Our story of one-to-one personalization

SphereMall is a young, dynamic international technology company, with its origins in The Netherlands. We develop software and applications to give everyone access to the most personalized, convenient and effective shopping experience in the world. With offices in The Netherlands, Ukraine and the United States of America together with over 55 team members, we work as an international innovative family to improve life of consumers worldwide.

Our story

It began with a great idea of Christian van Someren, CEO of SphereMall: "E-commerce has a fundamental problem: it's not about the customer anymore. Online assortments have grown to gigantic proportions in the last several years. These huge assortments lead to poor findability which is the key driver for digital shopping happiness. Poor findability causes a time-consuming, inconvenient and irrelevant shopping experience for consumers. Consumers, therefore, are getting disappointed and exit shops which results in lower conversion rates and lower revenues.". SphereMall was founded in 2014 by Christian and three employees of his previous company, online supermarket Truus.nl. 

Our name

The name SphereMall is a contraction of the words 'Sphere' as in a globe and 'Mall' like a shopping center. It’s our dream to give every consumer his own personal digital shopping "sphere mall', where all relevant brands and products are displayed together in a spherical mall that wraps itself around the consumer.

DISCOVER PERSONALIZATION AT ITS FINEST. 

Huge assortments can leave consumers feeling overwhelmed. Consumers get disappointed and exit shops without finding what they love. It's our purpose that consumers don't have to search or click endlessly before they see the product they like to purchase. If every individual consumer has their own personalized, dynamic user interface that protects them from irrelevant products and only communicates relevant product assortments in the right personal context and moment in time, life would be much more convenient. Not only for consumers but for retailers and manufacturers too by adding value to companies. We aim to improve life for consumers, deliver this ultimate win-win situation and evolve e-commerce to the second and third wave of the Internet of Things. 

SEE HOW IT ALL BEGAN WITH... CHOCOLATE.

Most web shops are systems based on hierarchy. However, customers don’t think in such hierarchy. That’s why they often end up with a lot of dead ends and irrelevant product assortments which are frustrating them.

We make sure customers leave with something they love. How do we do that?
We take time to really understand your business, products, and data first. We break up your outdated hierarchy, turn each data point into what we identify as´entities´. This process is vital for creating great personalized product assortments later on. Technically, we prepare a network of entities that can connect with consumer's personal needs and preferences.

The result is displayed in an individual, dynamic user interface that communicates only relevant personalized product assortment in the right context and moment in time through different applications, touchpoints, marketing and publication channels. Customers get access to perfect curated content, no matter where they are and find exactly what makes them the most happy.

TAKE A QUICK TECHNOLOGICAL TOUR RIGHT HERE.

SphereMall Services

We deliver strategy, software, applications, and support which results in the most convenient, effective and personalized shopping experience for your customers. Our services comprehend our expertise from strategy to operation, our full technological platform, tools, dashboarding, reports and continuous optimization of performance and business objectives. Our approach is standardized while our result is highly customized to your situation. All our initiatives and activities are based on joint set smart business objectives we periodically evaluate focused with the end goal in mind. We think BIG, start small, SCALE FAST. 

IN A HURRY? CHECK THIS 1-MINUTE ANIMATION.

Our 3-step support model

Our 3-phase model leads the way towards personalization. This model is focused on adding value to your business. It's proven successful in guiding various fields of businesses in both B2B and B2C towards personalization. Every phase is described in a detailed roadmap, consisting of smaller sprints. In short, our primary goal is to deploy you a Minimum Viable Product within 4 to 6 weeks. From there we continue building the ultimate product bit by bit, always keeping your end goal in mind.

Step 1 - Strategize first

• We kick-off with the project team.
• We introduce you to agile working and process optimization.
• Together we point out a clear vision of your future business.
• We analyze your business to clarify what’s going on, where is the gap and what has to be modified.
• Together we clarify what's keeping you from winning and determine all necessary business objectives together with you.

Step 2 - Build a data foundation

• We build you an excellent and flexible data foundation.
• Daily check-ins with the project team take off.
• We share concepts of design with demo's including click models and static data to see what your personalized platform would be like.
• We gather all needed data from your business and normalize it.
• We enrich your data with relevant specifications like product information, pricing, text, images, illustrations and also personal profiles.
• We customize the right data and analytics foundation for your business.

Step 3 - Deliver personalized applications

• We build your solution. We set-up the connection with our intelligence, technology, and data management system.
• We set-up your content management system, user interface, publication channels and marketing automation.
• We demonstrate your new applications with live data.
• When all lights are green, we deploy your new platform to live.

The state of personalized commerce

All necessary preparations are now completed, your business is ready to reach the state of personalized commerce. This is the phase where our partnership continues with developing new functionalities bit by bit. We continuously iterate, optimize and add more functionalities that scale up your product to meet your long-term objectives. And we keep you up to date on personalization too.

We operate based on a fixed monthly fee only including an all-in-one service package. Here is why you'll love it too:

• All costs are included: advisory, business analytics, concept & design, development & license fee, hosting management and service. Optional additional costs are hosting & Escrow cost. 
• We don't waste time with discussions about hours and prices. Instead, we discuss what matters most: your business development and how to add value to it.
• It enables us to be pro-active, take ownership, be accountable and to deliver you the speed needed to win.
• This results in less delay because we stay focused on working towards your long-term goals to deliver the end vision we agreed on in business objectives. 
• It offers clear insights into your investment from the start.

We believe online shopping should be all about the customer, including all operations. Therefore we've developed our own view on consumer data to ensure privacy and safe use of personal data:

• Transparent
  We will make sure that all data it collects is easily accessible for each individual consumer.
• Consumer in control
  When using our software suite the consumer can add, delete and alter profile data in its own secure data vault.
• Super smart but not evil
  Our smart technologies sole purpose is to support the shopper and show more relevant content in the right context. It will not be sold to 3rd parties.
• Protect consumer rights
  We believe that consumers have basic rights that should be protected at all times. These rights include:
  the right to be forgotten, the right to understand why data is gathered for what purpose, the right to deny data gathering or usage.
• Compliance
  We will make sure to be compliant with privacy legislation in all countries our software is active in.
• Cultivate proper data ecosystems
  We will pro-actively promote consumer-friendly centered data gathering with all companies it will partner with.

Golden Dutch Interactive Award

Every year, DIA awards prizes for the very best interactive online work of the Netherlands. We won a golden DIA in 2017 for our personalized omnichannel bicycle platform, "De Fietser", developed on behalf of Accell Netherlands part of Accell Group. 

The winning case
Accell Netherlands, manufacturer of Batavus, Sparta, and Koga, launched a new brand in 2016 so they can communicate to consumers through SphereMalls brand overarching digital platform including an Experience Center. The main goal is to buy and maintain a new bike in a simpler, more enjoyable and more personal way. The jury agreed on De Fietser to be an omnichannel case with beautiful brand elements and clear e-commerce goals. They praised the good cooperation between Accells' Experience Center and its local dealers.

Read all details right here.