Zmags Enables Retailers and Brands to Build Engagement and Commerce Directly into Digital Catalog and Publication Experiences with the Launch of Verge

New Browsing and Shopping Environment Helps Retailers and Brands Keep up With Rapidly Changing Consumer Expectations across All Digital Channels

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zmags, provider of commerce-enabled digital catalogs and publications, today unveiled Verge, a significant upgrade to the Zmags platform that greatly enhances the consumer shopping experience. Verge ensures an impactful experience that lives up to today’s rising consumer expectations. For retailers and brands, it delivers a consistent experience across all digital channels to maximize engagement and encourage purchases.

“Verge moves the digital merchandising needle from the traditional search-and-purchase model to one that encourages engagement and fosters shopping within the digital publication, and across any social and mobile property.”

“Zmags provides retail and brand marketers the ability to once again create shopping experiences that encourage product discovery,” said Lauren Freedman, president, the e-tailing group. “Verge moves the digital merchandising needle from the traditional search-and-purchase model to one that encourages engagement and fosters shopping within the digital publication, and across any social and mobile property.”

Verge brings more streamlined and redefined revenue-generating features to the Zmags platform, including:

• Enhanced Navigation: Verge maximizes the use of available real estate and simplifies navigation to make it more intuitive. This results in a larger focus on the content being displayed. The upgrade also enhances the swiping experience on all touchscreen devices, with previous and next page “peeking” capabilities, as well as a new intuitive visual Table of Content browsing experience.
• Shop the Look^TM: With Verge, consumers can now shop complete looks, kits or other product groupings defined by the retailer or brand across the Web, Facebook, tablets and smartphones.
• Improved HTML5 functionality: In addition to improving the user experience of the iPad HTML5 version, Verge adds the ability to search and share from within the catalog.

“We are looking forward to the launch of our Online Fall Catalog, which uses the new Zmags Verge viewer and enables customers to search for products by keyword, select a new page destination with one click, and view the full suite of catalog pages below their current page for easier browsing. We feel that this solution will lead to more pages viewed per visit,” said Melissa Richardson, director, e-commerce and online marketing at Serena & Lily. “Additionally, as a business producing several seasonal catalogs, we have found that providing customers with the opportunity to browse our catalog online has led to larger average order sizes and more time spent on our site compared to site only and mobile visitors. Adding digital catalogs in several different formats has provided additional revenue opportunities for our business.”

“The way consumers interact with online content is rapidly changing and, as such, their expectations are constantly rising. The most successful retailers and marketers understand that today’s consumer expects their digital shopping experiences to be slick, easy and intuitive,” explained Scott Bleczinski, president of Zmags. “Working with our customers, we’ve designed Verge to address these changes and embrace consumers’ shifting interactive behavior to put more emphasis on content as the centerpieces of their digital shopping experiences. Verge lends itself well to content of all kinds, particularly content from organizations that need to tell a story, enforce their message and inspire purchases.”

“A growing number of our Little Tikes Commercial clients are shopping on tablets – the one device that provides the same tactical sensation as the print catalog. This allows customers to swipe their way through the digital catalog, and discover our products in a relaxed environment that is customized to their needs,” said Julie Ketcherside, director of marketing, at PlayPower. “By leveraging Verge, we are delivering an experience that enables our customers to conduct searches, see the playground components in different colors and view videos of kids interacting with the playground – all without leaving the catalog experience. In addition, our sales representatives are using the digital catalog to take clients through the buying experience on the iPad.”

“The new browsing experience enables us to merchandise our catalog products in the way we want our online shoppers to view and buy them. We especially love the new preview tool so our shoppers can see what’s coming on the next page,” said Joan Connor, VP, eCommerce for PartyLite North America. “Verge is an incredibly slick and intuitive tool that has completely changed the catalog experience on our site, as well as how our Consultants showcase products at in-home parties.”

Verge is available to all Zmags clients (Professional and CommercePro) at no additional cost. For more information, contact [e-mail].

About Zmags

Zmags unlocks new revenue opportunities for retailers and marketers by delivering fully-branded, commerce-enabled digital catalogs and publications that are consistent across all consumer touchpoints. The Zmags platform provides an immersive digital environment that invites discovery, deepens customer engagement and allows streamlined purchasing directly from the page.

Zmags is among the fastest growing technology companies in North America, having been named to the 2012 Red Herring Top 100 North America Tech Startups and the 2012 Inc 5000, and is ranked #70 on the Deloitte 2011 Technology Fast 500. The company is headquartered in Boston, Mass. with offices in London and Copenhagen. For more information about Zmags, please visit www.zmags.com or follow us on Twitter: @zmags.