Overview of the OXA and its mission

The Open Experience Alliance is a group of some of the largest brand manufacturers and retailers in the world who believe that brand manufacturers should have the ability to control their branding and product experiences wherever their customers are.As a group of over 100 brands representing more than $400 billion in sales and $1.8 trillion in market cat, the OXA is able to more effectively promote the ideals of open and collaborative digital shelf. Together, the OXA has made significant progress in breaking down traditional toll roads and empowering brands to more effectively own their digital shelf experiences.Join the movement, learn more, and get involved.

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Salsify Product News

GDSN

Salsify is now a GS1-certified GDSN Data Pool

This means that brands can manage both operational and marketing content in Salsify and easily send accurate and updated content via GDSN to select retailers. Learn More

INSTAGRAM

Checkout on Instagram

Salsify is partnering with Instagram to help brands leverage Checkout on Instagram, now in beta with select brands in the US. With more than 130 million Instagrammers already interacting with shopping posts each month, this partnership gives brands the ability to expand their reach and keep pace with the many ways the digital shelf can come to life. Learn More

Retailer Updates

General Merchandise

Target

Live Capabilities:Brand Chat, Enhanced Content (new!)

Upcoming Capabilities: Direct Connection - April 2020

Update: After successfully launching Enhanced Content with Target earlier this year, we are working with Tom Margot, Manager Content Quality and Governance, and Target’s product management team to round out our capability offering by rolling out an automated process for both new item set up and content refresh by the end of Q1 2020. We already have several brands lined up to participate in the pilot which will provide real time feedback and ensure a successful program launch.

General Merchandise

Amazon

We are continuing to drive the awareness of Amazon Feed Specification (AFS), the most automated way to publish your product content to Amazon Vendor Central. If you do not already have AFS enabled in your Salsify account, reach out to your Customer Champion to check if your product category is eligible and to activate the channel.
We are also partnering with the Retail Operations & Initiatives (RO&I) team to roll AFS out to the EU5: Spain, Germany, the UK, France, and Italy. If you have a team in Europe that is already onboard to Salsify and needs to syndicate content to Amazon, reach out to your Customer Champion to learn more! The RO&I team in Europe is headed by Muriel Tardieu: Lead Project Manager, Amazon.fr and supported by Colleen Carroll: Senior Product Manager, Tools & Automation, Amazon Fashion, Europe.

General Merchandise

Walmart

Direct Connection Optimization - late January 2020
Above-the-fold Hotspots - March 2020

Update:
Continuous monitoring and optimization are key to a successful connection. Our Product Team, in partnership with the Walmart Connected Content Partner Program, is working to improve the process for apparel brands that have previously experienced issues publishing to Walmart Supplier Center's API. Our team is currently piloting a new process with an apparel brand, with the goal to roll out this enhancement to more brands by late January 2020.
We also recently integrated into Walmart's new Above The Fold 360 Spin Image player, and have partnered with Snap36 to deliver a seamless experience directly to product pages on Walmart.com. We are also beginning conversations with the team responsible for Walmart's new Item360 (new version of Walmart’s Supplier Center coming soon), to advocate on behalf of connected content partners to ensure the best possible integration going forward.

General Merchandise

BJ's Wholesale

Live Capabilities: Direct Connection (new!), Enhanced Content

Update: Direct Connection is now live for BJ’s Wholesale! All customers can now access BJs’ Item Templates and requirements right from the Readiness Report in Salsify. Contact your Customer Champion if you are interested in enabling this channel in your account. We have partnered closely with the BJ’s Digital Team over the last year to launch both these capabilities, including Jeff Woishnis: Manager, Digital Content & Product Discovery and Jacqueline Lindeborg: Sr. Digital Content Specialist.

Grocery

Albertsons

Upcoming Capabilities: Direct Connection - early Q1 2020

Update: For the past several months, team members from Albertsons, Salsify and a few pilot brands have been working on a project to streamline the process to update content currently live on Albertsons’ website(s). Our goal is to have a more streamlined process to update content for all (but 2 banners) under the ABSCO portfolio available for general access by early Q1 2020. Lastly, we have started initial discovery conversations around item set up and enhanced content with the appropriate teams. We are partnering at Albertsons with Rhonda Burns: Sr. Manager Digital Catalog, Susan Moore: Director B2B eCommerce, and Kenji Gjovig: VP eCommerce Marketing & Merchandising.

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Grocery

Kroger

Live Capabilities: Direct Connection (Limited Release)

Upcoming Capabilities: Direct Connection - early Q1 2020

Update: We are actively exploring paths for further automation via GDSN for item setup and content refresh. Kroger is also evaluating the best approach to creating one source of truth for data as it is currently being ingested from multiple sources. At Kroger, we are working closely with the Enterprise Item Strategy and Digital Teams.

Grocery

Meijer

Update: In November, we held an exploratory call with team members at Meijer, including Jude Pagel: Manager of Merchandising Processes, to discuss their process today for item set up and content refresh. As a group, we are exploring multiple options of data transfer, including leveraging our GDSN data pool, to give Meijer the product information they need. We will continue to investigate options through the holiday season with the plans to re-engage after the code freeze lifts post-January 5th

Electronics & Office

Office Depot

Live Capabilities: Brand Chat

Update: A few months back, the OD team decided to remove all third party tags to assess their impact on site & page performance. The Salsify team provided data that showed how Salsify’s brand chat not only drives higher conversion, higher basket size but also repeat visits to the retailer’s website. After evaluating this data, we were able to redeploy the chat tag on Office Depot on Friday, 11/15 just in time for the holiday season. The team at Office Depot we are currently working with include Dave Sorkin: Principal eCommerce Product Manager, Alicia Marin: Senior Lead UX Designer and Steve Usrey: Sr. Program E-commerce Manager. Now that chat is redeployed, we will engage with their team after the holiday to explore additional capabilities; specifically Enhanced Content.

Electronics & Office

Newegg

Upcoming Capabilities: Brand Chat - late December 2019

Update: Our team is working with Bryant Taylor: User Testing and Jessica Chen: User Experience and Design, to redeploy our brand chat on their site. In early November, Salsify sent Newegg the updated chat code to review. Newegg is actively reviewing the code and will provide feedback ASAP. Once reviewed, the next step is walking through their UI change requests. Unfortunately, we don't anticipate the tag will be live before Black Friday based on Newegg’s resource availability during this time of year but are confident it will be live before year-end 2019.

Electronics & Office

Staples

Status: In November, the Salsify Retail Team held a conference call with Jay Lundin: Director of Digital Business at Staples. The call covered Staples’ history using other 3rd party solutions: what worked, what didn't and what interests the merchant community. It was a very high-level conversation covering both Salsify chat and enhanced content. Jay asked for a report on page performance metrics and would review the data with his team internally. Our team provided the data he requested and plan to reconnect with him after the holiday season to continue this conversation.

Electronics & Office

Best Buy

Upcoming Capabilities: Direct Connection - April 2020

Status: In November, the Salsify Retail Team had a call with Best Buy: Katie Berens, Lead Digital Web Business Analyst and Paul Schott: PM Product Data Management. Best Buy has prioritized item automation (i.e. new item set up/ content refresh) with Salsify to help optimize the current process today. The teams will be working on this project through the holidays with the goal of having the initial set of files to test in late Jan/Feb.

Apparel & Department Stores

Macy's

Update: Update: In mid-November, we reengaged with the Macy’s team to discuss their progress since rolling out a new MDM system. They expressed there is still a long runway to go before they are ready to move towards integration options with a content service provider. In the meantime, Macy’s is meeting internally over the next few weeks to discuss including Salsify as another option for brands to submit enhanced content to their website. We are currently engaged with Kristin Wu: Product Manager, Deb Brown: Director Omnichannel Process & Systems, and Michael Trembley: VP Product Management and Merchant Operations.

Furniture & Home

Wayfair

Upcoming Capabilities: Direct Connection (late Q1 2020)

Status: This syndication channel is planned for release in late Q1. The channel will allow Salsify customers to map their product content to Wayfair’s “spec sheet” requirements and publish directly to Wayfair’s data portal. At Wayfair, we have been working closely with Ben Legesse: Software Engineer as well as Tori Rooks: Associate, Supplier Acquisition and Onboarding Team to get this project over the finish line and available for our customers.

Hardlines

Lowe's

Enhanced Content (Q4 2019)
Direct Connection (Q1 2020)

Status: The Salsify and Lowe’s teams recently executed a contract to move forward with getting Enhanced Content live on Lowes.com! We are working closely with Nate Whitten: Sr. Director, Enterprise Item Content, to launch the Enhanced Content tag with Lowe’s in December and will follow up with building out the Direct Connection capability in Q1 2020.

Hardlines

The Home Depot

Direct Connection - Content Refresh (Q1 2020),
Enhanced Content (Q1 2020)

Status:
Although a Direct Connection for new item creation with The Home Depot is currently available through Salsify, customers have not had the ability to submit content refreshes through the existing channel. Our team is working with both The Home Depot and their technology partner, Stibo, to update the connection capability to include content refresh for legacy items in Q1 2020. Customers will be able to create new items, refresh existing items, and take action on workflow state feedback directly in Salsify.
Enhanced Content is planned to go live at The Home Depot in Q1. We are scheduled to begin a pilot with select Brand Advocate Program customers in January.
We are working closely with several members of The Home Depot team to launch Enhanced Content and Content Refresh including Joe Amorosso: Director, Enterprise Item Data Management, Steven Lent: Director, Brand Advocate, Carlos Vazquez: Software Product Manager, Greg Juhn: Product Manager, Item Data Management, and Nathan Liddell: Digital Content Manager.

Alcohol & Spirits

Total Wine & More

Live Capabilities: Direct Connection (Limited Release)

Status: Heading into the new year, our team will be reviewing this current connection and look to add more automation to streamline the process.

Alcohol & Spirits

Drizly, Specs, and SevenFifty

Status: Recognizing the growth of the alcohol category online, our teams have been engaged with each of the above retailers to investigate options of a direct connection. Our Connections team is exploring different methods to allow more agility and speed to access great content from their supplier community. Our goal is to have a more defined process for each of the retailers in April 2020. More to come.