Why is PIM Solution Considered an Essential for Modern eCommerce Business?
PIM stands for Product Information Management. As the word says, PIM is the management of the information regarding your product. When a product is mentioned with its PIM values and ranges, it becomes easier for the marketers, product owners to distribute their product via different channels with complete PIM.
PIM system helps in stimulating the functioning of any business be it a small scale or big scale. The use of PIM can also help in making good connections with other businesses.
The competitive world has changed the way the public shop for any product. People Shop for the product of their choice by comparing the details across the various channels by comparing their specifications, costing, technical details, delivery time, etc.
For the same reason, it is important to provide all the essential product details to the customer so they can make their selection. The product information management (PIM) system allows the organization to handle and share product-related details with all the teams involved in the product supply chain management.
What Is A Product Information Management (PIM) Solution? What Does It Offer?
PIM solution offers a complete eCommerce solution by acting as a single source to collect, manage, enrich, update and distribute the product data to different sales channels. It assures sharing of accurate and updated product details. Different channels and retailers require the product details in different formats.
The requirement details also change based on the geological location like the languages used, currency details, etc. Product Information Management software enables the organization in managing the product details in different languages as required by the various channels.
For a product-based enterprise, it is important that the true and accurate product details reach the customers and all the other members involved in the sales of the product. Some major data-related issues can arise when the data is not managed properly.
These data issues include data inaccuracies, data inconsistencies, exhaustive manual, and duplicate work, time-to-market delays, costly data management, weak customer experience, etc. All these data issues can be solved by using a robust PIM solution.
A PIM system is centrally located and stores the product data in one place and is accessible to the different members like company employees, partners, data owners, etc. The automated data process allows the different teams to easily access and enriches the product content.
PIM enables a smooth connection between the sales platform and the marketplaces based on the requirements. It allows in constantly updating the data thus reducing the chances of data error.
If you want to get exposure to all the different aspects connected with product information management, don’t miss to read What is PIM? – An Ultimate Guide for Product Information Management Services.
Capabilities of A Product Information Management (PIM) Solution
The PIM software or system has different types of tools that can be incorporated into the software for its efficient data handling. The different features available in the PIM system include:
Ease of data importation
The product data is available from a different source and the important task includes importing this data from the different sources and compiling together. Importing data from different sources can have some technical snags. PIM allows consolidating the data from the different databases.
Viewing data by channels
The different channels require the data in form of a spreadsheet, PIM allows in incorporating all the data uniformly in these sheets with minimum errors. A single database will be able to provide the details required by the different channels. PIM provides an omniscient digital view of product details.
Bulk editing capabilities
In case of any change or updating data, making changes across the different channels can become tedious and time-consuming. PIM being centrally located, making a change in the PIM system reflects across all the channels immediately thus saving time and effort.
Channel readiness
Different channels have different requirements, PIM enables the easy transformation of data from one format to the other making it channel-ready.
Creating and managing categories
Presenting the different products to the customers based on the different categories makes the searching of products. The PIM system has a feature that allows attributing the product details and specification that allows classification and categorization.
Content analytics
This feature allows in understanding how the product performs in online marketing. This gives details about where efforts and attention should be provided for increasing the sales.
Managing governances on a global scale
Making the product available globally needs to comply with global governance. The PIM should include a feature that will enable managing global governance.
While selecting a Product Information Management platform, you need to consider all the essential features that empower your business operations. Visit Must Have Features of Product Information Management System to explore the advanced capabilities of the PIM platform.
Do you want to create a consistent product experience across all the customer touchpoints by implementing the right PIM solution?
Who needs a Product Information Management (PIM) Solution?
It is an unusual misconception about PIM that only big-scale businessmen should follow it. But the truth is, PIM is a marketing tool that can be used by all entrepreneurs, who handles all-size business. Also, PIM is not only needed for business agents but also for product owners, which can increase their product flexibly through PIM, and IT departments can also manage the features of their products.
This PIM is a marketing tool that is needed by all the category managers and the E-Commerce team. The use of the PIM marketing tool can give as much as more information about a product.
How PIM Solution Can Be Beneficial For Your Business?
Instead of being an excellent marketing tool, A PIM system is a powerful system fully packed with an array of killer features that will give your business a needed competitive edge in today’s market.
Today’s market is the most challenging place where every marketer is experiencing tough times to sell and promote their products among the target audience. To be successful in the modern eCommerce business, business owners need to make use of an intelligent system for categorizing their products. So that buyers would find it easy to navigate and find what they are looking for.
This is what a PIM system delivers, in addition, take a look at how it will be beneficial to your business in many ways.
1. Benefits of PIM Solution for Your E- Commercial team
The technology is upgrading every day and hence the normal buying and selling of the product have also increased to a great vast extent. In today’s time, almost more than half of the world is switching to online buying, selling, and also earning.
This is when E-commerce comes into the picture. PIM talks about the information on the products. The E-commerce team can work on the design, feature, and product quality, which will increase the PIM of their product highly and would help the E-Commerce team to earn more sales.
2. Benefits of PIM Solution PIM for Your Marketing team
When it comes to marketing, we always look for how the product is being promoted, the more the content of the product is good; it will be always high in the market. The more information about the product the brand is giving (more PIM), the more good quality marketing the brand is achieving thus increasing the percentage of the product being purchased throughout.
Through PIM, one brand can give as much information regarding the product, starting from design to the complete use of the product. With the help of the PIM, the marketers can connect between two products with the same use but with different PIM ranges.
3. Benefits of PIM Solution PIM for Your IT Department
The work of the IT department is to understand the internal and as well external working of the product. When it comes to some electronic devices such as computers, mobiles, laptops, or any electronic devices, the best department which can fix all the problems of the electronic products is the IT department.
The reason why IT departments are considered best for electron products is that they know the main software and hardware. With the knowledge of the actual making of the product, the IT department employees can increase the PIM of the product.
Hence, the more the PIM of the product is displayed to the public, the more will be the demand for the IT department employees by altering the software and working of the product. Not only these ways will benefit the IT department but also the market team is fruitful with it.
To explore more benefits of considering PIM solutions, visit What Are the Benefits of PIM (Product Information Management) Systems?
Do you want to get a better understanding of how PIM solution implementation boosts your eCommerce business?
What does PIM Solution offer To Small Scale Entrepreneurs?
PIM gives a piece of good and very detailed information about the information of the product. Not only detailed knowledge of the products is obtained through PIM but also how the product can be managed is also answered through the system of PIM.
The budding businessman can initiate the product selling by mentioning the PIM of their product. This will give more chances to the customers to know more about the product.
Now we can understand why a business with and without a PIM system can make a big difference in the functioning of the business.
The activation of the PIM system in the E-commerce department, in the Market department team as well as in the IT department Team and also for the small scale entrepreneurs can be the solution to almost all the problems of the product because people will purchase more and more products if they have been provided with high information of the product.
This is what a PIM system allows the various departments of the business to earn a great profit. So, to have a swift and smooth going business which may give a great yield to the business, every business must start with a PIM system.
How To Implement A PIM System On Your Business? & What Would Be Challenges You Need to Face?
The roadmap for the implementation of the PIM depends on the type of business, the products involved, the type of market or customer targeted business background and history, etc.
The PIM implementation plan includes the various phases like
- Designing of the PIM and discovery phase,
- Orientation of PIM system and data modeling phase,
- Process configuration and PIM migration,
- PIM integration,
- Defining output for PIM solution, etc.
Certain challenges are related to the PIM implementation and are related to the information arrangement and distribution. These challenges faced while implementation includes:
1. Data inaccuracies and inconsistencies
Including more users in the PIM system can cause errors and also create content discrepancies.
Solution
The advanced functionality and features of the product information management software can help in efficiently reducing this issue. The PIM tools provide the backup, activity logs, and technical support for solving the different issues. It also allows for optimizing and configuration of the database and controlling the performance.
The PIM tool can provide specific access to the important members involved in the handling of the data thus reducing the chances of errors and discrepancies.
2. Onboarding non-technical users
PIM allows in incorporating all the product-related details that are essential for the different teams involved in the product supply chain management. This includes even the different departments, non-technical uses involved in merchandising, sales, marketing, and other teams. All these users accessing the PIM without technical training can lead to complications.
Solution
The PIM software is a user-friendly solution and can be easily adapted by any non-technical person for accessing the data. The person can handle the PIM system without or with reduced technical support.
The PIM software vendors conduct workshops for helping the employees and the members of the different teams within the organization to learn how the PIM system works.
3. Involvement of many parts
As product development increases, the growth of products across the different channels and the number of channels involved will also increase. This also leads to an increase in the number of people involved in the process of PIM integration.
As the number of members involved increases, the chances of disagreement between the people on certain points may increase. This might adversely affect the PIM system and may slow down the implementation process.
Solution
This issue can be solved by involving the professional responsible for the adequate PIM workflow. The person should have extensive knowledge of the business along with their global business vision.
Don’t miss to read do’s and don’ts to consider while Product Information Management Implementation to avoid the challenges and ensure the success and growth of your eCommerce business.
Do you want to discuss how the implementation of a product information management solution helps eCommerce brands to increase sales and revenues?
Conclusion
Using a good product information management (PIM) system reduces the unnecessary workload caused by manually adding and editing the data. It also reduces the risk of errors while handling large product data. It is important to make use of the right type of software for handling the product details.
The right PIM software allows handling the product data efficiently. Thus it is important to understand the different features available in the PIM software and make the selection based on the features.
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