Efficient product data management without data silos: PIM as a strategy

How can time-to-market and conversion rates be optimized, and how can abandoned purchases in online shops be prevented? And what does all this have to do with a PIM system as a strategy? Can online orders be implemented more sustainably and returns avoided? If companies can no longer make sense of their product ranges, how are end customers supposed to do so? The answers to these challenges are defined in a strategy for the use of Product Information Management (PIM for short). You can find out everything you need to know about this topic in this guest article.

Master data in the merchandise management system

The initial creation of a new product usually takes place in a company's merchandise management system, where pricing and master data maintenance are also carried out. This data is visually prepared in catalog templates and enriched with appropriate short texts, which are used for the print layouts. As part of a rapid digitization strategy, these texts often end up in "newer" channels, such as an online shop or a content management system. Optimizing these texts for search engines usually falls by the wayside.

Special data for online marketplaces

If additional online marketplaces are to be supplied with polished product data, there are usually no clearly defined processes, including quality control, in place for transferring the data to the appropriate templates. If marketplaces also require special data that may not even be recorded in the merchandise management system (e.g., a separate packaging weight), then values for this purpose must be requested from the production department or the manufacturer.

Digital assets beyond product data

In addition to all product features, digital assets such as assembly instructions, quality seals, product images and videos, etc. are also part of products. In practice, however, these are rarely located in the same place as the product features. Instead, they are usually found on internal company network drives or other storage media, meaning that they can only be clearly identified by their file names. In painstaking detail, customer managers must even preprocess them (rename files, crop images, etc.) before they can transfer them to the other party via file sharing tools.

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More streamlined processes

With the introduction of PIM, workflows involving product data are also optimized outside the new system and mapped or supported by workflows when working in the system. This not only saves you valuable time, but also makes onboarding easier for new content managers.

Reduced time to market

The newly created central database means that all relevant product information is stored in one place. To connect a new target channel, such as an online marketplace, all you need to do is map the relevant fields from the system so that the flow of information can then be automated. This means you no longer have to compile product data manually, resulting in sales that are up to 80% faster.

Monitoring data quality

A good PIM system offers various options for monitoring data quality. The overview can be displayed visually in the system in dashboards or sent to responsible parties via email notification. Inconsistent and incorrect publications are avoided by defining mandatory quality rules.

Digital asset management

The search on drive T:\ for the right images and documents in the correct formats has finally come to an end. Once you have saved references to files in the product data record and stored the relevant information in the file properties, the file name is no longer important. Files can be made available on demand in any format, and it is no longer necessary to store them redundantly on network drives in the company.

Granular data maintenance

Our expert recommendation is therefore: the more granular the data, the easier it is to process. For example, fields containing measurements can be converted into other units of measurement more easily if the numbers are not stored with a measurement abbreviation in the same field.

When using tools for automated text generation (natural language generation), greater variety is also beneficial if these tools are fed with individual characteristics such as color and material rather than half-sentences. If product detail pages are rich in variety, this also has a positive effect on search engine visibility.

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Win-win for shop operators and customers

In addition, size guides, color filters, and product comparisons are easier to implement in online shops or online marketplaces. This allows end customers to search specifically for products that meet their needs (e.g., comprehensive information instead of just size specifications from XS to 3XL). You can avoid multiple orders of the same item due to uncertainty about product features and the associated returns thanks to informative product detail pages, making your business a little more sustainable.