account for 54 percent of all mobile commerce payments.

      Mobile commerce is expanding at lightning speed, which is why it’s so essential for brands to have mobile-friendly websites and applications complete with optimized product data. Integrating with a PIM system means it’s simpler for brands to complete a mobile-friendly site and store and optimize product listings across platforms and commerce channels.

      3. A new era of social media shopping

      Social media is no longer just a way for consumers to find and interact with new brands; it’s also a rapidly-expanding shopping platform. It’s anticipated that in 2023, sales from the social eCommerce market will top $1 trillion for the first time, with an expected $1.3 trillion in combined annual sales. This is over double the figure from 2020, when sales peaked at $560 billion. By 2026, annual social media sales could reach $2.9 trillion.

      Social media is undoubtedly an effective marketing tool, but with shopping features prominently featured throughout the most popular social media channels like Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest, and now TikTok. Now, merchants can use these channels to promote and sell their products.

      Social commerce can significantly and positively impact online brands—especially those whose target audiences spending time browsing these apps. With a PIM system, sellers can manage their inventory (including social commerce platforms), store images and other assets, integrate marketing copy, and edit, share, and optimize content within a convenient location.

      4. The expansion of global retail

      Global eCommerce is taking off in a big way. How big? One only has to look at the figures:

      • In 2021, cross-border online shopping totaled approximately $785 billion.
      • By 2030, cross-border eCommerce will reach an anticipated $7.9 trillion.

      Online brands are quickly adding cross-border selling to their eCommerce strategies, taking online selling past global Amazon storefronts to multilingual stores and worldwide commerce. Why? Cross-border commerce isn’t a niche selling strategy. In fact, 67 percent of global shoppers devote 10 percent of their monthly online spending to brands in other countries. It’s a smart way to expand a brand’s reputation to broader audiences and become a globally known, trusted brand.

      With a PIM solution, online sellers can manage and update localized content on their own eCommerce website and within their other digital marketplaces. This simplifies overcoming localization challenges compared to spreadsheets or more traditional localization methods.

      5. Striving for sustainability in the supply chain

      If there’s one thing that the collective world of e-commerce learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that supply chain management is critical to lasting success. Internal processes like the supply chain can be essential to providing consumers with a strong, positive customer experience.

      While supply chain issues today might look a bit different than they did in the early days of the pandemic, brands are still examining their supply chains as a whole and looking for ways to make them more agile, more sustainable, and better for the environment, more customer-centric, and more localized with tools like better inventory forecasting, and improved visibility throughout the supply chain. Human rights agreements, environmental protection agreements and improved transparency, including in supplier management, help to make the entire supply chain more local, fairer, safer, and thus more sustainable. The aim of all these measures is to promote optimized corporate governance throughout the entire life cycle of a product or service.

      When issues like pandemics, wildfires, or other disasters interrupt the supply chain, brands need ways to fail-proof their operations. While these disruptions may be outside a brand’s control, they can utilize a PIM solution to track product availability and better discern which products you need to promote and which are waning in inventory. A PIM system can help brands share the most updated information with suppliers across the supply chain.

      6. Managing complex tech stacks

      It seems that anymore, there’s a separate technology solution for just about every step in the supply chain, adding up to a complex tech stack loaded with countless applications and software systems.

      While a complex tech stack can help you analyze data, manage your marketplace, and store digital assets, it can also make things too complicated and costly. Employees lose an average of five hours each workweek toggling between tools like messaging, collaboration, and asset storage solutions – which can significantly impact productivity. Often, it also means work gets lost in the shuffle.

      What’s more, the complex tech stacks may lead to all kinds of work redundancies; 44 percent of workers believe that siloed digital tools within their tech stack make it hard to know when multiple team members are duplicating work. And almost half of these workers are sharing that not having the tools to track work and collaborate in real-time leads to costly errors on the job.

      As a result of this trend, many brands are adopting PIM solutions to limit the amount of app switching. Because these PIM solutions streamline workflows and make it easier to keep everyone on the same page, employees can better focus their efforts on the tasks without redundancies or work falling through the cracks.

      Comosoft helps you keep up with the trends

      Staying current with all these changes doesn’t have to be a hassle. With product information management software, you have a single, centralized location to oversee each product from the beginning of its lifecycle to the end.

      Comosoft’s PIM system isn’t just a PIM system; it goes beyond product information management. With a digital asset management solution, a collaborative workflow and versioning tool that updates in real-time and consolidates your data and assets from multiple sources into a central repository.

      When you combine your data and assets into a unified view, you and your team can plan and execute projects and tackle new trends with better insight – no matter how quickly trends shift and evolve.

      LAGO Product Information Management

      Learn more about our LAGO PIM and how we can help you organise your product information efficiently.


      The biggest trends in Digital Publishing

      The biggest trends in Digital Publishing

      Retail print catalogs are trendy right now – but so are their digital counterparts. In fact, it’s estimated that the global digital publishing market will grow more than 11 percent year-over-year from 2022 to 2023, climbing from $41.3 billion in 2022 to $45.9 billion in 2023.

      As a result, publishers are altering their distribution methods and expanding what’s possible. Trends like video covers, free-form navigation, web integration, native-style ads, mobile compatibility, and hidden depth of content are making more of what digital magazines can do.

      Here are the biggest trends happening now and next in the world of digital publishing.

      Skip to what you want to see: Free-Form Navigation

      With print catalogs, readers can flip to the pages they want to read first, bypassing anything they don’t want or need to see. This feature used to be print-only, while digital publications required readers to click through from one page to the next without the option to jump to what interests them most.

      But free-form navigation is changing the game and making it more straightforward for readers to jump to the most relevant pages.

      With free-form navigation, readers can skip to their favorite features and choose their own adventure when exploring digital content. They can tap images to read specific articles or reviews and discover the content in their preferred order.

      Ads that don’t feel like ads: Native-Style Advertising

      Retailers are finding new ways to incorporate ads – and in some cases, readers aren’t even aware it’s happening.

      Welcome to the world of native-style ads, unobtrusive advertisement strategies that publishers and advertisers can use to connect with their target audience without seeming too pushy or sales-focused. Native ads are custom-tailored to match the aesthetics and tone of the platform; these advertisements don’t feel like ads at all. They fit the look and feel of the digital publication, making them a seamless part of the user’s experience. Why is this so effective? The answers are two-fold:

      1. It expands the organic reach of each ad
      2. It fosters better engagement with target audiences

      In the US, native ad spending increased by 37 percent in 2021, and spending is anticipated to surpass $100 billion in 2023. This spend may include sponsored content, in-feed ads on social media, video content, and other innovative native ad formats.

      Making it personal: Personalisation in Publishing

      According to McKinsey71 percent of today’s consumers have come to expect their interactions to be personalized – and what’s more, 76 percent of consumers find it frustrating if they don’t get this level of customized attention. Personalization can present challenges for paper publishing, but some barriers are removed for more digital formats.

      Why does personalization matter so much? Besides offering consumers the experience they want, it increases engagement. When retailers focus on what individual customers want and need by working to understand their preferences, they deliver the kind of content your customers want.

      How do retailers discover what customers want? You can leverage tools to analyze their actions and preferences and take small surveys on user interest to gear your publication toward specific audiences. With the proper data integration tools, retailers can insert user-specific content into digital publications, customizing messaging for each reader.

      This is especially important for retailers looking to connect with Gen Z – the next generation of subscribers, consumers, and customers. Gen Z is a unique audience that consumes content differently than their older counterparts; they have a distinct point of view and spend more of their media time on video platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Publishers should seek ways to meet Gen Z audiences where they are and tailor their content to them.

      More than meets the eye: Hidden-Depth Content

      One unique benefit of digital publishing? Retailers can pack more content into each page with hidden-depth content, much like a children’s pop-up book.

      Often, this looks like a small “+” in the corner of a photo or following a section of the text, revealing extra details like captions and additional data. Hidden-depth content can also include features like:

      • PDF downloads
      • Archival maps, letters, or documents
      • More statistics
      • Extended photo carousels or galleries

      Scrolling text or historical timelines can sometimes be their own table of contents, with each point on the timeline serving as its access point to additional content.

      What are the perks of hidden depth of content? It’s a great strategy to encourage readers to interact and engage. It can also serve as a far more exciting way to present information.

      On-the-Go: An increased focus on Mobile and Responsive Design

      There’s been a notable uptick in mobile versus desktop internet access for quite some time. This trend continues to pick up steam – and today, 55 percent of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. In fact, 92.3 percent of internet users are accessing the web via their mobile phones.

      For retailers, this should mean increased, though not sole, focus on the mobile version of their online content. In certain instances, it may be beneficial to think mobile-first, depending on their target audiences and how they source their media. For now, the balance of mobile-first or desktop-first creation largely depends on the intended readers.

      This doesn’t have to mean a complete overhaul of digital publication processes or twice the work to create two versions of the same publication; with a few slight adjustments, building a mobile version can be quickly accomplished at the end of the digital publication creation process, and some retailers may opt to utilize a completely responsive design that adapts to any device or screen type their reader may use to access their content.

      Publishers don’t have to approach every piece of content in their digital publication from a mobile perspective – for some, the idea of limiting screen size may also limit their creativity. Instead, digital publications should be built and designed with the idea that every desktop page, article, and edition also has a mobile version. Artwork, galleries, videos, interactive media, and all other content can be easily borrowed or adjusted from desktop versions at the end of the creation process.

      Bring it home: Web Integration

      Another feature retailers continue to explore is integrating content with the web. This feature allows readers to explore products and information in further detail on an e-commerce page or the publisher’s website.

      Digital catalogs can easily integrate their content with the web with responsive web links that direct readers to purchase, discover more resources, or connect with their brand on social media.

      Moving Pictures: Add Video Content and Video Covers

      In recent years, marketing teams have caught on to how impactful video content and covers can be in connecting with consumers. 92 percent of marketers reported that video content offers a positive return on investment (ROI), and 87 percent share that video content has a direct, positive impact on their sales.

      But it’s not just marketing professionals who are taking note of how effective video content is. More than 9 out of 10 consumers want to see more videos from the brands they pay attention to in 2023. Audiences are more invested than ever in video content, with short-form videos like TikToks skyrocketing in popularity and offering growth potential and value to brands.

      These audiences even use multiple devices simultaneously, so grabbing and keeping their attention is more challenging than ever. Short-form videos are becoming a trendy way to hold readers’ gaze, and even channels like TikTok are starting to experiment with longer forms, thanks to the rising popularity of video content.

      Now, digital publishers can add this content form to their publications. Since marketers and consumers alike are embracing video content, digital publishers should take note and incorporate this content into their digital formats. Video covers, in particular, are an intelligent way to captivate readers from page one – some even feel like movie trailers. Digital publications allow publishers to expand what’s possible in magazines and newspapers, providing users with a memorable experience beyond what can be printed and published on a page.

      Bonus: Interactive Content

      It’s not just video content making waves in the digital publishing sphere. Overall, digital publications are becoming increasingly interactive. This includes video content, but it also includes audio recordings, augmented reality, animations, and other rich, interactive multimedia content forms to enhance the overall reading experience and create fresh, catchy content.

      Your partner in modern Digital Publishing

      At Comosoft, we’re all about expanding what’s possible with digital publications. From workflow collaboration to publication and distribution, we’re always on the cutting edge of digital publication and marketing production.

      With LAGO by Comosoft, digital publishing is both simple and advanced. Every page and piece of digital content is an opportunity to engage and delight readers and showcase your brand. As more people consume media online, we’ll help you turn your printed marketing production, circular ad, or catalog into an extended experience with features like:

      • Automated hotspots
      • QR codes
      • Augmented reality

      As a fully integrated PIM and DAM system solution, we’ll support your collaborative workflows with intuitive versioning optimization in real time and a detail-oriented proofing system. The result? A modern digital publication is created using less time and resources.


      automation circulars

      Retailers are automating their weekly circular production

      How retailers are automating their weekly circular production and do more with less

      The weekly circular has long been a staple marketing and advertising tool for grocery chains and other large retailers. To cope with the disruptions of digital media, retailers have experimented with various ways to cut costs, sometimes discontinuing the printed versions of circulars (especially as newspaper inserts) only to bring them back in other ways. Recently, a national grocery retailer paused the printed versions of their weekly ads but then brought them back as regular mailers, with targeted promotions and QR codes to take customers to sale items on the website.

      There are good reasons why the weekly circular – in print or digital formats – is an enduring tool for marketing and advertising directors. As Motley Fool writer Maurie Backman noted in her May 2023 column, using the circular as a five-minute research guide for shopping lists can save consumers significant amounts of money – a worthwhile pursuit during high inflation. And, if the circular is well-designed (and accurate), it also serves as a familiar, brand-reinforcing weekly reminder to consumers.

      A complex process

      Weekly circular ads and flyers (printed and digital) are the lifeblood of a retailer’s marketing program. The larger the retailer and its inventory of products, the more challenging it is to produce compelling and accurate flyers using SKU data that promote high-margin products. Creating multiple versions of that same flyer that support various regions and markets is even more challenging.

      As creative services and production managers know, creating an effective weekly circular is complex and difficult. It was always challenging, but with the growth of digital, retailers are under enormous pressure to deliver more content across an increasing number of platforms. By using the weekly circular as a starting point, they can begin to fill that need – but only if they have the right processes and workflows to handle the flood of activity it requires. And they must do so, very often, using overstretched human resources.

      The circular involves multiple departments and individuals, each racing against a weekly deadline and coping with product management details, rapid and time-sensitive changes in the information, design localization and versioning, and conversion to digital and social media channels. This process is complicated even further by the fact that product statement from multiple manufacturers is stored in several different databases, starting with their product information management (or PIM system), digital asset management (or DAM system), and other data sources.

      If any of these processes must be done manually, then retailers cannot reasonably expect to keep up. They will risk enormous gaps in their marketing content mandate – not to mention the risk of costly errors in the material produced. Automation is the secret to “doing more with less”, but that is hard to do haphazardly or piecemeal. Facing the continuous onslaught of activity that weekly circulars represent, retailers need a global solution.

      An elegant solution

      Comosoft’s LAGO represents the ideal solution to this perplexing problem for large retailers, including major grocery chains. By taking a holistic approach to data management, campaign planning, and media production, LAGO gives retailers the luxury of automation while giving marketing managers and production designers the freedom to innovate.

      The LAGO process begins with a plan. Retail product line and marketing managers create a campaign strategy based on an integrated approach to product information (PIM), product images, logos, descriptions (DAM), and other connected data sources – all coordinated with a digital whiteboard interface. Products with higher margins or known popularity can be featured, along with a mix of the retailer’s other offerings. Sale pricing is based on real-world business goals and solid data.

      After the campaign is planned, it gets transmitted to the design team through InDesign templates automatically. These have the campaign’s featured products in place and real-time connections to all their related PIM and DAM information. Designers are freed from the need to track down all that data and can focus on designing the finished product. When multiple regional versions are required, the design team can create these easily, using the base circular as the “master version” and creating regional variants according to that region or branch manager’s priorities.

      Other time-consuming manual tasks are highly automated as well. LAGO provides an efficient, collaborative approach to proofing and approvals, sending digital proofs automatically to the right decision makers and returning their feedback to the design and production teams, who can send the finished, multi-version result to the proper print service providers anywhere in the country.

      The automation does not stop at print, however. Data used to create a circular in LAGO can be automatically sent to the retailer’s website or mobile app, even on a regional level, satisfying today’s shopper’s growing need for up-to-date information on multiple media channels.

      As LAGO users have discovered, there are ways to reimagine the printed circular. QR Codes, which have seen a resurgence since the pandemic, can easily be integrated into the LAGO workflow, typically as part of the retailer’s existing DAM system. Just as a marketing manager and design team can easily specify a product photo, they can also include a QR code for that product. When the printed circular comes in the mail, users can quickly go to that product’s sale landing page, genuinely integrating the print and online experience.

      “Doing more with less” is much more than a catchphrase. With advanced workflows from LAGO, retailers can make it a profitable reality.


      How LAGO PIM and DAM help you create a seamless customer experience

      How LAGO PIM and DAM help you create a seamless customer experience

      In information technology, the idea of a “single source of truth,” or SSOT, is a well-established practice. Simply put, in the context of databases, SSOT means that each piece of information is edited only in its leading system. It’s logical in theory but often difficult in practice.

      Retailers, for example, must store different types of information about a single product they sell in separate databases, each designed to optimise a different part of their operations. A product information management or PIM system contains different types of information than a digital asset management or DAM system. Each system serves a specific, vital purpose. To duplicate the data everywhere would be pointless and time-wasting – the very thing SSOT exists to prevent. The real trick is getting all those special-purpose databases to work together.

      Various databases

      A retailer may have immaculate records on every product they offer, but they will only stay in business if they can effectively advertise and promote those products. Therefore, today’s retailers must have immediate, efficient access to every data source available to market effectively. As every creative services manager, production manager, and director of marketing knows, it’s all about the data and learning how to use it.

      That’s where SSOT comes in. It’s OK for different types of data to exist in their appropriate and unique locations – so long as marketing can harness all of it in a well-planned campaign or, more likely, in hundreds of simultaneous campaigns across multiple channels and regional variations. With proper integration and workflow, multiple databases can become a single source of truth.

      For instance, the degree of difficulty for marketing managers is very high. A system with an integrated PIM, DAM, and other databases can help organize, categorize, validate, and distribute product information and digital assets. More importantly, it can do so transparently, allowing designers to create content for multiple channels efficiently without having to master each database. Such a system, Comosoft LAGO, exists today.

      As retailers move increasingly into e-commerce, such a system becomes even more important, allowing them to create marketing content for existing channels while simultaneously doing so for online and mobile channels, creating a seamless brand experience for their prospective customers.

      The customer experience

      Making one’s message welcoming, engaging, and relevant requires creativity and communication skills unencumbered by complex data technology. Retail consumers have never been exposed to this much media clamoring for their limited attention. Wise marketers are acutely aware of this and thus must continually find ways to make their messaging welcome, engaging, and relevant. This combination requires creativity and communication skills, unencumbered by complex data technology. Doing this well requires the work of many hands.

      One advantage of an integrated approach is that all the data – usually supplied by various manufacturers and vendors – is genuinely and securely centralized. LAGO accomplishes this not only for internal production use but also for external users such as agencies and sales reps. While the data still reside in separate, secure systems, they are also part of a trusted, single source of truth.

      Another thing LAGO accomplishes for the marketing or advertising designer is to provide transparent access to accurate, up-to-date, and rich information for each product. So, for example, when a marketing or product line manager identifies the product most likely to appeal to a target audience (by using LAGO at the start of a campaign), all the relevant information is instantly made available to those creating the campaign.

      With so many “touch points” available to the average consumer, from print to digital and beyond, marketing and production managers are too often at a loss how to keep all those channels full – without flooding the customer with mere noise. LAGO offers creatives the ability to do this and more. Facilitating complex information exchange across many channels simultaneously multiplies the creativity of good marketing and advertising designers. As a result, even the need for multiple regional versions of a single campaign can be accomplished with relative ease. By doing this, retailers can sustain the best possible customer experience, using only the current, trusted product information in the customer’s chosen medium.

      Finally, using a well-integrated PIM and DAM approach accelerates a retailer’s go-to-market strategy for marketing campaigns. Critical workflows, including print versioning and mobile app updates, can be automated with LAGO, allowing designers to explore new strategic opportunities. LAGO can also be integrated with enterprise and cloud-based enterprise resource planning or ERP systems, further optimising and automating large retailers’ national or international operations. Also, since most databases are already highly customized and burdened with legacy code, the LAGO API gives a retailer’s IT department a decided edge in creating a robust, enterprise-wide, single source of truth.

      Ultimately, the proof of any retail marketing campaign is how well it resonates with the individual consumer. In the age of big data, there is no shortage of available information – about the customer, their preferences, and the products themselves. Amid that immense sea of data, only a trusted, single source like LAGO can help the retailer create that optimum customer experience.

      LAGO Product Information Management

      Learn more about our LAGO PIM and how we can help you organise your product information efficiently.


      Metaverse

      What is the Metaverse?

      The Metaverse is a virtual and walkable internet based on the blockchain. Users can stay there as avatars in a 3-D environment and communicate, trade or receive information. The Metaverse includes both virtual worlds and the underlying technologies such as virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), blockchain-based technologies (e.g. cryptocurrencies, NFTs, Proof of Attendance Protocols POAP), artificial intelligence, digital twins, holograms and avatars, robotics, big data and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs).

      How can retail profit from the metaverse?

      There are many ways in which companies can benefit from the Metaverse. A virtual 3-D shop in which their products are sold and can be virtually “touched” beforehand with the help of VR equipment is just one of many possibilities. Virtual events can also be a unique advertising and sales opportunity that additionally provides companies with a lot of data about the buying behaviour of their customers. With this independence of time and space, many promotional activities can be completely global and time-zone independent, with faster processes, which can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

      In addition, thanks to Metaverse, retailers may soon be able to reduce expensive returns because a virtual walk-in shop, with the possibility of experiencing products haptically via a VR glove, gives shoppers a more realistic impression of the product before (online) purchase.