July 05 2006

MyRichFX - putting image management tools in customers\\' hands

RichFX, one of the leading providers of "visual merchandising solutions" ('pictures on the web' to you and me) has taken a step to make its tools more accessible to customers and outwith the IT department.

RichFX has announced the availability of MyRichFX - a new authoring and management tool that "compresses the rich media authoring process to a single window", according to Ryan Watts, Director of Product Marketing.

In larger retailers there seems to be two ways of dealing with images: very manual interventions of hand-crafted images (mainly for promotions, but often for "hero" images or to get consistency in a spread) or an 'industrial' conversion process with either catalogues being converted en bloc, image feeds from suppliers being trimmed and tucked or mass macros being run. There is a "gap" therefore where retailer may have niche, new, high profile or visually demanding sites that need more intense and committed management.

The tool, therefore, certainly addresses a gap. A further benefit is that the work can be undertaken outside the IT department, probably by the marketing and merchandising teams.

You'll of course see the risk here where substantial quantities of images may be handled by inexpert visual designers, lacking perhaps the robust workflow, archiving and quality assurance of an experienced production team. Larger companies will be alive to this and will amend processes accordingly. For smaller, possibly more agile (or multiskilled) businesses, or autonomous teams, then these worries won't apply and they'll relish the freedom and new capability.

RichFX's main competitor in the UK is Scene7 and they have a credible number of retail clients. The RichFX client list is also impressive, but mainly US-based at present. RichFX though have recently announced a UK office and so I expect to see some more activity in the UK.

A final area to note, though, is that these image management and manipulation systems really need to have sophisticated rule-based merchandising systems (which then in turn select the 'right' image depending upon the customer profile, location in the site or journey and other parameters like availability, seasonality or promotional weighting). You choice of 'visual merchandising system' will therefore depend to a large extent on your choice of merchandising software.

This is another area to watch and - in conjunction with the more sophisticated site templates and demands in this "web 2.0" age - we're certainly seeing a step change in the tools available as standard to retailers.

Ian Jindal Do you use RichFX? Scene7? other solutions? Let us know your views on their operation in the real world, behind the brochures!