To differentiate yourself from the competition, more and more players are offering new product experiences. Deciphering this growing trend by Frédéric de Gombert, CEO of Akeneo, company specializing in product experience management solutions.
According to an OpinionWay survey conducted for Akeneo, 42% of French people would be willing to pay more if they benefited from a quality product experience, that is to say, relevant means to better understand the product throughout the purchasing process (detailed description, HD visuals, demonstration, etc.). Essential customer experience milestone, the product experience is therefore a formidable lever for transformation. Especially since online transactions have never been so successful. “The rules changed definitively in March 2020” observes Frédéric de Gombert, CEO d’Akeneo. “Behaviors will change permanently : during the first confinement, 30% of consumers have purchased food online even though they had never ordered anything online. 70% of them continued afterwards. Deny the existence of this transformation, it is to cling desperately to a world and to uses that no longer exist. »As the purchasing process increasingly passes through the web (click and collect, drive, etc.), the question of the future of retail legitimately arises. For Frédéric de Gombert, an answer is given by a sector known to be difficult on e-commerce : selling furniture online. Indeed, if market players were rather reluctant to invest in e-commerce before 2020, recent developments and the appearance of new players (notably accompanied by Akeneo) have clearly reversed the trend. Made.com was one of the first players to shake up the furniture distribution market. “One of the key elements of Made.com’s success has been investing heavily in the product experience, through very high quality visuals, detailed technical information, highlighting designers and premium storytelling. »
Concrete and tangible benefits
Other companies, like the French start-up River Home, have made the product experience the heart of their strategy based on hyper-personalization. Rather than highlighting a product catalog to consult, the 100% digital brand asks its visitors to answer a series of questions in order to identify their needs (type of furniture, colors, dimensions, prix, etc.), supplemented with photographs of the room which will house the product. The Internet user then receives a tailor-made selection made by an interior designer. Result : River Home displays an average basket of around 2,000 euros, compared to 200 euros for traditional retailers. This other model of success highlights the importance of the product experience. “The product experience, it means being able to adapt to a very protean way of presenting the product, while fundamentally respecting the identity of the brand. It is necessary to ensure that the product information is sufficiently well thought out and constructed to convey the story and identity of the brand., whatever the channel : sites e-commerce, stores, marketplaces, social networks, indirect distributors…” explains Frédéric de Gombert.
The Akeneo experience
Expert you PIM (Product Information Management), the Akeneo company supports retail professionals through the construction of a product experience culture, which relies both on people, processes and tools. Everyone can test their product experience for free on the Akeneo website and access multiple resources to find out how to improve it..
