Adobe debuts new omnichannel capabilities for retailers

Dive Brief:

Adobe Systems announced this week at the NRF Big Show a batch of new capabilities to help merchants enhance their omnichannel strategies and further personalize the retail experience to make the consumer purchasing process easier and more intuitive.
Adobe announced a Fluid Experiences for Retail capability through its Adobe Experience Manager that allows retailers to develop and manage omnichannel experiences across any touchpoint, including in-store associate apps, social channels, physical signage, Internet of Things (IoT) devices and smart screens.
Adobe also launched a new automated-personalization and recommendations engine that enables retailers to more effectively leverage shopping and behavioral information, some of which customers may opt in to share with a retailer. In addition, Adobe said it is integrating its Adobe Campaign and Adobe Dreamweaver to let e-mail designers to create emails in Dreamweaver that automatically sync with Campaign, and allow more personalized, contextual e-mails to be sent more quickly.

Dive Insight:

Adobe is practicing what it has been preaching — or at least what it has been predicting. It said late last year that the holiday shopping stretch of 2016 was expected to be the first time ever that mobile devices would surpass desktop PCs as the device of choice for online shopping visits this holiday season, though by a fairly narrow margin of 53% to 47%.

That's just one data point that suggests it could be time for retailers to embrace omnichannel approaches, but the industry actually has been talking about this migration for quite a while, and other surveys have suggested retailers aren't turning their talk into action quickly enough. Perhaps one of the things that has kept it from being fully realized is a lack of practical solutions to help retailers integrate content, marketing promotions and personalization capabilities across a wide variety of touchpoints and devices. Adobe is looking to do that here.

But the integration capabilities are just one aspect of how Adobe is looking to support retailers' omnichannel ambitions. The company also announced at NRF Adobe that its had partnered with three other companies — Memory Mirror creator Memomi, cloud commerce platform developer commercetools, and digital marketing agency Valtech — and integrating their offerings with its own retail suites to further enhance digital and in-store omnichannel strategies and shopping experiences.

Will a comprehensive platform and an abundance of third-party partner support be enough to get the omnichannel movement over the hump? Post-holiday shopping surveys already are suggesting omnichannel capabilities had a positive impact this holiday season, so maybe talk is in fact turning into action.