VTEX Day 2023, a two-day event attended by more than 20,000 people each day, was the background for VTEX’s most exciting announcement this year: a revamped product lineup. The launches aim to make life easier for brands and retailers who are seeking to improve their digital sales efficiency and boost profitability.
The rapid growth that ecommerce experienced during 2020 and 2021 has startled the market and, as a result, 37% of global retailers are not meeting their profitability goals. Retail and ecommerce are entering a new era where efficiency is the top priority.
The industry is facing significant challenges. Inflation is high and squeezing retailers’ margins, retail inventory levels have increased 22% since the end of the pandemic, buyer behavior is changing, and customer acquisition costs have also risen. We are at a turning point, and ecommerce leaders need to re-evaluate their digitalization investments to focus on what really pays back: customer acquisition and loyalty, inventory optimization, and reducing tech maintenance costs.
In this context, the platform is launching five products to help brands and retailers modernize their commerce technology stacks and smarten up their digital commerce investments. The new products promise to unlock growth opportunities for customers and partners in the robust VTEX ecosystem. Let’s take a look at this year’s launches.
VTEX Sales App is the new omnichannel product that accelerates the connection between digital sales and brick-and-mortar stores. The tool gives sales associates access to inventory from all physical stores, distribution centers, partner sellers and suppliers, which allows them to leverage the full potential of both the retailer’s physical and digital operations through an endless aisle strategy.
Additionally, sales reps can access customers’ previous purchase data from both ecommerce and physical stores and get insights into abandoned carts and customer behavior. The app enables users to provide better customer support, capture more sales, and increase average order value, giving them the upper hand in any customer negotiation.
“With the omnichannel approach, our physical stores currently influence over a third of our digital sales. And we intend to keep growing. Now we can always answer ‘yes’ to our customers. It is either ‘yes, we have it in-store or ‘yes, we have it on demand.’ But it is ‘yes’ or ‘yes.'”
Robin Drogat, Omnichannel Experience leader at Decathlon
Finally, VTEX Sales App also shows a complete real-time dashboard to manage the sales reps’ performance. Sales associates can track their results, and managers can create financial incentives and campaigns to increase their teams’ productivity. All of that in the same app.
VTEX Pick and Pack is an end-to-end logistics solution that enables quick implementation of a fulfillment operation in brick-and-mortar stores, turning them into true distribution centers. With a simple and intuitive mobile experience, VTEX Pick and Pack combines one app for store teams to pick products and prepare them to be delivered and another for drivers to make the deliveries. Additionally, the product is already connected with VTEX’s OMS (Order Management System), so the implementation is simple, without the need for any middleware or glue code.
This entire process happens in real-time, and the store operations manager can track the performance of the process at all levels: from the store associate to each of the stores in your network and even the delivery driver. All is done through performance dashboards in the VTEX Admin, so performance issues can be adjusted quickly.
On the delivery end of logistics, the large volume of orders passing through VTEX’s platform and the company’s large footprint in Brazil have enabled them to offer special pricing conditions for customers wishing to utilize Brazil’s national postal service. Now, Correios’s services are just a few clicks away for VTEX customers through a plug-and-play experience that automatically updates the platform information, including delivery status tracking for each order, order labels, and shipping rate tables.
VTEX Personal Shopper is a tool that allows retailers to increase sales, average tickets for their online orders, and, ultimately, the lifetime value of end customers. VTEX’s new app enables companies to offer exclusive one-to-one customer service through live-stream videos. When the customer requests assistance, the dedicated salesperson connects with them via video through the VTEX Admin. From there, the sales rep can select products to the customer, who can add them to the cart on the spot.
Personal Shopper allows merchants to provide a face-to-face experience, previously exclusive to brick-and-mortar stores. Through this experience, customers can get all their questions answered, while salespeople can make personalized recommendations that help upselling, turning it into a win-win scenario.
The Extensions Hub is the new version of VTEX’s app and integration store, where retailers can expand their offerings by adding solutions from partners developed with VTEX IO. Now, retailers can find and configure partner solutions without leaving the VTEX Admin and pay for everything as part of their VTEX invoice. With this, integrations are now in the hands of the retailer in a scalable and secure way, representing another step in VTEX’s vision of building a live, connected ecosystem.
Finally, VTEX also announced a partnership with Google that will allow more than 3,000 ecommerce companies worldwide to add the “Pay with Google Pay” button as a payment method on their checkout page. This makes life easier for merchants and retailers, as the feature will be available natively in VTEX, allowing integration in a few seconds directly in the platform Admin.
“This partnership is very important as it enables Google to connect buyers and sellers more easily through a fluid and secure experience, which improves the payment experience for consumers significantly, thus also creating opportunities to increase sales.”
Natacha Litvinov, head of Payment and Operation Strategies for Latin America at Google.
To get to know more about VTEX’s top releases that help merchants get smart about their digital commerce investments and find new growth opportunities, visit our landing page.
