The product-based company needs to focus on improving the quality of the product data shared with the end users as it defines the sales in the business. The customers compare the products available in the market based on their description, technical specification, costing, etc. across the different online sites before making their purchase.
The Product information management solution (PIM) allows the organization to do collection, organization, manage, store, and sharing of accurate and updated product information across all channels. Implementing the PIM system is beneficial for the organization as it helps in building customer trust and growth in business. Well, before diving into the core topic let’s wind up with some basics.
What is the PIM Solution?
Product Information Management is a process that is specially designed to manage and enhance the quality of the data/information related to the products in all channels/selling platforms. As mentioned, the platform offered by the PIM system collects, organizes, and enriches product data from various systems both internal and external.
In addition, the enriched and optimized product data/details are shared across multiple channels for the benefit of various departments. Also, the accurate and up-to-date data provided by PIM solution helps businesses to gain a better customer experience.
Why is the PIM Solution Important for Business?
It doesn’t matter what type of business you are doing, having a reliable PIM system is inevitable in today’s business world. PIM solution has become the ultimate weapon for many businesses to tackle the growing demands and trends of the marketplace.
Here are the key benefits an organization or business can achieve by using a PIM solution.
- Reduced Manual Data Entry: PIM platform brings automation into the business process and reduces the manual data entry operation. This eliminates the risk of getting human errors and also the tremendous workload of employees when an organization deals with a large number of products. Having a reliable PIM system will help businesses to establish the most sophisticated product taxonomy.
- Centralized Data Repository: PIM offers a centralized database where it stores all the data related to your products. Because of that data updates and data enrichment were done easily and quickly. Also, a centralized data repository helps business leaders to get rid of data silos and data redundancy. Moreover, a centralized database helps to share accurate data quickly and easily to all channels.
- Data Tracking in Real-time: With the centralized database for storing product data, tracking product-related information becomes easier. Using accurate up-to-date product details, owners can easily track the inventory details along with the product catalogs across the platforms and channels where they sell their products.
- Easy to Scale: When your business starts to experience growth, you need additional resources to meet the demands of customers for achieving better customer & user experience. PIM system offers such scalability where you can add numerous new products along with their attributes. Also, the PIM platform supports a quick data onboarding process which helps you to release new products quickly to the market.
When to Implement PIM Solution?
It is pretty clear that the PIM solution drives better online sales and increases the product experience for customers by delivering better product data to the customer. All the benefits of the PIM platform will move a business toward a position in which it can experience increased sales volume and ROI. However, for an existing business, they need to understand when they should opt for the PIM platform to experience real impact.
Here are the different situations in which an organization should implement the product information management solution for experiencing a new level of highness:
- Having a large number of SKUs: For expanding the business, the enterprise can introduce more products in the market. Manually handling all these products and their details can become difficult and tiresome. Updating the product description for this higher number of products will take a longer time. Having thousands of SKUs becomes very difficult. PIM makes it easier to handle this larger data with ease. An organization that has more SKUs should implement the PIM system as it will help in automatically updating the product information across all the channels with ease with reduced errors. While selecting the PIM Implementation, the organization should check with the PIM provider if the system will be able to handle importing a higher number of SKUs. It should be able to handle the situation when the traffic is higher.
- Products having common features: An organization having a larger portfolio of products needs to share the product description and details for all these products. These products may have many features or attributes that may be common in these products. Manually entering these repetitive details can be tiresome and pose a risk of incorporating mistakes and errors. PIM system helps in collecting all the product information and classifying these product details based on the various attributes. PIM helps in collecting the data from the pre-set list based on the category to which it belongs. The PIM system can also incorporate the use of some advanced techniques like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for processing larger product details.
- Selling products in many digital channels: For reaching out to a larger customer crowd, the organization prefers using several channels to expand its reach. The business can use multiple channels for improving its customer’s shopping experience. Implementing PIM allows the customers to interact with the product through different mediums like web shopping, online marketplaces, comparison shopping websites, printed catalogs, social media, etc. Manually updating and enriching the ever-growing product details and attributes across digital channels is time-consuming. It becomes more difficult if handling multiple products across several channels. Implementing the PIM system will reduce the task of manually updating the details. It allows for centralized storage of all the product information that can be easily shared with different channels through the user-friendly dashboard. It makes it easier for sharing the relevant product content with the right channels. PIM also includes features that help in translating product information into several languages based on geographical location. It automatically translates the cost into the local currency thus helping to sell the product with no geographical barriers.
- Going omnichannel: Omnichannel marketing helps in providing a consistent brand experience to the customers. With the help of omnichannel marketing, the business can implement plans like mobile orders with in-store pickups that are convenient for some customers. Through an omnichannel marketing strategy, the customers can interact with the brand through multiple touch points like physical stores, emails, pop-ups, eCommerce platforms, chatbots, etc. The PIM system allows companies to sell their products in a smart and structured way. The statistical report suggests that brands choosing the Omnichannel for sales and customer service experience around 90% of customer retention and satisfaction. This paves the way for customer experience enhancement. Once a brand starts to have a better customer experience will witness an increase in sales ratio and business growth in a short time.
- Improve customer experience: Customers play a crucial role in any business as the sales depend on their purchases. Customers make their purchases based on the product information provided to them. PPIM system helps in providing the best, most accurate, and real-time information thus keeping them updated. PIM also allows sharing of images, videos, and other product information that help the customers in visualizing the product thus making a better connection with the product and making the purchase. This helps in enhancing the customer experience. It also helps in reducing cart abandonment, product returns, etc. as customers get a clear detail about the product. PIM system enables providing consistent product information across the different channels.
- Conquer dynamically growing markets: It is important to reach out to customers across the globe to spread their reach to global markets. The Product Information Management system makes it easier to interact with international customers. It is one of the best tools for building seamless cross-border eCommerce. It has multi-language support so that it automatically can translate product details to customers across the globe based on their geographical location. PIM also helps in translating the cost into the local currency thus helping the customers to better understand and communicate. This helps the business to overcome geographical barriers and reach out globally. This makes it faster to reach global customers and deliver information at a faster pace. It also increased global sales opportunities. It also enables the customer to interact in their local language thus enhancing the customer experience.
Conclusion
The competition in the market is increasing and every business needs to implement various strategies to stay ahead. Implementing the PIM system helps the organization in handling its products’ information efficiently and spread its reach globally through various channels and touchpoints. PIM solution helps in improving the quality of product data.
It also helps in providing enhanced customer experience thus building their trust in the product and the brand. Implementing the PIM system gives an upper edge to the business. The organization can consider the size of the business, and its requirements and accordingly implement the PIM system for efficient management of the product information.