hybris Announces B2C Commerce Accelerator for China Market

Singapore – November 21, 2013 – hybris, an SAP company and the world’s fastest-growing commerce platform provider, today announced the coming availability of hybris B2C Commerce Accelerator for China at China SAPPHIRE in Beijing, November 20-21. As businesses move from a single channel, like print catalogs, to multiple channels - including online, mobile, print and call centers, complexity increases. Founded on the hybris Commerce Accelerator, a production-ready omni-channel commerce system that is fully customizable including support for Web, mobile, callcenterand order management, the hybris B2C Commerce Accelerator for China has been specially configured and equipped with functionalities specifically to address Chinese ecommerce needs.

For companies of any size who need to get started quickly, B2C Commerce Accelerator for China offers fully-functional Web storefronts and seamless channel integrations including all the tools that enable organizations to meet the demands of today’s discerning omni-channel shoppers.

Adapted expressly for the Chinese market, it comes with preconfigured page templates that are designed to suit the highly characteristic ‘click’ culture and specific shopping ‘atmosphere’ enjoyed by Chinese consumers, providing big product images, larger merchandising bars and a very visual user experience. In addition, dynamic scrolling functionality creates the very long pages that Chinese e-shoppers have come to expect while store locator functionality, integrated with Baidu Maps, allows site visitors to find their desired store purely through a visual, clickthrough process.

“China has the world's largest online population with over 591 million Internet users1. With more people shopping on the internet, online shoppers are becoming more impatient as they shop and if they cannot easily find what they want, they move on quickly,” explained Burghardt Groeber, Vice President Asia at hybris. “To address the market’s very precise needs, we are launching China’s very own version of our hugely successful hybris B2C Commerce Accelerator.”

One of the key characteristics of the Chinese market is consumers’ distrust in advertising and news sources. Relying more on word-of-mouth from friends, family and key opinion leaders, recommendations from online reviewers and peers on social networks have far greater importance. In fact, McKinsey2 believes that social media has a greater influence on purchasing decisions of consumers in China than anywhere else in the world. To address this, hybris B2C Commerce Accelerator for China comes fully integrated with plug-ins for China’s biggest social networking sites, Weibo and QQ, to allow consumers’ comments and product recommendations to be automatically up-loaded on to the relevant site at the click of a button.

For retailers, omni-channel projects can now start with fully working storefronts in simplified Chinese.With Alipay integration, Chinese customers simply have to enter their Alipay login details and they are ready to complete their transaction and check out.

Future developments for the solution include an integration upload to Tmall, which hosts over 50,000 branded stores, which will enable retailers to tap into the site’s several million daily visitors. By adding products into hybris at the back-end, retailers can not only seamlessly update their own online stores, but the system will automatically upload onto Tmall, with synchronized status and stock levels. In addition, hybris will introduce a Chinese mobile storefront, to truly enable seamless omni-channel commerce across multiple devices.

“Customers want to shop seamlessly across all channels,” continued Burghardt Groeber. “hybris B2C Commerce Accelerator for China will make it easier for retailers to be everywhere that their customers want them to be – especially on their mobile devices. This development will enable retailers to deliver a consistent brand experience across all those channels – anytime and anywhere they connect.”

Other key benefits include:
Superior Customer Experience
• Increase conversion rates and average order value with integrated promotions and crosssellopportunities
• Offer customers convenient ordering with user-friendly, modern checkout in retailers’choice o f single or multi-step checkout

Omni-Channel
• Integrate order management to support cross-channel stock visibility, purchasing, and fulfillment

Fast Implementation
• Reduce time to market by more than half using a best-practice storefront design,
straightforward coding, a good set of sample data, and precise technical documentation

• Simplify implementation and maintenance with clear documentation, as well as how-to and best-practice guidelines

1 ttp://www1.cnnic.cn/AU/MediaC/rdxw/hotnews/201307/t20130722_40723.htm

2 http://www.mckinseychina.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/McKinsey-Chinas-Social-Media-Boom.pdf

ASOS to Launch New E-Commerce Business in China with hybris

Singapore, 17 July, 2013 – hybris, the world’s fastest-growing commerce platform provider ranked “leader” by both principal analyst firms, today announced that ASOS, the UK's largest online-only fashion and beauty store which makes more than 60 percent of its sales outside of the UK, has selected the hybris Commerce Suite to launch its new e-commerce business in China. According to figures from the China Internet Network Information Center and tablets. Providing a true omni-channel experience for those 420 million potential customers, the site will include a fully-integrated, feature-rich mobile version as part of the launch.

With 6.0 million active customers branded and own-label products through  each of  its eight local language websites: UK, USA, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia and Russia. It ships  to 241 countries and territories from  its  1.1 million square foot global distribution centre in the UK.

According to a report from eMarketer released in February 2013 expected to grow 18.3 percent to $1.298 trillion worldwide as Asia-Pacific (APAC) surpasses North America to become the world's No. 1 market for B2C e-commerce.

1, 75 percent of all of China’s internet users are tapping into the web from mobile devices
2, ASOS is a global online fashion and beauty retailer selling over 60,000
3, this year’s B2C e-commerce sales are

“Within the APAC region, China is recognized as being the primary driver of growth and, as such, it’s a market in which we want to be a major player,” said Pete Marsden CIO at ASOS. “However, it is also a market with unique characteristics and requirements. To address these, we needed a proven and robustomni-channel platform that can support our new e-commerce business and the rapid growth and high traffic numbers that we’re expecting due to the size of the Chinese market. We also required one that would allow us to collaborate with local, native-speaking implementation partners who are familiar with the cultural, technical, legal, political and governmental issues in China to help facilitate the development process. hybris, with its fully localized Commerce Suite and established partner ecosystem in the region, was far and above the best fit to meet these requirements.”

“ASOS is one of those visionary retailers that recognizes the potential of the Chinese market,” commented Burghardt Groeber, Vice President Asia at hybris. “Most major U.S. and European retailers have opened traditional brick-and-mortar stores in China, but have realized that opening an e-commerce business is a quicker and more effective approach to reach the growing number of customers in second and third tier cities.  However, this approach also comes with challenges to meet local, cultural and linguistic requirements.”

“There are many complexities involved in China e-commerce implementations, some of which are quite unique to consumers, and many are unknown to retailers outside of local markets,” he continued. “ASOS was willing to take a completely different look at the requirements for penetrating the market and we are delighted to be working with them to make their new venture a success.”

hybris is selected by ASICS for the Infrastructure of The Company's New Global Consumer Websites

hybris chosen for its single platform capable of supporting global operations

Singapore – 17 June 2013 – hybris Japan K.K., the Japanese subsidiary of hybris, the world’s fastest-growing commerce platform provider ranked “leader” by both principal analyst firms, announces today ASICS Corporation (Headquarters: Kobe, Japan; President CEO: Motoi Oyama) has selected hybris Commerce Suite for the infrastructure of the company's new global consumer websites, featuring corporate, branding and e-commerce functions. The solution will empower ASICS’ branding and transactional pages, supporting its omni-channel deployments and B2C commerce with consumers. The company has started designing and integrating the new system in the US in 2013 before it rolls it out to other countries.

In the middle of 2011, ASICS launched an internal project to rebuild the system, by using an omni-channel enabled e-commerce solution. As a result of carefully comparing and verifying several vendor solutions, ASICS selected hybris Commerce Suite in May 2012.

“We are planning to integrate our global e-commerce and websites as part of our ‘ASICS Growth Plan’,” Yuichi Honma, Senior General Manager Global IT Division, ASICS Corporation explained. “hybris’ single platform allows us to scale our solution globally with maximum flexibility in a short period of time with a pricing structure that supports this approach.”

The primary reasons that hybris Commerce Suite was selected include:

 Large installation base among global customers, supremacy supported by 3rd party endorsers, and high evaluation for global business deployment and support provision. hybris has a large installation base across a wide scope of industries and regions. Its innovativeness and supremacy are supported by 3rd party endorsers such as analysts. In addition, its global business deployment and support provision are highly evaluated.

 Platform supporting global operations and enhanced functionalities as well as easy-to-use intuitive tools for end-users and business users.The hybris Commerce Suite has a flexible platform natively supporting customers' global operations, while offering rich features for end-users including various automated calculation capabilities, multi-language interfaces for business users and intuitive tools allowing even for non-technical employees.

 Architecture enabling fast time to market, flexible functional scalability and price structure.

The hybris Commerce Suite offers a consistent solution in a single platform, offering several benefits to the customers, including industry standard Java-based light applications, the architecture allowing quick deployment, the flexible platform and price structure which allow the customers to scale as their businesses grow.

“ASICS is a world-recognized company which needs to be able to quickly react to the changing demands of the market while maintaining its strong brand integrity,” said Masaaki Morita, Country Manager of Japan, hybris. “We are extremely happy to be working with such well-respected name in the industry, supporting its future growth both domestically and globally.”

hybris Announces Partnership with LivePerson to Provide Powerful Digital Engagement Solutions on hybris Extend

Singapore – June 12, 2013 - hybris, the world’s fastest-growing commerce platform provider ranked “leader” by both principal analyst firms, today announced that it will partner with LivePerson, a leading provider of intelligent engagement products, to offer an integrated solution that will enable businesses to optimize the online commerce experience and drive greater ROI to their digital properties. The hybris Commerce Suite can now be fully integrated with LivePerson’s award-winning chat solution, and is now available on the hybris Extend marketplace. The new integration will be essential to e-commerce professionals seeking to differentiate their brands from competitors, enabling them to connect more meaningfully to visitors and delivering a richer, more personalized experience for customers that will drive higher customer satisfaction and greater value to their business.

With LivePerson’s chat solution, merchants are able to increase conversion rates through their online stores and decrease cart abandonment. For example, if a customer is having difficulty locating a particular item, a customer service agent will be alerted and can engage with the customer directly through either live chat or ‘click to call’, offering immediate assistance.

Likewise, customers can engage directly with a customer service agent through a ‘click to chat’ button. To ensure an optimized client engagement, the customer’s page data is dynamically passed through to the agent.

"Building and maintaining a compelling and efficient customer experience requires retailers to be able to respond quickly to customers’ evolving expectations,” explained Patrick Finn, Vice President of Channels, Americas at hybris. “The marriage of these two leading platformsfurther strengthens hybris’ OmniCommerce strategy of speeding time to innovation by providing merchants with a solution that can be installed faster, configured more efficiently and enhanced continuously to meet the needs of customers and the retailer’s business model.”

The LivePerson chat integration on hybris Extend adds significant capabilities for retailers, providing a turn-key implementation for enhanced online customer engagement with consumers connecting with their brand whether it is through PC, smartphone, or tablet.

Integration features include:

 Out-of-the-box use cases—including cart abandonment, site inactivity, and failed search results—to activate the LivePerson chat service
 Easy-to-customize rules and triggers
 Fully functional and documented Javascript codebase

“By partnering with a leading e-commerce platform provider such as hybris, we are able to provide a global base of customers with our best-in-class chat technology,” said John Gray, Head of Global Channels & Business Development at LivePerson. “Through this partnership, we hope to extend and enhance the engagement capabilities of hybris customers, so they can drive higher conversions and deliver a superior customer experience.”

Further information about the hybris integration with LivePerson chat can be found at: http://www.hybris.com/en/partner/hybris-extend/liveperson

hybris Announces Integration with SAP at Sapphire NOW 2013

hybris Commerce Suite integration with SAP now available for customers and partners via the hybris Extend marketplace

Singapore – May 15, 2013 - hybris, the world’s fastest-growing commerce platform provider ranked “leader” by both principal analyst firms, today announced that the hybris Commerce Suite can now be fully integrated with SAP and is available on the hybris Extend marketplace (http://www.hybris.com/en/partners/hybris-extend). The integration offers hybris customers and partners a way to facilitate fast and easy integration with SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). hybris will officially announce the integration at SAP’s Sapphire NOW event in Orlando (hybris booth number: 1633),

Based on hybris’ OmniCommerce strategy, this integration enables retailers and enterprises to provide a single, cohesive customer experience from any sales channel and touchpoint in the purchasing process through hybris’ open architecture. This avoids the "rip and replace" approaches used by many vendors. Instead, companies can leverage the potential of their total system landscape in new ways to provide an enhanced customer experience.

"One of the major challenges manufacturers and distributors face when executing an ecommerce strategy is how to easily and cost-effectively integrate their commerce system with their ERP system,” explained Patrick Finn, Vice President of Channels, Americas at hybris.

“With more than 100 customers globally already incorporating hybris' state-of-the art commerce platform with SAP, there is a proven model for this integration. However, the new framework is a great asset to our customers and channel partners as the integration process will now be faster, easier and cheaper. In addition, organizations can avoid expensive consulting, process and systems integration management time, and experience a more streamlined and effective process.”

Other benefits for both hybris customers and partners include:

 Reducing SAP integration development, saving time and money on hybris implementations
 Providing synchronization of catalog and transactional data between SAP ERP and hybris Commerce Suite
 Speeding up page load times through distributed data caching
 Calculating freight and tax based from SAP data, not costly 3rd party services
 Supporting real-time SAP inventory checks for low-inventory items
 Allowing for credit card token sharing between hybris and SAP, enabling payment captures in ERP

One of the joint hybris SAP customers is Phonak AG, Switzerland www.phonak.com, a global leader in the development of hearing solutions.

“We are pleased that hybris is building out its ISV partner integrations in its Extend marketplace,” commented Ole Vogt, Senior Product Manager Interactive Marketing at Phonak. “A formalized integration framework with SAP is a great step forward and very important to us and other hybris customers. We believe this will help reduce overall implementation risk and significantly accelerate implementation time.” Other hybris customers using SAP include Nespresso, W.W. Grainger, Inc. and Levi’s.

hybris Delivers Integration with Adobe Marketing Cloud available through hybris Extend

Combined solution leverages Adobe Analytics for powerful, real-time digital analytics across online and offline channels to enable enhanced data-driven decision-making

Singapore – 24 April, 2013 - hybris, the world’s fastest-growing commerce platform provider ranked “leader” by both principal analyst firms, today announced that Adobe® Analytics, a key component of Adobe Marketing Cloud, has been integrated with hybris Commerce Suite to enhance digital marketing including measurement, segmentation, targeting and optimization.

The integration module, developed jointly by Adobe and hybris, gives organizations a unique combination of real-time analytics across online (including Web, mobile, social and video) and offline marketing channels. The solution enables a multi-dimensional view of customers that makes it possible for organizations to fine tune and better personalize every interaction. The integration module will be available in the hybris Extend marketplace.

Predictive analytics and data modelling enables businesses to deliver the right message to the right customer, through the right channel, at the right time. This integration leverages high-performance, real-time analytics to attribute sales, leads or other business growth indicators to specific marketing efforts. Businesses can determine the most appropriate marketing programs to drive business growth objectives and optimize decision-making for marketing resource allocation across channels.

“Through our integration with Adobe Marketing Cloud, businesses are able to map the entire customer journey for the first time, identifying the most influential moments across all touch points,” explained Patrick Finn, Vice President of Channels, Americas, hybris. “Leveraging the strengths of our respective technologies, we are able to connect online and offline marketing analysis to give businesses truly data-driven decision making capabilities.”

“Today’s consumers leverage a variety of sources to access information about products and services and often switch channels within a single transaction, leaving fragmented waves of digital data in their wake,” said Bill Ingram, Vice President of Adobe Social and Adobe

Analytics, Adobe Systems. “Integrating our analytics solution with hybris’ omni-channel commerce platform enhances our ability to bring all that data together to gain a complete picture of how consumers are interacting with our customers’ brands.”

hybris technology already integrates with Adobe Experience Manager, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud, to provide marketers and retailers capabilities for managing and optimizing the entire buying process across online channels. This new integration with Adobe Analytics helps businesses:

Rapidly analyze large volumes of evolving ‘big data’ from multiple channels and data sources in real-time.

Identify the most profitable paths through digital assets, determining where visitors are navigating away and the critical success metrics for online campaigns.

Track and measure owned social media to understand the impact and effectiveness of social campaigns.

Accurately identify mobile visitors and their device capabilities to deliver personalized experiences.

Achieve a comprehensive multi-dimensional view of digital visitors to undertake concise segmentation and deliver highly personalized interactions.

Use predictive models to enhance brand engagement and increase conversion outcomes.

Cycle Gear uses the hybris omni-channel platform in combination with Adobe Analytics to efficiently generate more intelligent and accurate insights in order to continuously improve the performance of its online and offline marketing programs. As a result, it has a better understanding of the buying patterns and behaviours of its customers, and now possesses the know-how to cater to them one-to-one, making the experience more personalized, meaningful and profitable.

“It is no longer enough for marketers to simply surmise what the business impact of their marketing efforts is,” concluded Paul do Forno, Senior Vice President Global Lead of Commerce, Razorfish, one of hybris’ Gold partners and Gold sponsor of the Adobe EMEA Summit in London, 24-25 April. “The only way to effectively optimize your marketing efforts is to analyze and report on those efforts in order to make the right data-driven decisions. The integration of Adobe Analytics with hybris is an enormously powerful solution for marketing organizations to ensure that campaigns are driving revenue and optimizing ad spend across channels.”