Summit Spotlight: Salsify Leaders Share How To Advance to the Next Decade of the Digital Shelf

Ten years into product experience management (PXM) on the digital shelf, brands are “the heroes and the center of the story” — but what does the next decade look like? What are the next steps for brands?

Explore highlights on Salsify Product Experience Management (PXM) Advance from the recent Digital Shelf Summit (DSS), with insights from Salsify executives, Julie Marobella, chief product officer, Rob Gonzalez, co-founder and CMO, and Jason Purcell, co-founder and CEO.

Why a Next-Gen PXM Matters, and Next Steps for Brands

As a brand, having a next-gen product experience management (PXM) in your corner is necessary to stay ahead on the ever-changing digital shelf. Reluctant organizations risk fulfilling their data’s potential, enabling their teams, reaching necessary channels, and optimizing for growth.

“The core challenge around getting high-quality and compelling information and product content to all the places your shoppers are still exists, and the need to update that content and to optimize that content quickly and efficiently still exists,” Marobella says.

According to Purcell, the “mantra of the day,” is all about “smaller teams, more efficiency, more productivity.” Marobella echoes this — even though she says some things have stayed the same over the past 10 years.

“What has changed is that there’s more pressure in the system to do more with less,” Marobella says. “To achieve more growth, while meeting demands for profitability and margins — and let’s not forget that the retailers are facing similar challenges, and consumers are demanding more, and that’s compounding the impact.”

So, how can brands and the retailers they syndicate to rectify these consistencies and challenges?

To do so effectively and efficiently in the next decade of the digital shelf, Gonzalez shared the three major trends and themes for PXM:

1. Consolidating tech;
2. Powering the product enterprise; and
3. Having a hub for testing and learning with artificial intelligence (AI).

1. Consolidating Tech

The first major trend and next phase for PXM is tech consolidation.

“There are all these different types of technology solutions floating around that are playing big roles in optimizing the digital shelf that just should come together,” Gonzalez says. “I think it’s gonna be crazy five years from now if somebody has a GDSN solution that’s not bundled with PXM, if you have a separate PIM that’s not bundled with PXM, or if you have a separate enhanced content solution.”

2. Powering the Product Enterprise

The second trend, powering the product enterprise, enables you to optimize every touch point on the digital shelf, everywhere a consumer interacts with products and brands.

According to Gonzalez, the first step for brands has been aggregating content and connecting it to retailers, which will continue to be the cornerstone. The next step, he says, is ensuring you get additional leverage on your content throughout the rest of the enterprise.

3. Having a Hub for Testing and Learning With AI

The third major trend, having a hub for testing and learning with AI, is the last piece to fulfill the vision of “every single product detail page (PDP) is optimized.” What’s stood in the way for brands in the past is just time.

“I think the vision of [AI in PXM] is to enable you to treat your ten-thousandth best product detail page with as much care as you do your number one product detail page,” Gonzalez says.

Salsify PXM Advance’s workflow engine allows brands to plug in different AI technologies — presumably up to 100 to 200 new AI solutions over the next five years — according to Gonzalez.

“If you’ve got a 200-mile drive to make, and it’s foggy, and you can only see 50 feet in front of you, you can make the whole 200-mile drive if you know where the destination is, even if you can only see 50 feet in front of you,” Gonzalez says. “That’s what it’s felt like on the digital shelf. And I think that’s what it’s gonna be like with AI.”

But, Gonzalez says, the goal is to make this testing and learning as frictionless as possible for brands to throw out the solutions that don’t work, and keep the ones that do.

Advance and Excel This Decade, and the Next

The next steps are a need to know, but what’s the guiding light of advance, of it all?

“The whole reason why this matters — the product stuff, the network stuff, the future PXM — we’re all trying to drive a great customer experience, a delightful consumer experience,” Purcell says.

As brands continue down the path of advancement, the outlook is overwhelmingly positive, particularly when it comes to the syndication to more retailers with more ease — something you “can really feel,” according to Purcell.

Purcell credits brands for their “persistence, investment, and grit” when it comes to influencing retailers to digitally transform to accommodate this open, automated network of collaboration.

“We’re really well-positioned for a world where finally this vision we’ve had of an open and automated network — and we’ve always believed it was gonna happen,” Purcell says. “We’re finally reaching that point where you as the brands have the flexibility and the freedom to choose the technology provider that you want to work with.”