IFA 2022: The 4 Pain Points of Global Product Launches

With summer vacation season in full swing, it can be easy (or tempting) to forget that once August eases into September, the year starts racing towards peak season with increasing speed. The (rumoured) second Prime Day, Black Friday, and the holidays are all rapidly approaching just over the horizon, but the herald of peak sales is already upon us.

IFA Berlin, one of Europe’s biggest tradeshows, returns on September 2nd and promises to be the launchpad for thousands of new tech products to market. Manufacturers and brands will once again pull out all the stops to generate excitement for their latest designs. Still, without a solid product launch strategy to ensure those products are listed with retailers, all of that valuable buzz could be wasted.

Getting a launch right can be painful… but it is also crucial to the success of your product. Here are four common pain points you need to navigate to enjoy a smooth product launch.

1. Multi-country Launches
The barriers preventing brands from selling internationally have declined over the years, but complexity and headaches remain. Any central team operating across multiple regions will have to maintain an overview of differing launch dates and any inconsistencies in lead times. Without clear visibility, launch packages may arrive too late to hit key dates in certain regions. We have seen many examples of product launches in specific countries having to be delayed by up to several weeks just from this issue alone.

2. Varying Needs
Even with the rise of global platforms such as Amazon, there will always be differing set-up requirements for your top retail partners in every region. These can range from unique formatting and submission processes to limits on what you can and can’t say about your products on the store page. As you add different regions and partners, the less viable it is to have a “one-size-fits-all” approach to your launch packages, and more time-consuming customisation is required.

3. Localisation of Content
Of course, it’s not just the retail platforms that require customisation. Translation and cultural considerations will always be a sizeable undertaking when creating launch packages. If you plan to create content in a centralised way, any global master assets must be completed and approved before this process can even begin. These global assets may also be subject to further changes if they prove unsuitable for localisation.
Recent trends in product content have made this process potentially even more costly. Attractive graphics featuring embedded text and data elements have proven to be great conversion drivers but require additional design complexity during translation.

4. Deployment of Content
The final hurdle can also be the most dangerous. Even after successfully guiding your product launch this far, ensuring your content appears on the store pages is no small task. If the varied requirements to set up your SKUs weren’t enough, retail partner guidelines on product content will guarantee that a further round of customisation is required before you can submit a finalised package. Images will have to be edited and resized, copy will have to be re-written, and rejections monitored and resolved before you can feel secure that your product will be present and correct on launch day.

Managing these headaches requires experience, above all else. Recognising issues before they hit and reacting quickly is often the only thing that will keep your product launch on track.

At Digishare, we have decades of online retail experience, and we help our partners overcome these issues every day. With Digishare 3.0, we’ve even built a system specifically to help integrate many aspects of your product launch in a single place, allowing you to publish thousands of products while also handcrafting your key launches to achieve maximum conversion.

If you’d like to know more about how Digishare can help you eliminate product launch headaches, please email us at info@digishare.eu.