Image: Product Information Management: Theory and Practice by Jorij Abraham
Have you been hearing a lot about PIM lately, and wondering what’s so noteworthy about it? Or how PIM for eCommerce is changing the B2B and B2C space?
Well, looks like over 50% of the product-centric organizations around the world will leverage on PIM to provide an exceptional product experience by 2021.
But what is PIM? In this article, you will get to know everything about PIM for eCommerce and its features.
What is PIM?
PIM (not to be mistaken for Personal Information Manager or Pym particles), also known as the Product Information Management system is a tool to build a central hub for storing and managing your collective product information data.
While the term Product Information Management was used for many years now, it only started gaining momentum after 2003. Today, with the exponential rise in online stores, it is hard to imagine an eCommerce platform without integrating a PIM system to it.
Now, if you are a manufacturer or distributor, you must already know how tedious and complex it is to create and maintain product information like the images, titles, product descriptions, and specifications of your online and offline product catalogs.
Not to forget the grueling task of formatting the information based on your client’s requirement at the time of handing over this huge data. Enter PIM, an efficient tool to simplify this entire process and more.
PIM procures and stores the product attributes from different sources like the ERP systems, Data suppliers, Procurement systems, Marketing teams, Product Suppliers, and warehouses and distributes this information to multiple eCommerce channels like an online store, marketplace, mobile application, Print Catalogs, POS (Point of Sale), and others.
Through a single interface, you and your team can edit and manage data like the product title, specification, SKU number, images and videos, and others. This huge data of products can be effortlessly shared internally between teams and externally to suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, and customers.
Now if you are wondering what more can you get out of maintaining superior product information for your product or catalog other than storing and sharing, below are a few use cases.
Use cases of PIM
- Easy expansion to new markets and handle multiple marketing channels.
- Provide a great product experience effortlessly,
- Reduce incorrect product orders and in turn, improve the conversion rates.
- Be a source of information and integrate with other applications.
- Quicker and easier marketing.
Who requires a PIM system?
A PIM system has multiple applications and can be used by a variety of users in an enterprise or even all of them in a supply chain. Some of the common users of a PIM system are.
Suppliers
A supplier may use the Product Information Management to add or change the details of a product and share it with his/her customer or retailers and brands.
Marketing and Sales team
These teams consistently add product information in the form of attention-grabbing details or glossy and attractive images. They require a PIM system to add information as well as for keeping the information uniform throughout the many marketing channels they use.
eCommerce Managers
Managers in the eCommerce space utilize a PIM to understand the impact of product data on online sales through its quality.
Data teams
Data teams use PIM to ensure that the data meets the compliance needs.
Customer Support:
The customer support team requires a PIM system to track the inflow of customer complaints or feedback and pass them on to the product development team.
R&D department
They may use it to store technical details like the CAD/CAM drawings and specifications of the products.
While the above users may be the common ones to use a PIM system, the actual usage of it differs from company to company.
What type of data does a PIM have access to?
A PIM can be used to manage different types of data, common ones being:
Technical Data: It pertains to necessary product specifications like measurements, weight, material, color, ingredients
Usage Data: Product descriptions like manual information or how-to suggestions.
Emotional Data: It is any product information like a story or description that is used to build an emotional connection with the customers.
Media Data: Any media data like audio, video, or an image.
Why we think you would benefit from a PIM system
As mentioned above, PIM usage differs from company to company. While the requirements and usage differ, the benefits are similar to all. Here are some of the benefits of integrating a Product Information Management system to an eCommerce platform.
Create a unified customer experience
If you are a manufacturer or a brand who needs to dive through thousands of products and ensure that all the product information across multiple channels is in line, you already know that manually doing that is a laborious task and very time-consuming.
This can be simplified through a PIM system. You can also ensure that all your customers, whichever channel they visit, get a unified experience. It also gives you the advantage to accelerate your marketing activities on the go.
Controlled content distribution
With a PIM in place, you have the control to limit the amount of content that is shared with your retailers and clients.
For example, if you are into the uniforms business and share product description with a number of retailers, you can easily limit the amount of information you want to share with them in order to distinguish your own website from them.
You may also limit the information shared between your preferred retailers and others by sharing better or more product information, images, or other attributes.
More productivity in lesser time
Most manufacturers, retailers, and distributors look for efficient ways while collaborating with their partners and suppliers to reduce the time spent on errors and repetitive tasks.
By automating the repetitive process of sharing high-quality data, you effectively reduce the time spent on manual data entry tasks and eventually have more time in your hand to work on other tasks that require your attention.
Integrate newer technologies and personalize
With B2B and B2C eCommerce space constantly changing with the advent of newer technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and others, there is a huge requirement for structured data. A PIM system acts as a foundation technology to power such technological changes by readily providing the required product data collected over the course of time.
Do you think you may have a requirement or would like to consult someone about your need for a Product Information Management solution? Request a demo to speak with an expert and understand more about it.