Digital Shelf Analytics (DSA) – What Does it Really Do?

Thanks to the increasing number of possible communication channels, manufacturers have more and more opportunities to sell their products online – this applies both to their own platforms such as social media or the online shop as well as to retail channels such as online marketplaces. Although this increases sales potential for manufacturers, it also means increasing complexity in the provision of product content. In addition, controlling the success of communication activities is also becoming increasingly complicated and complex.

This is particularly true for third-party platforms: Retail partners either do not reveal the corresponding figures or cost them something for the service. In any case, manual control of the corresponding KPIs is no longer possible due to their complexity. DSA tools promise a remedy by collecting, evaluating and providing all the relevant KPIs on digital trade channels so that e-commerce managers can make appropriate decisions and initiate optimization measures.

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What Added Value Does DSA Create?

DSA tools crawl product-related information from third-party platforms such as online marketplaces, retailer shops or comparison sites in order to then prepare it for a user-specific basis. The scope of the information displayed differs from application to application, but it essentially includes product availability, performance details of product content, placements, rankings and reviews, as well as pricing information.

This results in a whole range of added value for companies:

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‍Ensuring Product Availability

Sometimes it can happen that products go offline undetected in the retail partners' online shop or are displayed out-of-stock – DSA tools ensure that such a change in status is immediately recognized so that e-commerce managers can act quickly.

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Best Product Experience

Each communication channel has its own rules for what the perfect product content should look like, and it is up to manufacturers to review the product presentation in each channel and optimize it if necessary. DSA solutions help identify rule deviations and identify incorrect or outdated information.

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Better Discoverability

The online shops of trusted retailers are becoming increasingly important for consumers when searching for products. It is therefore not surprising that these platforms today offer the same mechanisms as common search engines: Manufacturers can buy product placements and ad spaces and optimize their search results using intelligent tagging. DSA solutions provide the necessary insights for this.

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Optimized Retail Media Budget

As a result, ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) can also be optimized in retail channels and paid advertising can only be used where it is really effective.

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Better Customer Understanding

The product reviews and reviews are also very helpful for brands. Comprehensive DSA solutions offer real sentiment analyses here, which provide insights into how satisfied customers are with the product, shop descriptions, customer service and delivery.

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Observe the Competition Better

In some tools, it is also possible to directly compare the products with competing items. In this way, learnings from well-performing competitors can be used to optimize one's own product representation.

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This is Important to Consider When Implementing DSA

DSA is a component of the end-to-end product content lifecycle. This means that such a solution must be closely connected with the relevant other systems in the digital value chain in order to generate the greatest possible added value. This is the PIM system in particular, because this is where product content is created that needs to be optimized in the long term. Findings from the DSA must lead to appropriate adjustments directly in product content management so that a genuine and as automated feedback loop as possible is created.

However, this is easier said than done, because although most modern systems in the area of product content lifecycle management are advertised as “composable” and “API-first,” the effort required to create system connections and maintain and maintain these interfaces is often underestimated. Particularly in such volatile use cases as commerce, the IT landscape changes comparatively frequently – effects on the existing system landscape and processes must be absorbed accordingly.

An experienced and holistic digitization expert helps you to always get the most out of product content management, even in complex and dynamic scenarios, and to ensure that tools such as DSA bring the greatest possible added value to your business.

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If you have any questions about DSA or Product Content Lifecycle, make an appointment for a free consultation right away!

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