Digital Shopping innovations with Fluid and GlobalLogic

by John Casaretto

The day and age of rich experience digital shopping is upon us.  It's a game that has been changing since e-commerce began and shows no signs of stopping or slowing down.  Two companies at the forefront of this quiet revolution are GlobalLogic and Fluid, Inc.  In an announcement made this week, they reveal the latest product of their almost five year relationship.  With a high degree of collaboration and attention to product development throughout this time, their latest announcement of three new product offerings marks a further point of innovation in the never-ending evolution.

On a recent conference call with Michael DeVries, CMO of GlobalLogic and Kent Deverell, CEO of Fluid, the energy of innovation was present throughout the preview.  GlobalLogic is in the business of product and services innovation. To design truly innovative solutions, GlobalLogic approaches software development from the end-user perspective. Fluid Inc. is an award-winning  full-service agency that is focused on the delivery of high-impact digital shopping experiences and for renowned clients such as Sears, NorthFace, Reebok, Vans, and the list goes on and on.  Their innovations in shopping experiences are encountered by countless numbers of users on a worldwide daily basis. The Fluid Retail platform, developed in conjunction with GlobalLogic, enriches shopping experience , with features such as dynamic imaging, product configuration and customization, and social commerce solutions to help retailers deliver life-like shopping experiences online.

"Working collaboratively with the in-house Fluid team, GlobalLogic expanded the company's product offering to deliver new digital shopping experiences that replicate real-life shopping. To date, GlobalLogic has helped develop three products: Fluid Experience, Fluid Configure and Fluid Social.

• Fluid Experience: Using object-oriented Java development, GlobalLogic created extensive dynamic imaging views of online retail products. As a result, digital shoppers can operate four types of zoom, rotate products 360 degrees, change product colors, and interact with products as they would in an in-person retail setting.
  
  
• Fluid Configure: To compete effectively, Fluid's customers needed the ability to offer fully-customizable products via their e-commerce sites. GlobalLogic utilized the NVIDIA Reality Server 3D modeling platform to deliver a solution that provides extensive customization options and instantly updated, photo-real examples of the products shoppers design. The solution is currently in use by Reebok and Vans.
  
  
• Fluid Social: To make the digital shopping experience more social, GlobalLogic collaborated with Fluid to develop Fluid Socialize, a social commerce platform that includes Fan Shop and Chat. Fan Shop is an easily-updated storefront that allows a brand's Facebook fans to shop a selection of items. Chat allows digital shoppers to share opinions with friends at the point of decision. Both tools allow retailers to recreate the social aspects of in-person shopping, thereby helping to increase brand visibility and drive transactions."
  
  

For one, this consumer-centric approach is focused on changing the shopping interaction and experience, better replicating the social experiences that accompany in-store shopping.

Take a Facebook user for example.  As a consumer visits the vendor's fan page, they become exposed to sale announcements, where they can then browse, select a product, share with their friends for feedback and finally even purchase the item, all within the Facebook page.  Another example:

" perhaps you are on the Reebok website. You design your own custom shoe and then Tweet a 360 degrees photo-real view of your design. Your tweeps love it. You buy it."

While such an innovation may be seemingly rare, some retailers have seen a 117% increase in conversion rates by implementing Fluid Social.  The secret sauce to this all is a driven legion of high caliber developers and technology talent and delivery on the visions the companies have embarked on.  On the subject of the caliber of development talent, Kent states:

"Skills will get you to where you need to go….But great people with great skills on a mission can take you to where you didn't even know you needed to go."

With devices and platforms that continue to evolve, the challenge to stay on top of and ahead of the curve presents an endless potential for opportunities and inroads into deeper, more available customer experiences.  Development on tablets, smartphones, and across social platforms is ongoing.

Xbox360's revolutionary Kinect device has presented another potential sales and marketing vector as well as touch solutions and other technologies.  The day will soon be upon us where such a device can aid in the personal customization of clothing – imagine standing in front of the Kinect and having a suit custom tailored to your proportions, imagine having that suit projected onto your image onto the video screen, then sharing it across social sites, and finally waving to a virtual wallet and buying the item.  The potential for such innovation is endless, and with vision that Fluid and GlobalLogic have in this space, it is a certainty that they will be there every step of the way.