VTEX acquires Suiteshare to deliver conversational commerce experiences
The acquisition enables brands and retailers to sell through WhatsApp and provide unified shopping experiences June 1, 2021
LONDON, June 1st, 2021 – VTEX, the world’s fastest-growing commerce platform with native marketplace and order management capabilities, today announced the acquisition of Suiteshare, a platform that enables brands to sell and provide customer service via WhatsApp. The acquisition marks VTEX’s next step towards enabling retailers to deliver modern, convenient and interactive shopping experiences for their buyers. Suiteshare already powers conversational shopping experiences for major retailers in Brazil and Latin America, including Lacoste, The North Face, Reserva, Grupo Soma, Natura, and Mary Kay.
There is a clear shift in consumer expectations towards more personalized and immediate interactions with brands. Messaging app usage has now surpassed social media platforms with 20% more active users*, and research from Facebook shows that 66% of consumers are more confident about making a purchase when a company is active on messaging apps. With the acquisition of Suiteshare, VTEX will provide a platform for its merchants to reach and sell to WhatsApp users worldwide.
“We operate in a messaging-centric world where customers are pushing brands to deliver real-time conversational experiences that feel authentic and natural”, says Mariano Gomide, co-founder and co-CEO of VTEX. “With this acquisition, we are enabling companies to offer an even more complete, continuous and integrated service across channels to acquire, activate and service their customers.”
The Power of Conversational Commerce
Companies using Suiteshare’s platform report increases in engagement and conversion rates. At Tramontina, a century-old houseware company present in over 120 countries, the platform improved ecommerce conversion rates by more than 20% between November 2020 and March 2021. At Track & Field, a Brazilian fitness fashion brand, Suiteshare drove an increase of more than 340% in average monthly clicks on the site, between October 2020 and March 2021.
Global fashion brand Lacoste praises Suiteshare’s flexibility and speed to launch: “We partnered with Suiteshare, as they proved to be extremely agile and at the same time offered a complete solution,” says Vinicius Castro, Operations and Digital Projects Manager at Lacoste. “Our need to start selling through WhatsApp was rapidly met, and the ease of use of the solution is incredible.”
“We are very excited to join the VTEX team to co-create market-leading solutions for the future of digital commerce, says Maicon Ferreira, founder and CEO of Suiteshare. This union opens up a world of opportunity to extend omnichannel beyond just a logistical solution into a solution to increase conversion and sales for our merchants.”
Founded in 2018 in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, Suiteshare works as a digital extension for WhatsApp accounts, which helps companies to connect customers with different service touchpoints. The solution allows brands to distribute demands among physical stores and support franchisee operations. When accessing a chat on the website or clicking on a link on the brand’s social network, the consumer is recognized by geo-referencing and digitally directed to a sales associate at the nearest store.
*Source 1: https://mediakix.com/blog/messaging-app-statistics-advertisers-need-to-consider/
About VTEX
VTEX provides a global, fully integrated, end-to-end commerce solution with the native marketplace and OMS capabilities. We help companies in retail, manufacturing, wholesale, grocery, consumer packaged goods and other verticals to sell more, operate more efficiently, scale seamlessly and deliver remarkable customer experience. Our modern APIs architecture and our powerful business and development tools allow VTEX to future-proof our customers’ businesses and free them from software updates. Major brands including Sony, Carrefour, Whirlpool, Stanley Black & Decker, AB InBev, Nestlé, Coca-Cola Andina and over 2,500 active online stores in 32 countries, trust VTEX to accelerate and transform their commerce. Visit www.vtex.com to learn more.
