SKUvantage
 | |
| Industry | Product Photography and Content |
|---|---|
| Founded | Sydney, Australia, (June 1, 2012) |
| Founder | Daniel Roberts, Joshua Gavin |
| Headquarters | Sydney, Australia |
| Products | Product Content Services |
| Brands | SKUvantage, SKUlibrary |
| Website |
skuvantage |
SKUvantage is an ecommerce product content service and technology company, based in Sydney, Australia, providing product photography and other product content related services and technology solutions.
History
SKUvantage was founded in 2012 by Daniel Roberts and Joshua Gavin. During their experience of launching ecommerce projects for Woolworths Australia, Woolworths UK and Tesco,[1] the founders realised that product photography and product content was a major challenge for retailers.[2] They developed SKUvantage to provide a service with associated technology for retailers to minimise the effort and cost of delivering product content for their ecommerce platforms.
In June 2012 the business secured funding from a number of investors, The Foundry, an Australian Private Equity company.[3] SKUvantage commenced formal operation in September of that year.
Services
Product content is the information presented by retailers and their vendors about their products to enable consumers to make an informed purchase choice. This information includes images, data, descriptions, video and other forms of digital content. Product content is different to long form product content, in that it is specific to products. Studies show that retailers are increasingly investing in both forms of product content[4] to drive conversion rate. SKUvantage is recognised within Australia[5] as providing value add services particularly in the grocery / FMCG sector for help suppliers display better product content to consumers.[6]
SKUvantage provides a number of services under the "SKU" prefix to support retailers and brands in this area. SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit in a retail context. These services include:
- SKUvantage - A suite of content capture services including product photography and product data
- SKUcopy - A product description writing service
- SKUlibrary - A product content syndication platform
- SKUcapture - A product content portal to manage the acquisition of product content from suppliers, used by Coles, Kmart and others
- SKUtate - A 360 product rotation service
SKUvantage clients include Coles, Spotlight, Michael Hill, Myer and other Australian retailers. It also manages content for a variety of FMCG brands via the SKUlibrary platform for distribution into retailers.[7] SKUvantage is recognised as a leader in providing full product content, which includes product photography, nutritional information and marketing copy, for grocery products within Australia.[8]
Operations
The SKUvantage platform of SKUlibrary is built on the hybris ecommerce platform, owned by SAP.[9] A customisation of this platform has enabled SKUvantage to pioneer a flexible way of publishing product photography and other product content into consumers of content such as retailers and brand web sites.
The SKUlibrary platform, is used extensively within the grocery/ FMCG sectors in Australia to deliver product content to retailers and end consumers.[10] A partnership with the Drinks Association of Australia, has resulted in dedicated version of the platform for the drinks industry.[11]
After starting in a lock up garage in Sydney, Australia, SKUvantage invested in a 500m2 studio for product photography in Brookvale, Sydney in June 2013, where it employs a team of photographers and data analysts.[12]
SKUvantage services clients only in Australia, but various organisations use the SKUlibrary platform to access content globally.
References
- ↑ "Customers snaffle Woolies app". Australian Financial Review. 26 Aug 2011.
- ↑ "Authority of information". RetailBiz. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
- ↑ "Foundry makes two start-up investments". Startupsmart. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
- ↑ "Leading the Content Revolution". Edge. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
- ↑ "Industry News". Efficient Consumer Response Australia: Email Journal. June 2014.
- ↑ "Products Need to Look as Good Online as Offline to Win in Digital Channels". Retail World (November 2013): 56–58. November 2013.
- ↑ "Making FMCG products look good online". AFGC. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
- ↑ "Don’t overlook your online image". Food & Drink Business. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
- ↑ "SAP buys Hybris". Forbes.
- ↑ "An innovative new alternative for distributing images & product content for online & print". Retail World (June 2014): 61–62. June 2014.
- ↑ "New Drinks Library". Drinks Weekly: 10. 2014-08-22.
- ↑ "About SKUvantage". SKUvantage. Retrieved 1 June 2012.