What Challenges Does A PIM System Solve For Retailers?

In the age of hyperconnectivity and omnichannel sales, consistency is primal. Technology provides new opportunities to connect with customers who increasingly expect a conversational style of interaction across channels. Today, retailers are adopting a more omnichannel kind of approach in order to integrate web and in-store experiences in a seamless way. To make this happen, they must drive more values from product information management initiatives to succeed in delivering unified retail commerce experiences for customers.

With accurate, high-quality, and trusted product data, retailers can better structure and consolidate their campaigns across different sales channels while providing personalized customer experiences. 75% of buyers are more likely to purchase from brands that offer a personalized buying experience. Here, a product information management (PIM) system plays a crucial role for contextualization and channel-based tailoring of digital commerce experience with improved buying cycle, enhanced brand reputation, and customer loyalty. When harnessed at its full potential, dedicated PIM tools can add value to the entire data lifecycle and help analyze the buyer’s retail journey.

Also Read: Benefits Of Implementing A Product Information Management Solution 

Why PIM for Retailers

PIM creates a single, trusted source of product information for retailers dealing with long value chains, multiple third-party vendors, and siloed internal/external systems. Ergo, there is no glitch in the information ingested via a chatbot, a social media handle, or even an elaborate email – and the customer switching between mediums does not experience a disconnect. With accurate and up-to-date product information management represented across retail channels, retailers can streamline personalized customer experiences to win their trust.

1. Consolidate and centralize complex product content and information from diverse sources such as spreadsheets, CSV format, ERP, PLM, File systems, Suppliers, and more
2. Provide flexibility to manage data modeling, custom product hierarchies, product data validations, and versioning
3. Create and improve catalogs using complete and up-to-date product information such as product descriptions, images, videos, specifications, and more
4. Keep a closer eye on product data quality for reliability and trust
5. Export and publish product data in different formats across multiple customer touchpoints, channel partners, suppliers, and agencies with industry-standard data pools
6. Build personalized print-ready marketing and sales collateral such as price lists, brochures, technical documentation, and up-to-date presentations
7. Provide robust product data syndication capability to automatically syndicate product data across hundreds of channels and platforms
8. Build high quality, reliable, and up-to-date product data feed optimized for a specific channel
9. Easily integrate with different marketplaces for faster product data import and export
10. Automate the product information’s translation processes to minimize repetitive manual activities
11. Provide digital asset management capability to manage, transform and integrate images, graphics, documents, audio, and video for different marketing campaigns and brand communication

Growing Adoption of PIM Systems

As retailers transform from multichannel to unified retail commerce, new technologies are being introduced to digitalize the physical store, improve operational efficiency, and allow for real-time data and analytics.

Product data is used for operational excellence and to create deeper intimacy through commerce and service channels. They can even reshape their product information management strategy to product experience management to unlock greater business value. One way of doing this is by connecting product information to product analytics to optimize product experiences for customers. It also enables you to build supplier and vendor portals with intuitive UIs so that you can quickly upload product data for faster roll-out of existing and new products.

The adoption of PIM in retail industry has grown due to AI and retail analytics across the e-commerce sector. In the age of reviews, real-time feedback, and social media, streamlined product information can make all the difference. Retailers must present product information in a way that’s complete, accurate, consistent, and easy to digest. When a customer browses through product listings, they can use any available methods—text search or voice-command search—thus detailed information needs to be conveyed for a text or voice conversation.

An effective PIM solution is sure to augment the brand presence, increase customer loyalty, boost overall collaboration, and drive revenue. By streamlining product information with a robust Product Information Management (PIM) solution, quality and personalized product information induces an engaging customer experience and increases the probability of purchase.

What are Top PIM Systems for Retailers

1. Pimcore
2. Akeneo
3. Salsify
4. Informatica
5. Riversend
6. Agility Multichannel, and many more…

Each PIM system comes with its pros and cons. You should consider based on your exact business requirements. Many PIM systems do not come out-of-the-box, so the customization and implementation factors should also be considered while making the final call. Know Top 9 Product Information Management (PIM) Software Solution To Integrate Your Product Data

In Conclusion

Cohesive and comprehensive product information management enables retailers to acquire new customers, increase customer lifetime value (CLV), create omnichannel experiences, and efficiently collaborate with different stakeholders. It can even help save time from data micromanagement and automate several manual data recording functions so that retailers have overall control of the business. From a holistic point of view, better business outcomes can be achieved with better product data management.

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