The study identifies commerce anarchy as a significant barrier for businesses to create positive consumer experiences and explores opportunities for achieving optimal user efficiency

Productsup, the leading ecommerce data integration company, today released the findings of its commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, “The Future of Commerce Technology.” The study, which surveyed 375 business decision-makers and directors in Europe and North America, found commerce anarchy is one of the biggest hurdles organizations are facing, and in turn, are prioritizing product data management to effectively scale and deliver better user experiences.

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Commerce anarchy describes the exponential rise in complexity for brands, retailers and service providers to manage omnichannel business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), and direct-to-consumer (D2C) processes. With sales and marketing channels evolving rapidly, organizations are struggling to deliver a unified customer experience across all product touchpoints, resulting in fractured customer and partner relationships. Specifically, Forrester’s research reveals poor product data has led to missed sales opportunities (27%), inability to operate efficiently (25%), decreased revenue (24%) and lower customer satisfaction (23%) for organizations.

“Consumers looking to buy a product are inundated with places to go to ultimately make their purchase, and it takes seconds for them to decide against a certain retailer or brand based on their experience,” said Marcel Hollerbach, Chief Innovation Officer of Productsup. “Organizations need to have a holistic, consistent presence no matter where their end users are shopping, but commerce anarchy makes this an impossible feat. Without the right support, businesses risk significant loss in revenue or even worse bankruptcy.”

Forrester’s research surveyed organization leaders who are directly responsible for commerce technology and strategy implementation within their companies. The data reveals that improving the experience for consumers is not only an important (44%), but a critical initiative (25%) over the next 12 months. Considering consumers are attracted to a more personalized shopping experience and increasingly looking to digital channels, 66% of organizations are personalizing their customer-facing web and mobile experiences.

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Other key takeaways from the study include:

• Improving business efficiency is a top software priority during the next 12 months for 69% of organizations.
• Sixty-two (62%) percent of organization leaders are currently planning to update or entirely replace their commerce platform system, or are evaluating plans to do so.
• Organizations look for technology providers that are affordable (36%) and that have expertise on customer experience (35%) and software platforms (32%).

“Although selling a product to a consumer is becoming more complex every day, the process of buying a product from a retailer still needs to be a seamless transaction for end users,” Hollerbach said. “Brands, retailers and service providers need to rely on strong partners to provide the expertise in new technologies that help them adapt to market changes, provide customer value and survive in this highly competitive market.”

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