Meeting the demands of modern commerce requires a vision, a plan, and the team to to organize and orchestrate the best product experience for shoppers across every sales channel. Our customers work hard every day to overcome the internal challenges of digital transformation and build a digital shelf that keeps their customers delighted. Here are five of our favorite stories from the last year about their success - with important lessons for anyone struggling to determine how best to grow sales and revenue in 2019.
The manufacturer and importer of machine made area rugs wanted to increase their presence across retailers and do it in an efficient, scalable way. Tayse had their in-house data team create a structure of data maintenance and all new product data for new items. Tayse Rugs’ Data Lead, Nick Wallace, and Data Specialist, Brandon Crisp, accelerated the brands content creation, data migration and channel mapping by merging new product information with existing content. The result? The duo mapped 3,400 SKUs to 9 channels in 2 weeks, and mapped to Amazon and Walmart in 72 hours.
When Leonard Ortega, the Director of Ecommerce for the California based maker of plant-based beverages (most famous for its almond milk and curvy packaging), joined the company in 2016, he identified an opportunity: move their site from a being branded content centric to an effective, compelling direct to consumer site built to drive sales. In order to power the content he envisioned for the brand, Califa invested in Salsify to be the brand’s single source of truth. The transformation paid off: they saw a 400% increase in ecommerce sales with the redesign, and have received industry recognition of their success.
In 2017, Gerson, a home and seasonal decor manufacturer, underwent a digital transformed led by Chief Technology & Sales Officer, Orin Borgelt, to quicken time to market, drive digital sales, and better serve customers of all sizes. With 10,000 SKUs in their product catalog and a global supply chain, their expensive and inflexible ERP made it nearly impossible for Gerson employees to access data for their roles, whether it was the marketing team working on national retail accounts or warehouse workers in China looking at inventory. Investing in Salsify allowed the brand manufacturer to open up data access to more teams, increase digital sales by 77%, and better serve a very important customer base: small, independent retailers. Independent retailers contribute to 40% of Gerson’s revenue, and Orin wanted to enable them with digital capabilities previously unavailable. His solution? Utilizing Salsify’s Digital Catalogs connected to their ERP as a way to expand inventory for these retailers by offering drop shipping through a custom Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) as a new sales channel.
When Karen Howard joined the Renfro Corporation, a nearly century-old sock manufacturer, as their Director of Digital Operations she was tasked with tightening digital operations and increasing revenue with a single source of truth at the center. With decades of experience of driving digital change at organizations, Karen knew that adoption had to be evangelized from top and required a detailed plan to ensure Salsify’s implementation went smoothly and had the right strike team to lead the transformation. Renfro started with taking a step back to evaluate of their systems, processes, and talent to make sure that Salsify would stand up to their needs. As Karen said, “the reality of modern commerce is that manufacturers are becoming retailers, and retailers are becoming manufacturers. That means manufacturers, like us, need to take a step back and assess how to change the ways we work as an organization to meet the ever-evolving, fast-paced digital space.”
Imagine walking into a meeting with a retail partner, showing them a Digital Catalog, and them coming back to you ordering 400% more product because of how it easy you are to work with. For Soft-Tex, a manufacturer and distributor of speciality sleep products, that is their reality following a successful implementation and adoption of Salsify with Taylor Jones, Director of Digital Marketing, determined to improve the brand’s speed to market and simplify and unify product information management. Not only has Soft-Tex seen revenue increases of 30% since adopting Salsify, they have started to help their retailers think differently about their product information and how it better serve needs for customers. Another win? Expanding their ecommerce SKU count by 117% and seeing a 40% increase in sales on Black Friday 2018 from 2017.