Customer Spotlight: EK

Customer Spotlight: EK

A B2B inriver case study

Retail service organization EK (formerly Euretco) needed a new way of managing product information to support its network of retailers.

EK case study
XSARUS

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EK, located in Hoevelaken, is the largest retail service organization in the Netherlands. The organization, formerly called Euretco works together with 1,500 entrepreneurs and franchisees who run a total of nearly 2,400 stores in living, fashion, DIY and media sectors.

EK’s team of approximately 300 employees provide day-to-day support to a network of entrepreneurs and franchisees. EK’s fashion division includes international brands in women’s, men’s, baby and children’s clothing such as Babyface, Born with Appetite, and Inshape.

pim for catalog management

XSARUS has established itself as a real collaborative partner in the project. This created the feeling that we were working on the project together, instead of XSARUS working for us as a supplier. Moreover, through inriver and the related links with external sources, we are now able to receive data faster and more efficiently. This allows us to make a much wider product range available to our affiliated entrepreneurs. And that also on an international scale.

Menno Beren, Omnichannel Manager, EK Fashion Europe

challenge

With the large number of fashion brands that EK deals with, managing and keeping the ever-changing product information up to date was a major challenge for the team. In recent years, EK noticed that abandoned shopping carts were becoming more commonplace if the product data was incomplete or irrelevant to the consumer. With more complete product information driving sales conversions, EK decided to take a closer look at the product information management process.

Like many organizations, EK’s product information was spread out across different systems and files, including ERP, e-commerce platforms, and Excel files. This siloed structure made it difficult to identify what was essential data and often the team wasn’t certain whether the product information was correct, complete or even the latest version. Launching new products and ensuring the associated marketing content was a lengthy process, consisting mainly of manual steps. EK decided it was time to look for a Product Information Management (PIM) solution.

As part of their search for a suitable PIM solution, EK Fashion identified a number of requirements that had to be met. They included:

solution and implementation process

EK Fashion selected inriver as their PIM solution. The multitenant SaaS solution is known for its user-friendliness, retail focus, and attention to conversion-driven product marketing. Good references, international orientation, relatively low investment costs, and the ability to scale helped make inriver the choice.

XSARUS was chosen as the inriver implementation partner for EK Fashion. With the largest number of inriver implementations in Benelux, good references, and a detailed scope description, it was easy to see why XSARUS was chosen by EK Fashion.

The initial step of the implementation process was to migrate the existing data from the various systems such as the ERP, different e-commerce platforms, and even from a large number of Excel spreadsheets. Any initial concerns about this migration were quickly removed by inriver’s elastic data model which easily adapts to an organization’s needs.

A series of workshops were held to define the structure of the data model, which ensured migration of all the data went smoothly. Inriver’s open APIs make connecting to different systems straightforward, which now means any migration of new information is automated.

result

Implementing a PIM solution is the best way to take charge of your product data and content. For EK, inriver’s automated workflows removed time consuming, and often manual error-prone processes. The inriver connectors to GS1 Fashion Base, Stockbase, and Fashion Cloud data pools mean that product information is automatically shared with EK’s inriver instance. Efficiency has increased. For example, employees now have far fewer actions to perform to generate complete product data. As a result, EK increased its time to market and is able to offer a greater choice to its consumers.

Inriver is the centralized hub to consolidate, manage, enrich and access product information. With this single source of truth, the team no longer has to search for the most up-to-date data and it’s easier to control the data quality. Distributing consistent, complete and accurate information to the EK e-commerce platform and the many web shops of EK’s members is friction-free.

Due to the agile collaboration and clear phasing in the project, the implementation was transparent and efficient. The clear project scope ensured that there were no surprises and that everyone understood what was involved. The smooth running of the project was aided by the XSARUS consultants being on-site at EK Fashion, providing demos to the various stakeholders.

GS1 data model

EK is part of the GS1 Fashion Base leaders group. In this role, they help to design and endorse the GS1 Fashion data standard.

EK supplies data for its own brands to Fashion Base in the GS1 standard. As a purchasing organization, EK consumes data in the GS1 standard from GS1 Fashion Base, Stockbase, and Fashion Cloud. Both processes now run via inriver.

want to see the inriver PIM in action?

Schedule a personalized, guided demo with an inriver expert today to see how the inriver PIM can get more value from your product information.

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