For Brands, Retailers and Consumers, It’s All About the ‘Buy it Now’ Button

Just as doctors routinely use x-rays, MRIs and arthroscopes to “take a look inside” their patients to better diagnose problems, the world’s leading brands are also using deep digital analytics and real-time data to get a better look at what’s actually happening inside the retail stores and websites that carry their products.

With the help of a suite of so-called commerce enablement tools that reflect if a product is in-stock, priced correctly and displayed accurately, the journey of the digital consumer can be won or lost the moment the “Buy it Now” button appears.

“Just finding and knowing where [retailers] have [a particular product] in stock now, whether you want to pick up in-store or order online, is a huge convenience for the consumer,” Sean Downs, CEO of Irvine, California-based commerce enablement firm PriceSpider, told PYMNTS.

The company is not only powering the consumer buying journey for online purchases, Downs said, it is also capturing detailed sales data about what else shoppers bought and put in their basket, which provides valuable insight into the path to purchase that helps brands optimize the overall buying experience.

“For a big brand like Microsoft, they want to know how many stores are you tracking globally that would carry our product, and are you capturing the detailed sales data about the purchases that are made that’ll help provide insight into what’s working, what marketing channels are helping drive those sales,” Downs said.

In fact, in the wake of PriceSpider’s announced acquisition Tuesday (Jan. 25) of Amsterdam-based software company Hatch, Downs said the combined companies will create a global network that captures detailed sales data from 32,000 retailers in 90 countries for a diverse portfolio of roughly 2,000 global consumer brands, including Microsoft, Sony, Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Mattel.

The Dishwasher Disaster

To illustrate the impact that having access to real-time data has on brands, retailers and consumers, Downs uses the example of one customer that suddenly noticed an unusual spike in its dishwashers being returned. The mystery was solved with the help of PriceSpider’s real-time sales data, as well as its digital Shelf Analytics Suite, which he said “walks store aisles” of websites and captures real-time images to see if a product has been properly displayed and optimized, with the correct photos and specifications — or in the case of the dishwasher, the right dimensions too.

“So, you buy the dishwasher, get it home, and it doesn’t fit under your cabinet,” Downs said, noting the ripple effect — both negative and positive — that can emerge from the ability to know, and see, if a retailer has the correct information on a particular product.

When done right, Downs said “it creates a 3x improvement in the sales metrics,” as well as the ability to avoid costly and cumbersome return of items such as a dishwasher that can also alienate customers.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to optimize that digital shelf and improve the sell through,” he said, by bringing control of the customer journey back to the brands, while also being able to communicate to retailers how to improve performance.