DMEXCO wasn’t just about networking and reestablishing connections with our peers from across Europe. We were also honored to speak as thought leaders at the D2C panel. The Central European retailing giant Peek & Cloppenburg Duesseldorf also joined us on stage to showcase how the implementation of P2C feed management helped them grow their business.
We progress together
After two years of DMEXCO @home, the event made a spectacular comeback to Cologne. The Productsup booth was right in the heart of the World of Ecommerce, neighboring our partner Akeneo’s marvelous circus-themed stand.
In our post-pandemic world, many brands and retailers are still struggling with change. Under the motto “We progress together,” Hall 6 brought together Europe’s leading ecommerce players to talk about technology, digital transformation, and how to navigate the future successfully. For that, our team was ready.
Marcel Hollerbach on D2C in times of economic uncertainty
Productsup’s very own Chief Innovation Officer, Marcel Hollerbach was invited to the big D2C panel discussion on the ecommerce stage. There he joined Sanda Deutschlander – MD Boston Consulting Group – Ralf Huebner – Partner at com Consulting GmbH – as well as the Founder and CEO of Heroine, Alexandra Tyman.
The theme of the discussion was if, after 4 years of growth – the D2C industry will continue to grow. Because of the recent economic turmoil impacting all areas of retail, the panelist wanted to answer three questions. Is D2C still viable? What are the challenges facing it? And how can businesses continue to reach eager consumers directly?
Marcel explained how he thinks that D2C isn’t failing. Rather, he feels that it’s just getting started, as larger and now small brands are waking up to the benefits of D2C models. Alexandra represents a small brand that grew using a D2C model only. They had a great product – sustainable and long-lasting tights – but they also needed to build up the brand carefully.
Hollerbach went on to remind the panel that it took 20 years for the internet to become rooted in our commerce DNA. D2C will be the same, it will take time for it to be firmly anchored in every brand’s sales strategy. This development will require larger corporations to completely change their business culture.
According to a consumer report commissioned by Productsup, consumers increasingly demand transparent labeling on sustainability. Marcel sees this as an opportunity for brands to increase trust and to increase conversions.
The key to building a brand and successful D2C marketing in the future requires looking to new marketing means, such as leveraging the power of influencers. Everything else is already there, P2C platforms, warehousing, fulfillment and the rest of the tech. It won’t, warned Marcel, suit all businesses, but it is a great time right now to consider it.
If you’re a DMEXCO 2022 ticket holder, you can rewatch the talk online anytime here.
Peek & Cloppenburg on the benefits of P2C feed management
Peek & Cloppenburg Düsseldorf [P&C] is a multi-brand fashion retailer based in Germany that’s rapidly expanding its operations across Europe. They currently sell multi-brand fashion items in 150 physical stores in 15 countries and in 5 online shops in 4 countries. Their yearly turnover is over 1 billion euros. Their ambitious goal is to become Europe’s leading multi-brand omnichannel fashion retailer by 2026.
Together with Productsup’s Alex Lodenkemper, Philips Klösell – Head of Online Marketing for Peek & Cloppenburg Düsseldorf – gave a lecture on the main ecommerce stage on how a product-to-consumer (P2C) approach to feed management can enable rapid growth for fashion retailers.
Philip could reveal that their cooperation with Productsup has helped to contribute to P&C’s success in a number of ways. From a brand perspective, the brands that they sell in their stores know that P&C will always deliver all of the correct product descriptions and availability attributes to the end customers. Through automation and smart P2C tech, P&C can guarantee that the information that appears on their online stores is always accurate – this prevents embarrassing mistakes which used to occur when their product data was being processed manually.
Most importantly, P&C developed a data import process where they imported their product data and merged it with imported product information from Google. The marketing teams could then exclude products that were not selling or boost products that are trending, and all of this automatically. The marketing teams then took these already enriched, smart feeds and could then better enhance the assets to suit the multiple symptoms where they exported the data – websites, Google Shopping, Oracle, Criteo, and social commerce channels.
For example, the merged data from the imports also flagged what kind of products were selling well to first customers. The marketing team could then bundle these products and send them to the channels where they were looking to grow their reach.
Philip was able to confirm, with several other examples, that Productsup enabled their marketing teams to get “the right products, on the right channel to the right target groups.”
If you’re a DMEXCO 2022 ticket holder, you can rewatch the (German language) talk online anytime here.
The ecommerce landscape is constantly developing, and we were thrilled to be a part of DMEXCO 2022, helping to shape this progress. As a critical digital business and innovation event, we’re already looking forward to DMEXCO 2023!