Running an online store goes far beyond simply selling products. It’s a complex process that involves precise product categorization, efficient management of all your product data, ensuring consistency of information across all sales channels, and providing customers accurate product data with comprehensive descriptions that support their purchasing decisions. PIM systems provide comprehensive product information that enhances the capabilities of sales teams. Additionally, managing media files within PIM systems is crucial for enhancing product descriptions and providing a comprehensive digital experience. Access to detailed product specifications improves customer service and reduces returns due to misinformation. As the product catalog grows, these tasks become increasingly complex and time-consuming. This is where Product Information Management (PIM) systems come into play, offering a centralized approach to handling all aspects of your product data.
In today’s blog, we’ll explore the seven key reasons why implementing a PIM solution should be a priority for your eCommerce business, using Pimcore - a leading open-source PIM platform as our primary example to illustrate these benefits in action.
What is PIM, and how does it work?
Product Information Management (PIM) is specialized software that centralizes all technical and marketing information about a company's products and catalogs. It enables businesses to efficiently manage details, descriptions, specifications, and other content necessary for marketing and selling products across various distribution channels. Product information management system emerged as dedicated solutions when complex eCommerce needs outgrew the capabilities of traditional, monolith ERP systems.
PIM systems cut through the complexity of product data, giving businesses more control and efficiency in managing their expanding product information. They improve data accuracy for better operational efficiency and enhance communication with suppliers. Additionally, PIM systems eliminate disparate data by providing a unified source of truth, reducing reliance on multiple datasets and spreadsheets. They support the eCommerce ecosystem by centralizing data, ensuring consistency across sales channels, and enabling easier international expansion through multi-language and regional options.
One of the leading PIM solutions is Pimcore, a comprehensive open-source platform that combines Product Information Management (PIM), Content Management System (CMS), Digital Asset Management (DAM), and more in one solution. Implemented by over 110,000 businesses, including Audi, LEGO, and IKEA, it creates a “single source of truth” for product information, descriptions, prices, language versions, and attributes that ensure consistency across all channels. PIM systems also reduce the need for manual data entry, streamlining operations and minimizing errors.
Why does PIM matter in eCommerce?
Many factors in the modern eCommerce industry make PIM an irreplaceable solution - from the growing complexity of product data to the increasing importance of delivering consistent and personalized customer experience across multiple channels. Let’s explore the most significant ones.
Increasing number of sales channels
Today’s retailers operate across multiple platforms: websites, marketplaces, mobile apps, social commerce, and physical stores. PIM systems facilitate the distribution of product data across different sales channels seamlessly. They efficiently distribute product data across multiple sales channels, streamlining operations and ensuring consistent and accurate product information is available on all platforms. PIM serves as a single source of truth (SSOT), centralizing all product information and enabling consistent distribution across these diverse channels without duplicating effort.
Need for consistent and rich product data
Modern consumers demand detailed, accurate product information before making purchase decisions. PIM ensures that product descriptions, specifications, images, and other assets are consistent, up-to-date, and enriched with the right attributes to drive conversions and reduce returns.
Managing large numbers of variants and languages
As businesses expand internationally, they face the challenge of managing products with multiple variants, in various languages, and for different markets. PIM systems support the entire product lifecycle management by ensuring accurate and complete product information. Technical specifications are crucial in managing product information across various markets, ensuring consistency and reliability. PIM systems can be integrated with translation tools to store and distribute product information in customers’ native languages, matching cultural preferences that influence purchasing decisions.
Role of PIM in omnichannel strategy
PIM is a foundation of successful omnichannel commerce, creating seamless customer experiences across all channels. By centralizing product data, businesses can maintain data consistency across all channels, ensuring accurate and up-to-date information. This consistency is crucial for providing a consistent customer experience, which is essential in omnichannel commerce.
7 reasons why your eCommerce platform requires PIM (such as Pimcore)
A solid PIM system like Pimcore can transform product data management processes and deliver valuable information to customers. Here's why implementing a PIM solution should be a priority for your eCommerce business:
1. Product data centralization
First of all, Product information management (PIM) creates a single source of truth (SSOT) for all your product information. That means you can eliminate the inconsistencies that come with having multiple systems-and the duplicated effort that goes along with them.
2. Faster time-to-market
That unified system simplifies product management and ensures all your sales channels get the same, up-to-date information. By streamlining workflows, you can launch new products in just a few days. That cuts weeks off your time-to-market. Automation frees your team from repetitive tasks so they can focus on what really matters: writing compelling product descriptions and other value-added activities.
3. Better data quality and consistency
Standardized data formats in PIM systems reduce errors while improving product findability both internally and for customers on your site. PIM systems also help identify and rectify incorrect data, which is crucial for enhancing customer experiences. Your SEO performance sees natural improvement through consistent and complete product information that search engines can easily index and understand. Additionally, meeting the strict requirements of various marketplaces becomes trouble-free as your data is already structured according to best practices.
4. Scalability and multi-channel support
What’s more, PIM lets you distribute information to marketplaces, mobile apps, and POS systems and even print catalogs from one management interface. PIM systems also maintain data consistency across all sales channels, ensuring that information remains accurate and up-to-date. As the product catalog grows, the system doesn’t slow down, handling thousands of SKUs with complex attribute relationships. This single source of truth means customers get the same high-quality information no matter which channel they interact with your brand.
5. Multi-language and multi-currency
Expanding internationally gets easier when product information can be managed in multiple languages without creating duplicate workflows. PIM allows businesses to customize product data for specific markets and cultural preferences while maintaining one master record. Accurate product details are crucial in enhancing customer satisfaction, as they enable customer service teams to respond more effectively to inquiries and reduce product returns. The team can centrally manage localised content, including translations, pricing in different currencies, and region-specific product attributes.
6. Enhanced customer shopping experience
Customers make better decisions when they have all the product information, that directly impacts conversion rates and satisfaction. PIM systems provide high quality data, enabling better customer decisions and enhancing the overall shopping experience. PIM systems also enable customer service teams to provide better responses to inquiries by giving them access to accurate product information. PIM enables filtering and searching based on consistent attributes so customers can find what they are looking for with minimal effort. The better information quality means fewer product returns as customers get what they expected based on the product descriptions.
7. Integration with existing eCommerce stack
Some PIM solutions, including Pimcore, offer seamless integrations with major eCommerce platforms like Sylius, Magento, Shopify, and custom solutions through its extensive API infrastructure. Its open-source architecture and Symfony foundation make it especially good with Sylius, so you get PIM and eCommerce in one. Pimcore's connector system is flexible so no matter what technology stack is currently in use, store owners can implement it without disrupting the business.
PIM systems also integrate effectively with customer relationship management (CRM) systems, enhancing the management of customer data and relationships. However, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, while essential for handling business transactions and storing product data, are not optimal for maintaining enriched product information. Traditional systems simply can’t match PIM’s efficiency in handling large product catalogs. When expanding into new markets, instead of manually translating and adapting product information for each region, teams can efficiently manage bulk updates across their entire product catalog. The PIM system transforms scattered, chaotic data governance into a streamlined, organized process that positively impacts productivity throughout the company and creates a better shopping experience for customers.
Why choose Pimcore as a PIM?
Pimcore is an excellent choice as a Product Information Management (PIM) system for several key reasons. Here are the ones that matter most in the eCommerce sphere.
Open-source and flexibility
As an open-source platform, Pimcore gives businesses full access to its source code, allowing for extensive customization and easy integrations. Selecting the right PIM software is crucial for customization and integration, and Pimcore's open architecture enables companies to tailor the system to their unique needs, develop custom features, and integrate seamlessly with existing systems - without the risk of vendor lock-in. On top of that, users benefit from frequent community-driven updates and continuous innovation.
Integrated PIM, MDM, DAM, CMS, and CDP functions
As mentioned before, Pimcore offers not only PIM functionality but also Master Data Management (MDM), Digital Asset Management (DAM), Content Management System (CMS), and Customer Data Platform (CDP) capabilities in a single solution. Pimcore manages all the data related to products and digital assets. It organizes all this data to enhance operational efficiency and maintain a single source of truth. This integration provides a consistent source of truth for all product information.
Built on Symfony
Pimcore's technological foundation, based on the Symfony framework, ensures stability, performance, and easy integration with other systems, which helps boost operational efficiency. This makes the platform not only flexible in configuration but also scalable as your business grows. What’s more, Symfony framework provides security by multiple authentication methods, access control, modern password hashing API, and protection against common vulnerabilities like SQL injection.
Case study: ArtNight
ArtNight is a German company dedicated to providing creative entertainment experiences. The company’s original business model focused on hosting in-person artistic events where participants could create their own artwork under professional guidance in local venues.
When the global pandemic restricted gatherings possibilities, ecommerce managers at ArtNight decided to shift to an online business model. This transition required developing a robust digital platform to deliver their creative experiences virtually while maintaining the interactive elements that defined their brand.
The technical solution was an eCommerce ecosystem with Sylius as the backend, Vue Storefront as the frontend, and Pimcore for product information management. This setup created a fast, scalable application with excellent product data management.
<div class="rtb-text-box is-blue-50">Full case study available here</div>
Case study: Planeta Huerto
Based in Alicante, Planeta Huerto has become Spain’s largest online retailer of ecological, organic, healthy, and sustainable products. By providing accurate product details, they have enhanced customer satisfaction and maintained their leadership position across Spain and Portugal. Ensuring a consistent customer experience across various marketing channels has also been crucial in maintaining their market leadership. They’ve built their eCommerce niche on a decade of steady growth.
Replacing their legacy eCommerce system with a modern Sylius-based solution was the goal of this project. That involved implementing Pimcore to handle product information more efficiently. We chose a technology stack consisting of Sylius and Pimcore because it would let Planeta Huerto manage product descriptions and translations in multiple languages, as well as all the digital assets that come with that.
<div class="rtb-text-box is-blue-50">Full case study available here</div>
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Summary
Product Information Management (PIM) systems like Pimcore transform how eCommerce businesses handle product data by centralizing information, eliminating data silos, improving data quality, and streamlining workflows. PIM systems also boost operational efficiency by streamlining workflows, which enhances coordination and communication with suppliers.
As your business grows, you have multiple sales channels or plan to add new sales channels, the ability to efficiently manage increasing amounts of product data becomes an advantage rather than an operational burden.
As an open-source platform built on a solid technological foundation, Pimcore offers the flexibility, scalability, and integration capabilities required by modern eCommerce businesses. Its ability to function not only as a PIM but also as a DAM, CMS, and MDM system makes it an excellent investment that will continue to deliver value as your business evolves and your data management needs become more sophisticated.
<div class="rtb-text-box is-blue-100">Not sure if Pimcore is right for you? Let our specialists analyze your current setup and recommend the best solution. Contact us!</div>
