Q&A: Lisette Huyskamp, CMO, Productsup
Lisette Huyskamp is CMO at Productsup and has nearly 20 years of experience leading marketing initiatives at fast-growing software companies such as CleverTap, Optimizely, Qlik, and Hewlett-Packard.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and role at Productsup?
I’ve spent more than 25 years of my career in the tech industry, leading marketing initiatives and international teams at various software companies, including CleverTap, Optimizely, Qlik, and Hewlett-Packard. Primarily overseeing European markets, I’ve established strategic partnerships to support business growth, transformed brand identities to build a stronger industry presence, developed and implemented social media strategies, and generated consistent pipelines for new business opportunities.
Now serving as the Chief Marketing Officer at Productsup, the company empowering commerce, I’m responsible for leading all global marketing functions, driving Productsup’s go-to-market strategies, and supporting overall business growth. Since joining Productsup in early 2021, the marketing department has more than tripled in size.
Who is Productsup?
Having started as a Berlin startup focused on feed management, Productsup has seen tremendous growth in the past decade and is now one of the leading P2C platforms. We work with over 900 global brands, retailers, marketplaces, and service providers – including Fortune 500 companies – to help them improve internal efficiencies, expand market reach, and maximise sales.
Processing more than two trillion products per month, the Productsup P2C platform allows companies to streamline the paths their products take to reach consumers, also known as their product information value chains (PIVC). In doing so, they have more control over their product journey and can maintain a positive, consistent brand presence across any channel, anywhere. Our unique solution allows companies to overcome commerce anarchy and reach their full global potential.
Can you share any customer success stories?
Keller Sports faced similar challenges to most of today’s ecommerce companies. The European online retailer handles more than 130,000 products and was using up a lot of IT and marketing resources to prepare their product data feeds. They were editing feeds manually with no clear presentation of the data, which made it nearly impossible to deliver quality, error-free feeds to Google Merchant Center (GMC) or price comparison partners.
Keller Sports started working with Productsup to finally gain an understanding of what was happening with their product data and has since seen a 31% increase in sales and a 22% increase in website traffic. Its GMC rejection rate is down from the double digits to now just 1%. In addition to a boost in performance, Keller Sports also increased efficiency in how they manage product data by 15%, as well as sped up their time-to-market from days to hours.
With Productsup, Keller Sports has successfully transformed its operations and brand presence in the commerce ecosystem.
André Patrzek, the director of marketing and sales at Keller Sports said, “Despite a financial investment, taking into account our efficiency gains, we have saved on total resources spent. Our sales performance significantly increased. And going forward, rapid expansion into new countries, especially setup and go-live with new partners would not be possible without such a tool.”
We have helped hundreds of major companies, like ALDI, Uber Eats, and EILEEN FISHER, master commerce anarchy, which you can learn more about in the big book of product-to-consumer management.
How would you describe today’s consumer expectations for UK retail?
Productsup recently released The commerce shortfall report, which explores today’s consumer preferences, expectations, and behaviour toward hybrid shopping experiences. Based on a survey of nearly 5,700 global consumers, the report reveals the following gaps in meeting consumer expectations:
- Sustainability information needs to be easier to find. While 67% of shoppers said they’re more likely to purchase products if sustainability information is well-presented, consumers report that it’s difficult to find information on the recyclability (30%) and reusability (34%) of a product.
- Consumers can see through cause washing. It’s not enough to just add a “Fair Trade” or “Biodegradable” label to call yourself sustainable. The leading step to boosting consumer trust in ethical brands and products is providing further explanation of what makes the product organic, free-range, or eco-friendly (43%). On the contrary, initiatives that can be seen as cause washing, like partnering with global non-governmental organisations (26%) and generating positive press about ethical practices (22%), are the least influential ways to build trust.
- Metaverse products and experiences need to have utility in the physical world. While the metaverse is still an ambiguous concept, consumers’ expectations for shopping in the metaverse are already starting to develop. According to 46% of consumers, experiencing life-like features virtually, such as seeing a digital painting in their home using augmented reality glasses, is the leading factor that would entice them to make a purchase in the metaverse. This is closely followed by the ability to place an order in the metaverse for a physical product that is delivered in the real world (44%).
- Consumers want a hybrid shopping experience. Exclusive deals both online (55%) and in-store (54%) are the top factors persuading purchases, showing consumers want to shop in various dimensions. Additionally, these experiences need to be blended – a mobile app that provides more product information while shopping in-store was the third most popular feature to sway purchasing decisions (47%).
What challenges do UK retailers have in meeting these expectations?
In addition to fast-evolving consumer expectations, retailers also have to manage the proliferation of marketing and selling channels and compliance changes. The commerce landscape has become so complex that many retailers are finding it hard to keep up with the pace of change. And relying on multiple systems and outdated approaches to manage product data within the commerce ecosystem has only added to the chaos. As a result, retailers are struggling to deliver consistent product experiences that are rich with detailed, personalised, and accurate product data. This leaves consumers with conflicting prices and descriptions that don’t match products, which puts sales and brand loyalty at risk.
With more control over product information value chains, retailers can turn this complexity into an advantage by adding more detailed sustainability information into their product feeds, preparing for metaverse commerce experiences, and aligning their online and offline retail strategies.
How does Productsup uniquely help companies take advantage of these opportunities?
The commerce technology market is flooded with one-point solutions that only help companies with one piece of the puzzle and don’t have much differentiation. Productsup is the only enterprise platform that can handle large and complex product catalogues. Additionally, other platforms don’t integrate with other commerce systems and create data silos, which prevents companies from delivering a consistent omnichannel presence. Unlike any other solution, Productsup’s P2C platform provides a 360-degree view of all product data, which allows customers to gain an in-depth understanding of their product and campaign performance.
You can learn more about our platform’s capabilities and distinctive features from our CEO Vincent Peters’ interview with The Retail Bulletin earlier this year.
What is on the horizon for you as a company?
Productsup has been one of the few commerce tech companies to see major growth in 2022. We recently announced our Series B funding round for over £55 million. We plan to use these funds to pursue potential M&A opportunities and other product development initiatives.
Our vision is for all commerce businesses to undergo a complete P2C transformation, empowering them to be the disruptors instead of the disrupted. We’re moving toward a world where people want to shop in physical stores, online, or virtually, so it’s time to replace old ways of thinking with a radical approach.
Retailers can take our free assessment to determine where they’re tracking on their P2C journey, or learn more by downloading our P2C Maturity Model whitepaper.
To find our more about Productsup, follow the links below.
