Customer spotlight: Matas Group

Matas Group’s PIM journey exemplifies lean efficiency, leveraging value-driven automation and streamlined processes. The strategic integration of the inriver PIM platform has optimized operations, fostering technological innovation and elevated customer experiences. This lean approach propels Matas Group as a retail leader, gaining market share in Denmark and Sweden.

Matas Group, Denmark’s leading beauty, personal care, and health products retailer, exemplifies the strategic impact of inriver Product Information Management (PIM) for revenue growth and market expansions across various physical and digital customer touchpoints. Founded in 1949, Matas Group was a traditional brick-and-mortar chain but recognized the need for a digital transformation to secure a thriving future.

With the acquisition of Kicks Group, Matas Group now has an extensive Nordic network of almost 500 stores, combined with numerous web shops generating an annual revenue of DKK 7.6 billion.

The journey

Over the last five years, Matas Group initiated a digital transformation to align with evolving consumer preferences. While renovating physical stores to cater to traditional shoppers, the company experienced a significant surge in online sales, constituting nearly 20% of total transactions. This shift highlighted the need for a seamless integration between physical and digital channels, led by the choice of a Product Information Management (PIM) software.

The challenges

During this transformation, Matas encountered several challenges, including:

• Managing a vast product catalog of approximately 50,000 SKUs with manual processes and ways of working
• Fragmented and slow product enrichment: changes from the ERP were not reflected on the website until the next day, causing inefficiencies in the workflow
• The absence of automatic workflows for robust company-wide data governance
• Gaps in connections and integrations within internal IT systems
• Complex and time-consuming processes for product enrichment
• The lack of product/variant structure resulted in double maintenance
• The lack of high-quality, valuable, and engaging product stories that matter, with keywords for SEO optimization

The solution

To address these challenges and streamline their operations, Matas Group chose the inriver PIM software. The primary objectives were to establish a unified product data source, enhance customer experiences through enriched product data, and expedite time-to-market.

The reasons they chose inriver include:

• A truly flexible elastic data model, able to grow and extend attributes or entities in the background automatically without the need for IT
• The elasticity and flexibility required as new regulations, like the European Digital product Passports will continue to change over time
• The user-friendliness and scalability in onboarding internal users from different parts of the business
• The optimized workflows connecting upstream product data to downstream marketplaces, tailored to the editors’ needs

The implementation

Working with inriver solution partner Vertica, a dedicated digital agency focusing on e-commerce, Matas Group successfully implemented the PIM solution on time and within budget. The integration team at Vertica combined business understanding, user insights, technical development, and project management to deliver a seamless implementation to the Matas stakeholders.

The results achieved with inriver

• Remarkable assortment growth, boasting approximately 50,000 active SKUs—an increase of 15,000 SKUs since the implementation. The company expanded its assortment into new product lines, transitioning from its traditional focus on cosmetics, skincare, and supplements to offering a broader range, including clothing, fitness equipment, and children’s items.
• Improved customer experience through relevant, enriched, and consistent product information and product, across online e-commerce and marketplaces and offline sales channels, becoming Denmark’s largest beauty, personal care, and health products retailer.
• Enhanced internal operations and processes with a better overview of product data, and a smooth enrichment process, resulting in a robust company-wide product data governance.
• A significant reduction in time-to-market, from 12-24 hours to an impressive 1-2 minutes.
• Streamlined product enrichment processes as changes were reflected on the website within minutes.
• Expansion to new markets, new languages, and geographies: the addition of three new languages and a substantial increase in attributes showcased the flexibility of inriver’s data model.
• Streamlined internal and external collaboration: the e-commerce sales team, omni team, regulatory department, and master data team all found the system conducive to their specific needs. Notifications, work areas, and completeness rules made it easy to find products needing attention, while the user-friendly interface empowered different teams to contribute seamlessly.

Conclusion

Matas Group’s journey with inriver showcases a successful blend of technological innovation, market expansion, and enhanced customer experiences. The strategic acquisition of Kicks Group has propelled Matas Group into a leading position in the retail landscape.

If you’re ready to transform your product journey, book a demo with our experts and embark on your inriver journey today. Equip your enterprise with the only PIM solution that powers the entire product journey.