Product information management (PIM) is the process of organizing and managing all of the information needed to market and sell products through distribution channels.

An internal organization creates this product data to support a multichannel marketing strategy.

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PIM ensures the centralization and management of product information in an e-commerce business to ensure a single, accurate representation of product data. PIM accumulates data from various sources and formats and combines it into a single source of master data, identifies and rectifies problematic data, and pushes it to all the desired distribution channels.

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The PIM functions is a multichannel marketing software tool that provides you with complete control over all aspects of your ecommerce strategy. A marketing and management PIM can track all of a company's catalog and inventory data in real-time, sending it to sales channels in the appropriate format and ensuring an automated sync from the PIM to the channel via API.

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PIM software can also be integrated with software such as catalog management, business process management, and data quality. With a PIM, everyone involved can work together to achieve that products are ready for sale on time and within budget.

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The following factors influence a company's use of PIM:

• A diverse range of products and/or a complex product data set
• Constantly changing product characteristics
• Expanding the number of sales channels

In terms of company IT infrastructure, this implies having a PIM platform running on top of or alongside a database with an application server, as well as XML-based product information exchange. Electronic catalogs serve as the foundation for point-of-sale systems and online shopping platforms such as online marketplaces.

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Product information can be loaded as content into a catalog management solution, where products are grouped and managed for specific target markets. Open ICEcat and other data exchange interface standards enable the seamless exchange of electronic catalogs between vendors on the one hand and purchasing firms and marketplace operators on the other.

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E-procurement solutions, which automate the procurement process for purchasing goods and services, are closely related. These provide transparency for multiple vendors' product data, allowing for the centralized management of multi-supplier catalogs and facilitate price and quality research.

Components of PIM

A product Information Management's main goal is to maintain the integrity and value of product information.

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One of the most important aspects of a successful Product Information Management is the overall quality and usability of the available information.

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Here are four essential elements of a successful PIM:

1. Quality Content

While having a large amount of content in a PIM software is important, the quality of content is what makes a significant difference.

The ultimate usability is dependent on having information that is:

• Optimized for search engine optimization (SEO)
• Follows brand standards
• Is easily digestible by a wider public.

Excellent product content includes not only text but also enhanced content — ‘the more the merrier.’ Creating a large database of digital assets can increase the usefulness and versatility of content in a variety of scenarios.

In this case, brands should invest in consistent auditing of their information in order to purge, improve, and determine its readiness for publishing to online retailers.

2. Content Governance

Access to information is critical, but successful PIM software also secures content.

Because of their versatility and flexibility, PIM systems that support content governance are able to establish restricted controls and different levels of permissions.

They can be tailored to meet the requirements of a wide range of industries and businesses.

Having a model that adapts to changing market demands and is adaptable in its updating processes makes a real difference between market success and failure.

3. Content Accessibility

To create the most efficient and optimized content updating process, a central information repository is needed that is easily accessible and supports:

• Capabilities for search
• Enrichment
• Authoring capabilities

This is critical for any team attempting to increase online conversions.

Moving away from a spreadsheet model and scaling up in a cloud-based service also provides a company with more opportunities for integrations and faster connectivity among services.

4. Content Targeting

Online conversions are determined by how appealing product information is to consumers, so brands must ensure that theirs is appropriately targeted to those they are attempting to sell to.

Have you designed and populated your product description pages with content that supports the buyer's journey with the item?

Your product information strategy can help your brand's online success by providing:

• Feature bullets
• Descriptions
• Images, and
• Content below the fold

What Is a PIM System?

A product information management (PIM) tool is a software solution that allows retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers to control their products from a single location. It provides a single source of truth for the product (and all its data). It is the location for gathering, optimizing, and disseminating product content data.

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Users can store, enrich, and manage complex product information using product information management (PIM) systems. PIM tools centralize product-related data, making it easier to update and manage accurate information across multiple sales and marketing channels.

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Most eCommerce platforms, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrate software with PIM tools, ensuring that up-to-date product information is accessible throughout your organization.

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PIM systems are especially useful for eCommerce businesses with a constantly changing product catalog, sales strategy, and marketing messaging.

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An effective data architecture is required for managing a large catalog of product data and SKUs. A PIM system addresses this complexity by tracking cross-functional product information efficiently, such as the following:

• Basic data
• Assets
• Technical information
• Marketing information
• Sales information
• Localized information
• Taxonomy
• Design information
• Emotional Information

PIM software serves as a centralized hub for all product information, which benefits your brand in a variety of ways.

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It reduces the time to onboard new employees, launch new products, design marketing campaigns, and open new business channels. This spares more time for employees to think of new ways to engage customers.

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10 Features Every PIM System Should Have

The ten Important Features to Consider in Product Information Management Solution are:

1. Management of Digital Assets

Integrate powerful Digital Asset Management (DAM) software into your PIM solution to manage all of your digital media in one place - including images, videos, graphics, documents, and other media content.

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DAM software allows you to improve your customers' digital experiences by integrating, consolidating, and managing any number and type of digital assets. When you link digital content to a product page, your conversion rate rises. Furthermore, DAM implementation enables the establishment of an additional relationship with digital assets through the use of location, brand, and supplier information.

2. Localization of Product Content

The best PIM solution enables you to present your product content with a high level of localization across the globe. It enables you to publish product information in your target audience's preferred language, currency, and dialect.

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The PIM system includes globalization tools that apply localization based on the viewer's region to provide you with the location facility. If you want to grow your company around the world, don't overlook the importance of location.

3. An easy-to-use and intuitive interface

PIM becomes the company's primary source of product information. Its interface, which is used on a daily basis by the Product and Marketing teams, must be carefully designed to be clear, simple, and user friendly.

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It must also make it simple for users to get started: simple familiarization, intuitive navigation, and ease of use. To get the most out of any PIM solution, a user-friendly focus (User Experience or UX) is required .

4. User Rights and Workflow

Workflow and validation features should be carefully considered when selecting a PIM solution. This is a method of increasing the accuracy of product information. Several contributors in a company can be involved in improving product information: brands, sites, units, customers.

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To ensure the efficiency of this collaboration, it is critical to have good control and validation features in place to coordinate the work of multiple contributors.

A powerful workflow engine organizes user rights and roles to ensure that, depending on their rights, each contributor can check and correct product information before delivering it to the selling channels.

5. Modeling and Personalization

Each company is unique in terms of data organization, management procedures, technical and financial constraints, and so on.

Working processes and product data can be extremely complex to organize:

• suppliers
• brands
• ranges
• collections
• distributors
• customers

It's best to go with a fully customizable PIM: free product or other data organization, personalization of management screens, organization of user rights and roles. When properly configured, PIM can assist you in managing a product catalog based on

your business needs and model information on multiple levels.

6. Supervision

PIM should provide clear visibility into the status of each product page. The progress analysis features keep track of the correct data input. To control the quality of the information sent, your PIM solution should ideally be capable of managing different progress rules based on the various sales channels. This enables users to complete or correct any missing data or errors in a timely and effective manner.

7. Editing in Bulk

It is critical to edit the product information that is available across multiple distribution channels. Businesses can use a PIM system to edit product data in batches. It aids in the consistent distribution of product information across multiple channels and platforms.

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The solution saves your team a significant amount of time spent on manual data editing, allowing your team to focus on more creative, productive, and complex tasks.

8. Options for Advanced Filtering

With advanced filtering, your clients will be able to find the information they need quickly and easily, even as your company grows and offers more products.

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These filtering capabilities should include the ability to filter multiple attributes and conditions at the same time, as well as the ability to save specific filters for later use.

9. Creating and Administering Categories

An advanced PIM software provider must enable clients to easily manage data and products while taking into account the various categories on the site.

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The software enables eCommerce store owners to categorize products based on specific characteristics, segment lists, post data across multiple platforms, and maintain control over newly launched products.

10. Workflow Collaboration

You can facilitate, collaborate, and automate your business processes based on actions, decisions, and notifications by embracing integrated workflow management. To reduce product time-to-market, the PIM solution enables multiple users to create and edit product information concurrently.

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Users can access relevant tasks and content based on rule and role-based configurations. Thanks to the integration of a graphical workflow editor.

Questions to guarantee you get the right PIM system

Is the PIM System On-Premise or Cloud-Based?

A cloud-based system adheres to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Your PIM system will be centrally hosted and accessible to logged-in users via a web browser on demand.

What Kind of Support Packages are Available?

This is yet another area where PIM systems differ greatly. Live support, paid support, or educational resources such as a support portal or knowledge base are examples of support levels.

Does It Provide Standards Exports Or Customizable Exports?

Your PIM system adapts to your data naming and formatting with customizable exports, while still allowing you to export your product data to different channels.

What work processes must be supported by PIM?

Implementing PIM in your organization will undoubtedly result in changes to some of your work processes – simply because you now have a tool that allows for optimization.

Comparison of Top 5 PIM Systems

1. Supply Sail

Who is it for?

• Small business

Features

• Helps in maximizing employee efficiency when handling huge amount of data
• Flexible and powerful
• Custom store

Pricing

• Custom quotes provided directly by the company

2. Akeneo

Who is it for?

• Everyone

Features

• Centralized product information
• Multiple channel distribution
• Rule and validation workflow

Pricing

• The Community Edition is a free and open-source PIM.
• To purchase a license for the Enterprise Edition, you must sign up for an annual subscription.

3. Salsify

Who is it for?

• Retailers

Features

• Real-time collaboration
• Unlimited users
• Multiple Languages

Pricing

• Custom quotes provided directly by the company

4. Riversand

Who is it for?

• Enterprise-level brands

Features

• Multi-region coverage
• E-catalogs and print media
• Automated workflows

Pricing

• Custom quotes provided directly by the company

5. Plytix

Who is it for?

• Small business

Features

• Direct and bulk editing of product data
• Import and export functions
• Unlimited custom attributes

Pricing

• Plytix offers a free plan for up to 10GB of file storage and 1,000 SKUs. Their Pro plan, which includes API access, a dedicated account manager, and other advanced features, costs $830/month.

6. Pimcore

Who is it for?

• Software Agencies and Integrators

Features

• Highly scalable
• User-specific dashboards
• Built-in style editors.

Pricing

• Open source as well as subscription

Conclusion

As consumer expectations and retail requirements change and expand, so does the amount of product data that businesses must manage. Cross-functional collaboration and permission-based access to trusted product data are required for success on the digital shelf.

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The right PIM tool will provide you with everything you require. The benefits of PIM are:

• Flexibility
• Data governance
• Smooth workflows
• End-to-end usability

that can be implemented across your entire organization. Implementing a product information strategy will simplify your life and help you better manage your product data, ultimately improving your customers' experience and driving revenue.

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It helps in managing every data of the company whether it be emotional data, usage data or emotional data. PIM aids in the standardization of the increasingly complex demands of product content.

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It enables the easy distribution of trusted, enhanced, and high-quality product information to sales and marketing channels. With the right PIM strategy and a consistent, accessible source for product information, you can

• Accelerate workflows and time to market
• Quickly identify and assess product data quality issues
• Capitalise on emerging market opportunities

and, ultimately, provide a positive product experience to customers.

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