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What is Product Information Management (PIM)?

As Pimcore partners, we are often asked “What is Product Information Management (PIM)/Pimcore?”

Product Information Management, or PIM, is a software tool that enables you to organise and manage product records across multiple platforms and channels. PIM systems allow you to improve the consistency and accuracy of your product records online, and Pimcore is an industry-leading PIM tool.

Understanding PIM

Product Information Management software systems enable you to manage your products and stock more efficiently and effectively. A PIM system records and maintains product information, delivering detailed and compelling product profiles across any marketing and promotional channels you use.

PIMs are particularly useful for e-commerce businesses with a large and complex product catalogue, and sales profiles across third party marketplaces and stores.

PIM can benefit businesses from just about every industry, including retailers, manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers. By implementing a PIM system, you can centralise your product data management processes and improve operational efficiency in your public data. These performance improvements then lead to improved customer experiences and increased sales.

What are the benefits of PIM?

There are many benefits to implementing a PIM system. These benefits of PIM include:

Establishment of a centralised system for managing products
Improved customer experience through smooth transactions and enhanced sales capabilities
Increased capabilities with regard to the level of detailed information that customers can access
Efficiencies in administration and operations, freeing up resources to be redeployed around the business
Improved data sharing and collaboration between teams, to reduce errors and enable efficiency

What are the unique features of PIM?

PIM systems vary from other data management tools, having several distinctive features. PIM systems typically include the following unique capabilities:

Data modelling
Content creation
Data enrichment
Workflow management
Data syndication

According to G2’s reviews of PIM products on the market, to qualify as a PIM tool, a product must have demonstrated capabilities to:

Collect and unify product information from various separate files into one source
Identify and fix problematic or inconsistent product data and metadata
Provide search and filtering functions that can be used internally or online by buyers
Organise product data based on their characteristics, attributes, and similarities
Push product information out to e-commerce, retail, social media, and marketplaces
Analyse product data, its quality, and usage across multiple channels

It’s these functionalities that set PIM systems apart from other data solutions like ERPs and CMS.

What are the benefits of businesses using PIM as compared to businesses not using PIM?

One of the significant advantages of PIM is that it helps businesses to identify and eliminate duplicate or outdated information, reducing the costs associated with managing and distributing product data. By automating many data management processes, PIM reduces your requirement for repetitive data entry tasks.

By implementing a PIM system, you can improve your data management processes and become more agile. PIM systems can enable your staff to manage their product data more proactively, enhancing their ability to respond to customer contacts and queries.

How can PIM make companies more profitable?

One way PIM can increase your profit is by streamlining product data management and improving data accuracy. With a centralised PIM system, businesses can ensure that their product information is consistent across all channels and markets, leading to improved customer experiences and increased sales.

PIM can help businesses identify and eliminate duplicate or outdated information, which can also save money.

The right PIM tool could also help your business to respond to evolving market changes and customer demands. This can help your business to become more agile and competitive, ultimately leading to increased profitability. That’s what e-commerce activity is all about!

Is PIM widely adopted by businesses?

Initially seen as a product for online retailers and e-commerce operators only, many businesses from across a range of industries are now seeing the benefit of PIM. In the post-COVID world and with our increasing reliance on online communications, PIM systems are growing in use and popularity. A quick review of Pimcore’s customer success stories on their website includes some big-name brands and global companies.

Do I need PIM?

PIM can improve and enhance your reputation and brand by enabling you to deliver streamlined information across every channel through which you are active. If you have multiple sales sites and channels, or complex product catalogues with customisations, then you should definitely consider a PIM solution.

The benefits of implementing a PIM system are clear. And yet many businesses need help understanding if PIM is the right choice for them. In some cases, reluctance to use PIM can come from the top; the board or executive team may wonder if PIM would really make much difference. In these cases, you might be asked to produce a more detailed cost-benefit analysis or business case.

A business case for PIM should outline the benefits not only in terms of technological and data quality improvements but also for the enhancements to brand and perception that result from customers who have a positive experience on your site or with your company. The need for consistent, easy to access and up to date information extends through all of your communications and engagement with customers and clients.

How product management boost sales

PIM systems can save your teams a lot of time. PIM can process and present data much more efficiently than an employee inputting heaps of data manually. Using a software solution to roll out product updates also greatly reduces the risk of human error.

Errors and inefficiencies in product listings and data can mean customers can be disgruntled or unwilling to complete a purchase if they encounter problematic product listings.

PIM systems can also help you reduce cart abandonment through effective sales funnel management and customised reminders and alerts. According to Barilliance, the average cart abandonment rate in 2019 was 77.13%. A sophisticated PIM tool can help you reduce abandonments because it can follow up customers through sale channel monitoring and reminders.

PIM systems can also be used to improve content optimisation for customers viewing on mobile. In 2023, more than 70% of visits to retail sites were made on a mobile device. With this figure expected to continue to climb, you definitely need to create a sales experience that works well for an increasingly mobile customer base.

Ensuring compelling product pages

A PIM system will also enable you to build a compelling sales platform online. Now more than ever, customers expect responsive, interactive, and engaging user experiences when browsing your online stores. Contemporary businesses should prioritise creating quality online stores and ecommerce sites that provide outstanding user experience.
Positive experiences on your site will lead to many more sale conversions than a poorly designed site with low search capacity and little product information. Through a PIM system you can:

Ensure products have relevant and quality keyword associations to help buyers find what they are after, allowing for variances in how they might describe or explain a product
Apply keywords with high search frequency to your products
Create detailed product descriptions with information regarding product categories and variations as well as product user guides, instruction manuals, assembly instructions and warranty details

What is Pimcore?

Pimcore is open source PIM solution that has capabilities beyond the traditional PIM tool. Pimcore was founded in 2013 and has now been deployed in more than 100,000 companies around the world. There are more than 130 solution partners, including Stimulus.

Pimcore not only provides outstanding PIM services, it also has modules for Master Data Management (MDM), Digital Asset Management (DAM), Customer Data Platform (CDP), Digital Experience Platform (DXP) and Digital Commence.

How to create great products with Pimcore

Pimcore enables you to load all the product information your customers might need or want onto every single product record and item. This includes fields for data related to:

Product description, built up with keywords and emotive language to promote engagement and sales
Product key features and usage guidelines
Brand history and overview
Product categories and subcategories which can be altered and varied by the customer
Product variations such as colour, size, measurements, capacity, capability and usage, among others
Size guide information for clothing, apparel, shoes and accessories
Packaging and delivery details
Type of sales units – including if the product is sold as an individual item or in multiples
Product reviews and ratings, including review scores and commentary
Assembly instructions and user guides, available for download in multiple file formats
Technical specifications

Beautiful and engaging websites with Pimcore

On top of text based functionality, solutions like Pimcore can help you create highly engaging and interactive websites for your customers to browse. With regard to images and video, Pimcore can:

Showcase videos
Display product galleries
Enable customised views for shoppers
Deliver quick image views

When to use PIM

A PIM system can add value to your e-commerce and online trading capabilities wherever you are in your organisational journey. However, there are key times when a PIM system can make an immediate and big difference to your operations. These include when you are:

Moving your operations from local to cloud storage
Merging with another business or organisation
Reviewing or updating your brand
Releasing a new product line, range or catalogue

PIM case study

A large manufacturing company used a PIM solution to consolidate data from across more than two million products and variations. This extensive project involved consolidating multiple systems where product information was stored. The objective was to create a single source of truth for product records and information pulled from complex legacy data sources.

A PIM software solution enabled this manufacturing company to interrogate, cleanse and consolidate data while generating a more reliable and consistent source of information. Product information could be presented highly visually and intuitively on the company website.

The PIM solution also enabled improved stock and supply control through rigorous product handling records, and the automation of previously manual stock update tasks.

It also meant that data could be used more efficiently through keywording and applying tags and taxonomies to products. A new search tool on the company’s website quickly presented customers with their best and most appropriate purchase options.

The company was then able to monitor data accuracy, use inbuilt analytics for assessing views and conversions and deliver improvements in time to market.

Pimcore and Audi

Everyone knows Audi. This European car company produces and distributes premium quality vehicles. They have 90k employees globally through more than 3000 dealerships. Prior to implementing a product information system, Audi reported issues with:

Manual ordering processes
Wasted resources with printed and faxed order forms
Duplication of effort in logging and preparing orders

Audi used Pimcore to improve data management and guarantee more accurate data records. Pimcore partners help Audi set up a new and fully automatic order portal. This single source of truth across the company enabled Audi to deliver improvements across multiple business processes. Suppliers also saw the benefit of higher quality and more consistent order notifications.