PISPA – Plytix Information Sharing Platform and Analytics – Testing product market fit for a disruptive Information sharing platform for brands and resellers

Project Information

PISPA

Grant agreement ID: 744418

DOI

10.3030/744418

Project closed

EC signature date 6 December 2016

Start date 1 January 2017

End date 30 April 2017

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

PLYTIX.COM APS
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PISPA (PISPA – Plytix Information Sharing Platform and Analytics – Testing product market fit for a disruptive Information sharing platform for brands and resellers)

Reporting period: 2017-01-01 to 2017-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Plytix is pursuing the market rollout of a disruptive Information Sharing Platform and Analytics for brands and e-tailers. Plytix aims at meeting present and future e-commerce challenges by centralising all product information in one database where all products are verified, validated and assigned a unique identifier. This is the secret behind Plytix. Our system encrypts each product with one of these unique identifiers. This allows the owner of the product (i.e. the brand) to collect valuable consumer behaviour data from every e-tailer’s site. Our trials with beta clients prove that e-tailers will eliminate up to 80% of the operating cost related to handling product upload. This amounts to more than €100,000 in direct cost savings per year for an average mid-size e-tailer, just by streamlining the process of sharing product information using Plytix. For brands, it is important to protect the reputation and trustworthiness, which fosters a natural interest from the brand to invest in a tool that allows them to monitor the way their products are presented in the market. Importantly, Plytix analytics will be the cornerstone for brand companies in determining the various aspects of product improvement and delivering specific services relevant to customers – thereby yielding higher turnover.
Plytix.com forecasts to achieve cumulated revenues of over 64M€ with an EBITDA of 28M€ within five years after market rollout. The present feasibility study represents a key step towards the implementation of our overall innovation project, the primary goal of which is to reach the market with the Plytix platform and Analytics through full-scale demonstration of the technology’s benefits. Through a detailed market analysis, including contacts with brands and e-tailers, the demand for Plytix was clearly verified. Our study has shown that the above ambition is realistic if a focused route-to-market strategy is followed.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the feasibility study we have:
• We have identified five types of vertical markets with higher potential for Plytix: Home and design; Fashion and apparel; Sporting goods; Consumer Electronics; Health and Beauty
• We have further identified high potential European markets, i.e. Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden, Norway); the Netherlands; Germany; United Kingdom (including Ireland); and high potential non-European markets, as US and Japan;
• We have realized that that there is a high demand for the Plytix solution, but each vertical market has its own needs. For instance, “saving time” seems to be of little relevance for the Consumer Electronics vertical market, while very relevant for all other markets. Accordingly, data intelligence is not a unique selling point for the Home and Design vertical, but highly valuable for each of the four other vertical markets identified.
• Based on interviews, we have further clarified the performance gaps for each of Plytix’s tools, which will be addressed accordingly during Phase 2 implementation.
• We have further secured a total of 25 users for participating on Plytix’s initial demonstrations under the SMEi Phase 2 implementation.
• Further updated and enhanced our business plan based on our findings during the feasibility study.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

"Plytix is doing what Google Analytics or any other web analytics have failed to deliver so far, which is identifying a product and collecting data from every site displaying this product.
The online platform business model continues to lead to the creation of high-value companies. Since the largest online platforms are some of the biggest companies in the world, one could argue that the online platform business model is the most successful part of the Internet economy. 70% of the highest value start-up firms in 2015 (so-called ""unicorn"" companies with valuations of USD 1 billion or more) are online platforms.
Europe is lagging behind other regions of the globe in the platform business. Asia now has the largest number of platforms with 82, followed by North America with 64 (though with value collectively much larger than Asia’s). On the other hand, Europe has generated relatively few platform companies – only 15% of the platforms that collectively they represent a little over 4% by market value.
The economic benefits from Plytix for the end-users will come directly in the form of reduced operating costs related to product handling; and indirectly through improved actionable insights about how products perform across online channels through data analytics. Our initial tests with beta clients have shown that streamlining the process of sharing product information using Plytix can eliminate up to 80% of the operating cost for e-tailers, which amounts to more than €100,000 in direct cost savings per year. Accordingly, brands currently have full-time employees dedicated to distribution of product information throughout their sales network. Thus, for brands, the direct savings should be equal to a full-time employee per every 50 new products a brands launches per year.
The web analytics market is estimated to grow from USD 1.33 billion in 2014 to USD 3.09 billion in 2019, at a CAGR of 18.3% from 2014 to 2019. In terms of regions, North America is expected to be the biggest market in terms of revenue contribution. The commercialization of Plytix analytics will have the following socio-economic impact (Year – Revenue | New jobs at Plytix.com ApS):

2019 – 1 M€ | 3
2020 – 3.9 M€ | 30
2021 – 9.7 M€ | 18
2022 – 15.9 M€ | 35
2023 – 33.8 M€ | 48
"

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