April 15, 2020 
Today’s commerce landscape is evolving at a rapid pace due to the latest innovations, technological advancements, and changing customer demands.
eCommerce businesses are expanding their operations cross-border and making attempts to establish their online presence through sophisticated yet user-friendly eCommerce websites.
Managing the ever-growing product portfolio on these websites is a necessity in the current time for most eCommerce businesses, B2B, and B2C. Here comes the role of a robust product information management system.
A Product Information Management system (PIMs) can be depicted as a solution designed to efficiently manage product information across different sales channels from a unified dashboard.
A PIM software is essential for product categorization, to upload, manage and edit product information across multiple outlets, synchronize product data across multiple sales channels and marketplaces.
Enriched product information, ease of management and detecting inaccuracies on-time are some of the major advantages of a product management system.
Why a PIM system is essential for E-Commerce Stores?
PIM improves data management
A PIM system enables centralized data storage, which can be leveraged across multiple sales outlets, native applications within the business infrastructure.
PIM systems enable eCommerce businesses with the systematic workflow of product information, improved data quality and reduced time to add/update product information.
Improved Product Data Consistency
Today is the time of multi-device and multi-platform usage. Customers view their intended products to buy across multiple websites, apps, etc. before making any decision.
Here, the eCommerce owners are faced with the challenge of maintaining product information consistency across these multiple platforms. Today’s customers have a narrow attention span and viewing unsynchronized product data on different platforms may be off-putting for them.
However, a PIM system can turn the tables by ensuring product data consistency across all the sales, marketing outlets of a business.
Product Information Management Impacts the SEO results
Popular search engines disapprove of unrelated content and this may lead to a drop in the eCommerce website’s ranking.
By leveraging PIM systems, businesses can ensure accuracy of product information, uniqueness of product content, increased page density, and page richness which appeals to search engines.
The more efficiently products are categorized and laid out and the more comprehensive product descriptions are, the easier it becomes for the end customers to find the product they are looking for. PIM systems help to expand the brand presence in the e-commerce market and improve organic search results, substantially.
Shorter Product Lead Times
One of the major benefits of leveraging a PIM system is that it will work wonders to decrease the product lead times.
This, in turn, can enable eCommerce businesses in saving costs, substantially. A robust PIM solution can make go-to-market faster and more streamlined.
Better User Experience Because Product Descriptions Are Better
Today’s customers demand compelling, and consistent brand experience and organizing products in an efficient manner and creating authentic, relevant product descriptions will surely boost their experience.
The more intelligently the products are laid out across the eCommerce outlets, the more efficiently they’re categorized.
The more comprehensive the product descriptions are, the easier it becomes for the Gen-Z customers to conduct searches and find the products they want to interact with.
4 secrets to a successful PIM implementation
Every eCommerce business must be aware of these 4 secrets to a successful PIM implementation.
Define roles and responsibilities
When it comes to product portfolio management, the onus does not only lie with the sales or marketing department in a business. Instead, the customer service and operations team also share the roles and responsibilities.
Thus, before implementing a PIM system in full-fledged, businesses must include all the responsible departments in the creation/update of product content. Inviting suppliers to collaborate on the product descriptions can also be beneficial.
Product Content Standardization
Having one central repository for all product information gives eCommerce businesses a single yet holistic view where they can easily search, update and publish product-related content across various channels, devices, and languages.
Furthermore, a robust, efficient PIM solution not only helps in eliminating errors and ensuring consistency but also help businesses gain competitive advantage through faster time-to-market. The improvement in the cross-sell and up-sell potential of products is the icing on the cake.
Avoid Decentralization of Product Data
Studies highlight that around 56 percent of businesses have more than 5 systems containing product data. This distributed nature of product data leads to incompatibility and incoherence.
In such scenarios, managing product information can be overwhelming, and time-consuming. It will be a long struggle to avoid erroneous data that may lead to irreversible business impacts.
PIM is essential for robust customer experience
Customer experience and satisfaction have been the most crucial aspects of businesses in the past. This will continue to stay strong in the current and upcoming times.
Customers’ experience and their perception of an eCommerce brand are the deciding factors for their future purchases. In the digitally enabled era, word-of-mouth marketing and positive product reviews carry more weightage than any amount of monotonous brand promotions.
A PIM platform can add significant value and help businesses deliver robust, consistent, and personalized customer experiences. Greater customer experiences will translate to a boost in sales and revenue streams.
For further queries on Product Information Management systems, do get in touch with the experts at Vinculum, today!
