GNC Selects the FirstSpirit Digital Experience Platform to Power Content-Driven E-Commerce Experiences

e-Spirit has announced that GNC Holdings, Inc., a leading global specialty retailer of health and wellness products, has selected FirstSpirit to drive engaging customer experiences for its e-commerce business. Using FirstSpirit makes it fast and easy for marketers to personalize and publish content, including images and shoppable videos, to all customer touchpoints based on individual interests and preferences. Unlike other CMS offerings, FirstSpirit’s fast time to market, AI-driven personalization capabilities, limited need for IT support and its deep integration with Salesforce Commerce Cloud make it easy for business users to produce high-quality content-driven commerce on web, mobile and other channels.

e-Spirit is the maker of the industry-leading FirstSpirit Digital Experience Platform (DXP) powered by a hybrid headless CMS.

Research firm Grand View Research states that the Digital Experience Platform market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.9% from USD $7.5 billion in 2018 to USD $15.5 billion by 2025. One of the driving factors behind this projected growth is the desire by companies to more easily create exciting, engaging experiences across any touchpoint that turn customers into lifelong fans. Whether customers are using mobile technologies like cell phones or handheld devices like iPads, they want personalized content that is tailored to their interests, preferences and desired interfaces. FirstSpirit, which was included in the Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms, provides strong workflow and collaboration capabilities that make it easy for marketers to create engaging content-driven experiences on any channel. In today’s world, where more people are working remotely, it is critical to have enterprise-class experience management capabilities, deeply integrated with e-commerce platforms, that require minimal developer resources.

Unlike monolithic CMS solutions, e-Spirit’s FirstSpirit DXP and hybrid headless CMS provide the flexibility and speed that marketing teams need to create engaging experiences for customers on any channel, while at the same time requiring minimal IT support. Whether its Forrester praising e-Spirit’s partnership with Salesforce Commerce Cloud or Research in Action touting the strength of FirstSpirit’s API-first headless CMS technology, analysts and experts continue to recognize e-Spirit as a market leader thanks to its advanced, fast to deploy technology.

“One of our strategies for competing in today’s crowded e-commerce market is to create a seamless, engaging customer experience across web, mobile and other channels that increases customer loyalty,” Daniel Frattaroli, Director of eCommerce, GNC. “We selected the FirstSpirit DXP with hybrid headless CMS as a result of its deep integration with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, its ability to enable our business teams to rapidly create content-driven commerce experiences, and the availability of e-Spirit’s AI-driven content personalization engine. e-Spirit’s hybrid headless CMS technology will make it easy for our teams to add personalized content to GNC commerce experiences with little to no developer support. With the FirstSpirit CMS and AI technology, we can provide similar engaging personalized experiences our retail customers receive when consulting with our Coaches in GNC stores.”

“For companies that want their CMS to be tightly integrated with Salesforce Commerce Cloud for delivery of game changing commerce experiences in record time, there is no better solution than FirstSpirit,” said Udo Sträßer, Chief Revenue Officer, e-Spirit. “Our DXP with hybrid headless CMS makes it easy for GNC’s marketing team to create content that captures the attention of their customers. Reducing implementation time means that GNC will quickly see value in its investment in FirstSpirit and customers will have a better overall experience.”

The FirstSpirit DXP with hybrid headless content management offers the next generation of a headless CMS and includes headless and decoupled capabilities. It offers significant opportunities for companies to rapidly deliver more inspiring, content-driven experiences to their B2B and B2C customers. Developers, marketers, and other digital experience professionals no longer need to be tied to a traditional CMS or pure-play headless CMSs, which lack scalability and ease of use for business teams. The result is the ability to create and deliver the ideal connected digital experience for each individual customer in the right context and at the right time and place to drive engagement and revenue.

e-Spirit’s hybrid headless CMS architecture separates FirstSprit DXP from the competition in three key areas:

1. Agility: 75%+ faster deployment using the FirstSpirit Experience Accelerator and our API-first, cloud-based CMS architecture.
2. Empowerment: FirstSpirit is a SaaS-based solution that is easy to use for both non-technical and technical employees, meaning that content can be created and shared quickly and easily.
3. Intelligence: AI-powered personalization and predictive analytics deliver unique content that is targeted to specific customer needs which helps reduce time-to-revenue.

e-Spirit received an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5.0 by Gartner Peer Insights Reviews based on 23 reviews for Digital Experience Platforms and 83% of customers stated that they would recommend FirstSpirit DXP.

e-Spirit was included in the Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms, selected to be in the 2020 Forrester Research report Now Tech: Agile Content Management Systems, Q1 2020, and named Market Leader in Research in Action’s Vendor Selection Matrix for Web Experience Management.

e-Spirit’s SaaS-based FirstSpirit Digital Experience Platform helps businesses engage customers and increase revenue with rapid execution of personalized, content-rich digital experiences anytime, anywhere. Savvy digital marketers across all industry sectors rely on the FirstSpirit platform—which includes a hybrid headless CMS, AI-driven personalization and omnichannel marketing capabilities—for individualized and synchronized content delivery across all channels to differentiate their companies and turn customers into lifelong fans in record time.