In the ever-evolving world of eCommerce, businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to keep track of their product information and manage it efficiently. A product information management system is a centralized software solution that organizes, enriches, and manages product data for ecommerce businesses, making it easier to distribute accurate information across multiple channels. This is where Product Information Management (PIM) for eCommerce comes into play - helping brands centralize, organize, and distribute product data across multiple channels. To address this challenge and answer key questions about modern data management, we addressed essential questions: Is PIM the right choice for your business? When is PIM implementation necessary? What are PIM’s key strengths, and in which scenarios does it perform best?
This article presents key points to help you understand the advantages of PIM solutions and make an informed decision about whether implementing a PIM system is the right strategic move for your eCommerce business. As online retail grows, rising customer expectations for detailed, accurate product information are a key driver for adopting PIM.
Let’s begin by saying a few words about the beginning of PIM solutions.
The emergence of PIM solutions
The rise of PIM solutions marks a significant evolution in eCommerce data management. Just a few years ago, when eCommerce was not as developed, businesses relied heavily on ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems to manage their sales operations. ERP systems are a core component of enterprise resource management, which encompasses a wide range of business processes beyond just product data, such as finance, human resources, and supply chain management. However, as online retail grew more complex, these large, monolithic ERP systems began to show their limitations, particularly when it came to gradually expanding the product base and implementing new functionalities. This led to a crucial turning point**: the separation of product catalog management from ERP systems into a dedicated solution.**
Before the advent of PIM tools, businesses struggled with disparate data sources, making it difficult to maintain consistency and efficiency across their product information. PIM systems emerged as specialized tools for managing product information, also known as PIM tools, continuously evolving to handle an ever-growing volume of data. Today’s products require far more than basic specifications – from detailed size charts and material compositions to product origin stories and specific use cases. PIM software cut through the complexity of product data, giving businesses more control and efficiency in managing their product information.
Considering that, let’s browse the main reasons why businesses decide on PIM solutions.
Why do businesses decide to implement a PIM solution?
Easier management of product data
Even with the best-maintained product databases, businesses struggle with the time-consuming task of keeping their product information up-to-date. Manual data entry and manual tasks increase the risk of errors and inefficiency, making it difficult to maintain high-quality product information. Traditional systems simply can’t match PIM’s efficiency in handling large product catalogs. As the database grows, so does the risk of system overload and technical debt – a challenge that becomes more pressing with each new product added. Data inconsistencies can easily arise from these manual processes, further complicating cross-channel communication and business growth. PIM ensures accurate data and helps businesses focus on distributing relevant data to the right channels.
Data consistency across multiple channels
Next, PIM systems transform how businesses maintain consistency across multiple sales channels and marketplaces. PIM systems help manage product information across various distribution channels, including online sales channels and new sales channels, ensuring that product data remains accurate and synchronized as businesses expand into new platforms. When managing products across different markets and languages, PIM becomes invaluable by ensuring data uniformity and accuracy throughout all platforms. The system particularly shines when expanding into new markets - instead of manually translating and adapting product information for each new region, teams can efficiently manage bulk updates across their entire product catalog. PIM enables businesses to efficiently distribute data to all relevant platforms, streamlining the flow of product information across all sales and distribution channels.
What’s more, PIM’s capabilities extend beyond basic product details. Businesses can include crucial logistical information such as delivery times for specific markets, the best to transport products, or product dimensions. For example, when a business expands from a Polish market to other regions, PIM facilitates mass localization of product content, making the transition smoother and more efficient. The system can also leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate product descriptions, size specifications, and accessory details by simply importing spreadsheets or text files, significantly reducing the time and effort required for market expansion.
The consistency of information also makes us more credible in a competitive market and can influence the customer’s decision to buy our product.
Improved workflow
At its core, PIM gives teams complete control over products while simplifying content management – teams can update a single product description and apply it across all variants or channels. This one-action approach extends to entire product groups, allowing simultaneous updates to everything from product descriptions to image galleries. PIM empowers sales teams, marketing teams, and customer service teams by providing quick access to accurate product data, enabling them to work more efficiently and deliver better results. The system supports creating and maintaining product relationships, building product families, and organizing category trees, making it especially valuable for managing complex product relationships. All this is enabled while allowing real-time data updates. PIM ensures a seamless flow of information across departments, enhancing collaboration and operational efficiency. What sets PIM apart is its role as a “single source of truth” that not only centralizes product information but also simplifies working on products. By maintaining data in a unified format, PIM makes product information both accessible and actionable, significantly boosting team efficiency.
The PIM system also significantly improves access and distribution of information across different channels. This transforms scattered, chaotic data management into a streamlined, organized process that positively impacts productivity throughout the company.
The benefits of implementing the system are also visible to end customers - having access to accurate and comprehensive product information, they make more informed purchasing decisions, which translates into higher satisfaction and fewer returns, as the received product fully meets their expectations.
Scalability
When implementing a PIM system, it’s worth considering modular architecture like the one Sylius offers. This way, businesses can utilize the best-of-breed approach that allows us to use specialized tools developed to perform specific tasks, which is the best way to maximize efficiency. A PIM platform or PIM tool can scale with the needs of an ecommerce store or ecommerce site, supporting growth and integration with other systems.
Ergonode offers extensive customization and content management, which is especially valuable in tasks like search engine optimization (SEO). Digital asset management systems help organize digital assets and media files, enriching product data with technical specs and multimedia content to enhance product listings and marketing efforts. Its low barrier to entry enables smooth data flow between eCommerce platforms and the PIM system, scaling easily as businesses grow. Additionally, clean data storage ensures trouble-free migrations to other platforms. Managing all this data in a centralized system simplifies operations and supports future growth.
When PIM system may be an overkill?
Despite the major benefits that the PIM system brings, it is not suitable for each business case. First of all, the scale of the project plays a significant role here.
- Small businesses with a limited number of products can manage product data directly in their eCommerce platform, as the data scale isn't large enough to require advanced management.
- Similarly, companies with simple product offerings that have a small number of attributes (e.g., one size, one color) can effectively manage their data in the eCommerce platform due to a low risk of errors and complications.
- Also, businesses focused on single-channel sales, selling products exclusively on their own website without utilizing other sales channels like marketplaces or social media, can use the eCommerce platform to store data without major synchronization issues.
- Companies with no expansion plans for new markets or channels can manage product data in a simplified way without the need for more advanced tools like product information management systems.
- For businesses whose primary focus is managing customer data, coordinating the supply chain, or integrating with other systems, solutions such as content management systems, customer relationship management platforms, and master data management (MDM) systems may be more appropriate. These systems are designed to handle broader organizational needs beyond product information, ensuring consistency and accuracy across various types of data.
Key limitations of eCommerce solutions in product data management
To summarize the article, we will briefly describe why eCommerce is not a good place to store product data. Without centralized product data, information is often scattered across different systems, leading to the creation of data silos that hinder efficient management and collaboration.
Most ecommerce platforms lack the key features provided by dedicated PIM systems, such as advanced data governance, centralized management, and seamless integration across channels.
These limitations negatively impact customer experiences, reduce customer satisfaction, and ultimately harm the overall customer experience.
Limited data management capabilities
Most eCommerce platforms focus on sales and customer interactions rather than advanced product data management. They lack tools for editing, versioning, and validating large amounts of information. As a result, ecommerce platforms often struggle to manage data effectively and ensure accurate product data, which can impact consistency, marketing efforts, and multi-channel sales.
Scalability issues
As the product offering grows and expands into new markets, managing product data directly in the eCommerce platform becomes inefficient and chaotic. A product information management system can address these scalability challenges by providing a centralized solution to organize, enrich, and distribute product data across multiple channels, supporting business growth and integration needs. These platforms may have limitations on the number of products that can be effectively handled.
Lack of centralization
Product data is often spread across different systems (CRM, ERP, marketing automation), leading to inconsistent information across various sales channels. eCommerce often lacks a central point where data can be managed. Without a unified system, ecommerce platforms are unable to efficiently distribute data or distribute product data across all channels, resulting in fragmented and outdated product information.
Integration difficulties with other channels
More and more companies decide to sell products on multiple platforms (marketplaces, social media, mobile apps). Managing product information only within a single eCommerce platform leads to synchronization problems and information consistency issues across these channels. Ecommerce platforms often struggle to manage marketing materials and synchronize product data across all marketing channels, making it difficult to control all the data needed for effective multi-channel selling.
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