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What is a PIM solution?
What is PIM?
What does PIM stand for? Basically, it’s an acronym with two meanings. Firstly, ‘Product Information Management,’ a business activity in itself and which speaks for itself.
Secondly, nowadays it is also used as an acronym for ‘a PIM.’ A PIM system provides the capabilities needed to manage product data in an optimal way, starting with ingestion (from suppliers, content providers, data pools), through enrichment using digital assets like photos and video, text and more, to its export (or syndication) to whichever sales channels the company uses to get its products to the end customer (B2B or B2C).
What is PIM? And what does it do?
A product-centric business manages and generates ever larger quantities of product data, which is ultimately used to support its multichannel marketing strategy. A PIM system acts as a central hub containing the single, unique version of every piece of product data used to distribute product information to sales channels like e-commerce websites, print catalogs, marketplaces (such as Google Shopping, Shopify, Magento and Amazon), social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram and electronic data feeds to trading partners. Moreover, the PIM solution plays a highly significant role in increasing sales revenue and reducing abandonment rates by providing high-quality product information.
The use of PIM solutions is most commonly determined by a business’s:Volume, complexity, and variety of data sets for products (SKUs)
need to frequently change and update information about product
capacity to syndicate to an increasing range of sales channels
need for an omnichannel approach across different channels, touchpoints, and markets (overseas, for example)
SEO strategy and business insights
So, the centralised PIM solution can manage data to provide the customer-facing product information required to underpin multiple geographic locations, multilingual outlets, maintenance, and rapid modification of product information. PIM solutions also help businesses to optimise conversion rates (CRO) by enabling their business to display contextualise, consistent and compelling brand messaging.
The reason a PIM solution really matters is that it eradicates the slow, time consuming and error-strewn legacy approach to product data management, where information would be scattered across departments and systems, or hoarded by employees, rather than being centrally available. The time and efficiency savings, alongside the heightened organisational culture of collaboration and cooperation it engenders, mean that investment in a PIM system pays for itself several times over.
The other key feature of modern PIM solutions is they automate many of the processes of product information management, freeing up those key staff for whom too much time was previously taken up by manually processing product data. As a multi-faceted tool which integrates easily with existing systems like ERPs, a PIM solution provides the capacity for media independent product data maintenance, efficient data collection, data governance and output of a guaranteed quality and trustworthiness.
The use of PIM solutions is most commonly determined by a business’s:
So, the centralised PIM solution can manage data to provide the customer-facing product information required to underpin multiple geographic locations, multilingual outlets, maintenance, and rapid modification of product information. PIM solutions also help businesses to optimise conversion rates (CRO) by enabling their business to display contextualise, consistent and compelling brand messaging.
The reason a PIM solution really matters is that it eradicates the slow, time consuming and error-strewn legacy approach to product data management, where information would be scattered across departments and systems, or hoarded by employees, rather than being centrally available. The time and efficiency savings, alongside the heightened organisational culture of collaboration and cooperation it engenders, mean that investment in a PIM system pays for itself several times over.
The other key feature of modern PIM solutions is they automate many of the processes of product information management, freeing up those key staff for whom too much time was previously taken up by manually processing product data. As a multi-faceted tool which integrates easily with existing systems like ERPs, a PIM solution provides the capacity for media independent product data maintenance, efficient data collection, data governance and output of a guaranteed quality and trustworthiness.
Tools for a PIM system
Since the pandemic, eCommerce adoption has rocketed, so there are more and more companies needing to ready themselves for digitally transforming how they operate their business model. Fortunately, there’s no lack of options on the market to find the right PIM system. This tool for consolidating and managing the entire set of product catalogs and information can be bespoke, home-grown, or even set up on-premises. However, hosted cloud solutions are more and more becoming the norm for PIM providers, providing as they do ease of management and, above all, ease of scalability when a business wants to grow organically, or experiences a need for rapid expansion.
In a nutshell, what you can do with a PIM solution
Given that any business worth its salt is looking to expand, for product-centric companies, which means new markets, new products, and a bigger range of SKUs to manage. The range capabilities which a PIM solution provides you with is getting longer every month as vendors leverage technological advances in automation and artificial intelligence to offer increasingly sophisticated functionalities. However, to summarise, with a PIM system, you will be capable of:
Centralising,cleansing, and establishing quality standards for the unique and only version of every data point
Enriching product descriptions and specifications using a range of digital assets to enhance the quality and Attractiveness of product information.
Tracking progress and completion to confirm channel readiness
Linking images, documents, and other media to specific products
Easily categorising products catalogs and files
Managing ingestion and normalisation of upstream product data.
Managing relationships among products to enable cross-selling, up-selling and bundling
Creating and publish product sheets
Building customised product feeds for particular channels.
Automating brand portal creation and maintenance
Analysing product performance and adjusting product information accordingly
Creating personalised and omnichannel customer experiences
Finding everything, whenever you need it
Please contact us to book a demo of any of the PIM solutions we cover in our reviews and comparisons. Naturally, if you’re interested in a more detailed conversation about your product information management needs, or how we can help and guide you in your selection of a PIM solution, please get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to help.
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