VTEX is Pioneering the Future of Ecommerce with Omni-channel Excellence and AI-Powered Personalization

CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Yashdeep Vaishnav, Country Head, VTEX. 

Ques: Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and its offerings.

Ans: VTEX is a 23-year-old global enterprise digital commerce platform for enterprise brands and retailers. VTEX enables merchants to deploy, optimize, test and scale advanced B2C and B2B commerce experience through a composable and complete Commerce. Our platform helps brands and retailers modernize their stack and reduce maintenance costs by rapidly migrating from legacy systems, connecting their entire value chain, and making inventory and fulfillment their strength. Apart from the company being listed on NYSE, we have also been named a Visionary by Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce.

Services that we offer:

• Digital Commerce Platform
• Marketplace & Seller Management
• Order Management System
• VTEX IO Development Platform

Going far beyond just an ecommerce solution, VTEX has been helping brands and retailers globally drive rapid and efficient growth. The company enables brands and retailers to achieve faster time to market, reach their customers across any channel, and uncover new growth areas.

As a leader in digital commerce, VTEX is trusted by more than 2,600 B2C and B2B customers, including Carrefour, Colgate, Motorola, Sony, Stanley Black & Decker, and Whirlpool, having over 3,400 active online stores across 38 countries.

As a digital-first brand, Motorola’s D2C strategy involved setting up a channel wherein they could offer the best customer experience, increase brand loyalty, and become a cost-effective model. Through their partnership with VTEX, they were able to provide customers with various functionalities such as affordability schemes, free delivery, log in via email OTP, and payment on delivery. In turn, these functions helped the company build a direct connection with consumers by understanding their feedback & gathering insights.

With the deployment of the VTEX platform, the Motorola website’s traction has been outstanding, attracting customers who appreciate the opportunity to buy directly from them, with a higher average selling price than on traditional marketplaces. This success can be attributed to the platform’s exceptional browsing experience, streamlined checkout process, secure payment options, and efficient delivery. The website caters to customers across 20,000+ PIN codes, with an average delivery time of just two-and-a-half days nationwide and one day in metro cities, ensuring prompt and reliable service. By leveraging the expertise and capabilities of this collaboration, Motorola India has created a robust online platform that offers unparalleled customer experiences.

Ques: How does the VTEX platform enhance customers’ ability to fulfill delivery promises in a more efficient and cost-effective manner?

Ans: Our platform enables merchants to deploy, optimize, test and scale advanced B2C and B2B ecommerce experience through a composable and complete commerce, marketplace and OMS solution. The platform offers merchants across industries and regions unmatched time to revenue by delivering flexibility without unnecessary complexity. VTEX Order Management System helps customers optimize their ecommerce operation with a single view of inventory, seamlessly orchestrating orders across channels, and fulfilling orders from stores and distribution centers. Our distributed order management is built into the VTEX Digital Commerce Platform to unify your business and meet customer delivery promises more efficiently and cost effectively.

VTEX Sales App is the new omnichannel product accelerating the connection between digital sales and brick-and-mortar stores. The tool enables sales associates to leverage the full potential of the retailer’s physical and ecommerce operation, giving them access to inventory from all physical stores, distribution centers, partner sellers and suppliers, access to customers previous purchase data (from both ecommerce and physical stores), insights on abandoned carts, and providing visibility into customer behavior. With the app, the sales associates can provide better customer support, capture more sales, and increase basket size, giving the salesperson the upper hand in any customer negotiation. VTEX Sales App is a single product that integrates the retailer’s entire operation, regardless of the channel.

Decathlon has been using the VTEX Sales App and with the omnichannel approach, their physical stores currently influence over a third of their digital sales, and they intend to keep growing. Now they can always answer ‘yes’ to their customers. It is either ‘yes, we have it in-store or ‘yes, we have it on demand.’ But it is ‘yes’ or ‘yes.’ The VTEX Sales App is key to ensure the best customer experience and satisfaction; even if a product is out of stock in one location, we can quickly find it in another.

VTEX Pick and Pack is an end-to-end logistics solution that enables a quick implementation of a fulfillment operation in brick-and-mortar stores. With a simple and intuitive mobile experience, VTEX Pick and Pack combines one app for store teams to pick and pack products and another for drivers to make deliveries. This tool makes it possible to perform order fulfillment tasks more quickly and efficiently.

VTEX Personal Shopper allows retailers to increase sales and average tickets for their online orders. 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 via video through the VTEX Admin. From there, the sales rep can select and send products to the customer, who can add them to the cart on the spot.

As part of the MACH Alliance, VTEX uses Micro Services, API First, Cloud Native SaaS and Headless technology to provide a highly flexible and scalable architecture, which helps enterprise brands and retailers build modern digital commerce experiences. VTEX also counts on a specialized team of solution engineers and architects to help customers define the best commerce architecture and leverage micro services and commerce functionalities  to enhance flexibility and customization as much as needed, but in a pragmatic way. With an API-first approach, it provides seamless integration and interoperability. Built on a cloud-native infrastructure, it guarantees elasticity and security.

Ques: What are the primary obstacles that ecommerce companies encounter when incorporating cloud computing into their digital commerce operations?

Ans: In today’s rapidly evolving ecommerce landscape, many companies are making significant investments in cloud technology to enhance their operational models and deliver digital services. However, several operational challenges hinder some companies from fully leveraging the benefits of the cloud. These challenges primarily revolve around cost management, security, and compliance. Addressing these challenges is crucial for ecommerce companies to unlock the full potential of cloud technology and drive their digital growth strategies. Some of the common challenges that merchants are facing today:

• Security Concerns: It is a critical concern when adopting cloud computing. Companies need to ensure that their data is protected from unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security risks. They may need to assess the security measures and certifications provided by cloud service providers and implement additional security measures to safeguard their data.
• Compliance and Legal Considerations: Depending on the industry and location, companies may have to comply with various regulations and legal requirements, such as data protection laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA), industry-specific regulations (e.g., PCI-DSS for payment card data), and local data residency requirements. Ensuring compliance with these regulations in a cloud computing environment can be complex and require careful planning and implementation.
• Integration and Interoperability: Companies often have existing technology systems, such as legacy on-premises solutions or third-party applications, that need to integrate with cloud-based solutions. Achieving seamless integration and interoperability between different systems can be challenging, especially when dealing with diverse data formats, APIs, and protocols. It may require custom development or the use of middleware and integration tools.
• Cost Management: While cloud computing offers potential cost savings compared to on-premises infrastructure, it also introduces new cost management challenges. Companies need to understand the pricing models of cloud service providers, optimize resource allocation, and monitor usage to avoid unexpected costs. They should also consider factors like storage costs, network bandwidth, and data transfer fees to accurately forecast and manage their cloud expenses.
• Vendor Lock-in: Choosing a cloud service provider involves careful consideration, as companies may face challenges if they need to switch providers in the future. Vendor lock-in can limit flexibility and create dependencies on specific platforms or technologies. It is crucial to evaluate vendor options, consider portability and have contingency plans in place to mitigate this risk.

Ques: In what ways does artificial intelligence assist ecommerce companies in providing personalized digital experiences to their customers?

Ans: The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) have revolutionized the dynamics of customer-brand interactions. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, AI can uncover patterns, trends, and insights from the data, allowing companies to understand their customers’ preferences, behaviors, and purchase history on a granular level. This data-driven understanding enables ecommerce companies to create personalized recommendations, product suggestions, and targeted marketing campaigns tailored to each customer’s specific needs and interests. AI also helps automate the process of segmenting customers into different groups based on their characteristics and behaviors, further enabling personalized experiences at scale. AI-powered visual search technology enables customers to find products based on images rather than keywords. This allows users to take a photo or upload an image and find visually similar products. AI algorithms analyze the image, understand its visual features, and match it with relevant products in the ecommerce catalog, enhancing the personalized search experience.

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants enhance the customer experience by providing instant and personalized support. Natural language processing (NLP) algorithms allow these AI systems to understand and respond to customer queries and concerns in a human-like manner. Chatbots can provide personalized product recommendations, answer frequently asked questions, assist with order tracking, and even help with returns and refunds. These AI-powered assistants are available 24/7, ensuring that customers receive timely assistance and support, which ultimately improves customer satisfaction and loyalty.

AI algorithms can segment customers based on their behavior, demographics, and preferences. This allows ecommerce companies to create targeted marketing campaigns tailored to specific customer segments. By delivering personalized messages, offers, and content, companies can improve customer engagement and conversion rates. AI enables ecommerce companies to leverage predictive analytics to forecast customer behavior, demand trends, and inventory needs. By analyzing historical data, AI algorithms can predict which products are likely to be popular, identify seasonal trends, and optimize inventory management. This allows companies to provide a more personalized experience by ensuring the availability of popular products and avoiding stockouts.

Ques: What are the reasons for ecommerce companies to implement an omnichannel strategy?

Ans: An omnichannel approach allows companies to provide a seamless and consistent customer experience across multiple channels and touchpoints. With customers interacting with brands through various channels such as websites, mobile apps, social media, physical stores, and more, an omnichannel strategy ensures that the customer experience remains cohesive and integrated. This means that customers can start their journey on one channel and effortlessly transition to another without any disruptions or inconsistencies. By delivering a unified experience, ecommerce companies can enhance customer satisfaction, foster trust, and build stronger relationships with their customers.

This strategy opens up new avenues for customer engagement and revenue generation. By expanding their presence across multiple channels, ecommerce companies can reach a wider audience and cater to different customer preferences. Each channel offers unique opportunities for customer interaction, whether it’s browsing products, making purchases, seeking customer support, or providing feedback. By effectively integrating these channels, ecommerce companies can provide customers with the flexibility to engage with their brand in the way that best suits their needs and preferences. This increased accessibility and convenience can lead to higher customer engagement, increased sales, and improved customer loyalty. Additionally, an omnichannel strategy enables companies to gather valuable customer data from various touchpoints, allowing for more targeted marketing efforts and personalized experiences.

An omnichannel strategy is not hard to implement as long as you’ve clearly identified what your customers want, gained organizational buy-in and put the right tools in place to execute your strategy. Some of the features and functionality a retailer needs for an omnichannel strategy may not exist in legacy systems or older SaaS solutions. A headless commerce platform like VTEX can help by making it faster and easier to implement your omnichannel strategy because it was designed with omnichannel in mind. Remember that at the core of a powerful omnichannel digital commerce platform is the OMS, or order management system. The strength of the VTEX OMS is how well it can consume orders from various channels and send orders to their fulfillment location whether that be shipping from your warehouse or 3PL, shipping from a store or enabling BOPIS. Choosing a powerful omnichannel-capable digital commerce platform like VTEX can help you achieve the goal of creating exceptional customer experiences across all of your retail channels in a faster, simpler and more connected way.

Ques: What are the company’s future plans?

Ans: India’s e-retail market was estimated to be $50 billion in 2022, growing at 25% over 2021. By 2027, the market is expected to grow to $150–$170 billion, with up to 1 in 10 retail dollars spent online. The growing population of aspirational consumers is catapulting the retail sector’s growth in smaller cities and tier 2 & 3 markets. Retailers and brands are exploring the possibilities in tier 2 & 3 cities creating a demand for retail spaces. The growth of the retail sector will likely be driven by smaller cities in the coming years and we at VTEX want to tap these brands and markets in the coming months.

Our primary goal is to empower merchants in achieving their ecommerce goals by offering a platform and technology that ensures their stores are not only the fastest but also have the highest conversion rates. We are committed to providing administrators with a pleasant and powerful experience, setting their stores apart from the competition. We are excited to deliver on our visionary roadmap and maintain open lines of communication with our customers. Our focus remains on what is essential, making a positive impact on every business that relies on our services.