4 ways Fanatics streamlined their e-commerce product content workflows with DAM

E-commerce was already growing fast and is now growing faster than ever — customers spent $861

E-commerce was already growing fast and is now growing faster than ever — customers spent $861.12 billion online with U.S. merchants in 2020 (up 44.0% year over year). Along with that growth comes more digital touchpoints and an increasingly complex omnichannel customer experience. One of the ways that leading brands are stepping up to this challenge is by creating higher quality product content, adding new types of content (e.g. 360º spin photography), and streamlining their production workflows.

Fanatics is a top 50 internet retailer and a leader in selling sports licensed apparel online. They manage three million digital assets for thousands of products from 1080+ vendors. That content enables omnichannel customer experiences across their 300+ online and offline stores. To keep up with their own 30% year-over-year growth in e-commerce sales, Fanatics deployed a digital asset management (DAM) solution to streamline their e-commerce product content workflows.

What does product content have to do with omnichannel experience?

To deliver an omnichannel customer experience, you need your products to be at your customers’ fingertips anytime, anywhere, on any device, and at exactly the right time. And that means your product content has to be produced, stored, and published in a way that makes that possible — which is no small task.

When sports fans (or their loved ones) interact with Fanatics, they expect an easy, consistent brand experience at every moment of interaction with their products. Fanatics manages millions of digital assets for thousands of products across 300 stores. Sound like a lot to wrangle? It is. But it’s possible with the right technology stack.

Fanatics chooses to use a DAM platform as an e-commerce product content engine to help them achieve their content goals. See how a DAM system helps meet their goals.

Four ways that a DAM system helps Fanatics streamline content production

1) E-commerce product content management: Centralised cloud storage and distribution for e-commerce product content syndication – from studio shot to the web experience.

2) Product image automation: Automation is used to capture and create, centralise and curate, and publish and deliver product images.

3) Web experience management: A DAM platform houses and distributes all the product images used across the 300+ Fanatics online shopping portals.

4) Reuse images to save costs and improve speed: Images are reused hundreds of times to save on product-photography costs and work through logistical challenges.

One of the biggest challenges that Fanatics has to overcome is that their sales are constantly based on demand-driven events — like the win or loss of a football game. They need to make sure product images are carefully reviewed, approved, enriched, and published, before the big game finishes.

With their DAM platform to help them centralise storage, automate image creation, manage web experiences, and reuse images, they’re able to publish content right on time and capitalise on swings that come from wins and losses.

Learn more about how Fanatics uses a DAM solution to streamline content production

Fanatics uses the Widen Collective® as their DAM platform in order to streamline their product content production. To learn more about how they achieve their content goals, check out this on-demand webinar.

If you want to build a seamless, personalised shopping experience across any device, app, or location, you’re going to need the right technology, too. At Widen, we help hundreds of influential brands like Laura Mercier, Hootsuite, and New Balance with the software that they use to build their customer experiences. Get in touch to learn more about how DAM software can support your omnichannel digital strategy.

Jake Athey, VP of marketing & customer experience, Widen