April 15, 2020 
The eCommerce landscape has witnessed a significant shift. This can be attributed to the latest innovations, technology platforms, tools being introduced consistently as well as the changing customer expectations. Today’s tech-savvy customers demand a compelling, consistent experience from the retail, commerce brands. They prefer to consume relevant, adequate information on-the-go and across multiple devices/platforms of their preference.
Businesses have to tailor their eCommerce solutions to cater and to meet today’s omnichannel customers’ expectations. Businesses must sharpen their eCommerce strategy as well as streamline their operations to cater to the surge in demand from the customers’ front. And, as most would agree, managing product information is the most critical aspect when it comes to eCommerce platforms.
As businesses scale and expand their operational boundaries across geographies, the onus of managing a rather wide product portfolio lies with them. An equally efficient platform/tool to manage product-related information is the need of the hour. APIM or Product Information Management system plays a substantial role in deciding the success and ROI for a business. Customers today have become immune to the monotonous brand promotions. To obtain their trust and loyalty, eCommerce brands must offer real-time product information across the array of sales, marketing outlets to ensure the consistent customer experience.
Core Objective of leveraging a PIM
Businesses irrespective of their inherent expertise, size and dynamics would need to leverage a PIM.
Here are some of the core objectives of a product information management system.
Centralized Product Directory
With scalability, businesses are entrusted with the onus of managing a rather wide array of product information. They have to record and update product-related details such as name, unique description, physical attributes, and relevant price details across their eCommerce presence.
Easier said than done as several businesses across the globe are faced with this challenge. Here, a PIM is an absolute solution, these businesses can bank on. Product information management systems assist eCommerce businesses in bulk storage and management of product-related data in a safe, secure and central place. The centralized product directory features of a PIM system ensure that there are no cases of duplicate or redundant product content across the data repositories.
Time-efficient
PIM systems enable eCommerce businesses with a central UI to make product-related data entry and updates. This eliminates manual and multiple data entries and reduces the risk of erroneous product data. This indeed is a time-efficient alternative and this time can be invested in other core organizational functions, and initiatives.
Omnichannel Product Information
With the introduction of advanced technology platforms, solutions and mobile marketing gaining ground, the purchase journey of today’s customers is highly evolved and complicated. Their purchase journey or decision is no more restricted to a single device of interaction. A customer might browse through your product offerings on a desktop and might save some articles into the shopping cart. However, when it comes to purchasing, he/she might complete the transaction through the mobile app.
Now, this scenario calls for an effective synchronization of product information among these devices of usage. Product information management systems come handy at this juncture as they enable the consolidation of product information in one centralized hub/directory. In addition, a PIM system ensures that accurate product data is being published for the end-users in an accurate and seamless manner, resultantly improving the customer experience, and engagement ratios.
Business Benefits of PIM Systems for eCommerce Strategy
With the narrowing attention span of today’s customers, the product purchase journey is getting shorter. Customer expectations have evolved and they are eyeing to get a holistic view of a product in real-time before making the purchase decision. Businesses might lose out on a potential customer base if their eCommerce platforms do not offer complete, accurate and consistent product information on-the-go.
A Forrester research study highlights that 87% of shoppers had to leave a B2B website to conduct research on the product they intended to buy, elsewhere. And, some of the studies also have highlighted the fact that eCommerce platforms offering a holistic and consistent view of product information stand a chance in boosting their conversions substantially.
It might sound like a walk in the park, however, it’s much more complicated. It involves a great deal of effort at the business front in streamlining the product-related content gathering, creating and enriching processes. A PIM system plays a critical role in automating and streamlining these processes that, in turn, will reduce the time-to-market efforts. This can be further translated to an increase in sales and revenue streams.
Here are some of the key aspects that reinstate the significance of PIM systems.
- Real-time, accurate and consistent product-related information across multiple scales, and marketing outlets
- Offers best-in-class omnichannel customer experience by curating product content according to the delivery medium
- Offers inter-functional and integration capabilities to improve the coordination among various stakeholders
- Boost the sales ROI with faster time-to-market
Why PIM Matters for Omnichannel
Are you aiming at building a winning omnichannel eCommerce strategy? Well, it takes much more than great product descriptions or adding multiple channels for users to discover your product. Having great product information that offers what customers want to see can be the ultimate technique to succeed at offering the desired omnichannel experience to the target customer base.
However, product descriptions are still not enough. They must be paired with attention-capturingimages, as well as other features like video or even user-generated content like relevant social media posts from customers. This helps optimize customers’ experiences across all channels.
A robust, efficient PIM solution will support a business’s efforts along the journey toward harmonizing its product data and omnichannel consistency. With a PIM system in place, businesses can save time, enhance teamwork, and expand more easily into new market channels, ultimately boostingthe bottom line.
Looking at the popularity, and wide-scale adoption, there is a myriad of options available in the market for product information management systems. One solution that may prove beneficial to one business might not hold equal significance for another. Thus, it’s essential to choose the best PIM system to suit a business’s requirements. For adopting a robust and reliable PIM solution, do get in touch with the Vinculum experts, today!
