7 Definite Advantages of PIM Systems

Why You do Need a PIM System

Product information occupies a central role in the sales of your products. Only if you provide all information at the right time, through the right touchpoints, in the right quality, as prepared for the right target groups can the customer make a well-informed purchasing decision. To render this process as smooth and efficient as humanly possible, companies are to overcome a set of challenges: data must be collected, enriched with additional info, and exported to the respective market channels in a tailor-made manner in order to provide an exceptional Product Experience to the customer. Such requirements can simply no longer be handled by an ERP system alone. To tackle these requirements head on, you require a Product Information system (PIM). Why this is, indeed, the case and what advantages the use of a PIM system brings to the table for you company – this and more is what you’ll learn if you keep on reading.

1. Optimization of Company-wide Collaboration

Have you experienced this before? Your product information is scattered over various systems, such as an ERP system, a PLM system, and even separate Excel files. Additionally, this data is spread over different departments with different responsibilities, like Product Management, Marketing, and E-Commerce. Every department maintains its relevant data in their very own system. As a result, one and the same data records are available in different versions and states – every team has brewed their own soup. Such inconsistent data management means that processes can’t run smoothly and may even cause frustration among employees. This makes for a situation that poses a great many challenges to the entire company.

With a PIM, all redundant data management comes to an end since everything will be cleanly organized in the “Single Source of Truth.” All employees of your company involved can view and edit all relevant product information starting from the ERP system and culminating in the various export channels. On the one hand, this saves valuable personnel and resources: those who struggled with redundant data storage before can now dedicate their full concentration to the tasks that really matter. On the other hand, PIM heavily encourages teamwork. After all, the whole product knowhow is centrally pooled together into a single source and consistently provided to everybody. This centrality leads to improved collaboration as much as it leads to a reduced frustration potential.

2. Address Your Customers in a More Efficient Manner Across the Entire Customer Journey

In a PIM system, you can first manage product data in a media-neutral manner and then specialize your information offer with channel-specific information or description texts. What does this mean in plain terms? This is best illustrated in the form of an example: A product description for an e-commerce website can be longer than a print catalog which operates with limited space. With a PIM, texts distributed to print catalogs can be shortened automatically so that only the most important information with the highest priority is included in the text.

Since all product data is pooled together at a central spot thanks to PIM, you can always guarantee for contradiction-free and up-to-date data. And this way, only the right information is provided to each distribution channel, too. Nowadays, this facet is becoming more and more important since the customer passes through many touchpoints before forming her purchasing decision.

The following channels are supplied by PIM:

• Online shops
• Electronic catalogs
• Print catalogs
• Mobile apps
• E-Commerce platforms
• Social media

Over the course of forming a purchasing decision, the customer informs herself using most of these touchpoints. The order in which she refers to them, however, may vary. Some may first browse their social media channels and then commit to the purchase in the online shop, while others form their opinion of products utilizing the various e-commerce platforms before buying the object of desire in a physical store on site.

Regardless of the actual order and the point of sale, one thing is especially decisive: for successfully addressing the customer, consistent product data is required across all touchpoints.

3. Target-Group-Oriented Product Communication for Your Customers

Besides a consistent customer appeal, the target-group-oriented approach also carries high significance. Human beings are individuals, they have different requirements for products and want to be met on their own ground accordingly. For each target group, you require the right customer approach. Which is why the product description of, say, a drilling machine for a B2B shop differs drastically from that for a B2C shop. After all, both shops appeal to different target groups with different requirements for power drills. In a PIM system, you can store the respective product information directly together with the product itself and then export it on demand into the respective target channel together with digital assets and technical data. With that, you meet your customers on their own ground in the most optimal manner, while you, as a PIM user, can keep full oversight of all general and target-group-specific product information at all times.

4. Accelerate Time-to-market

The central data management in a PIM system guarantees a faster export into the various channels. Thanks to much lighter in-house processes and the clear overview of the current state of things, you can easily identify missing information and catch up accordingly. The result: a quicker time-to-market. The build-in workflow management can then automatically trigger further processes, such as the translation process or the creation of product catalogs and flyers. All in all, the realization of a PIM project and its implementation into your current IT infrastructure does also coincide with an analysis of your current product data processes. In combination with the introduction of a PIM system, such an analysis contributes significantly to the optimization of your processes – from which your time-to-market can, in turn, also profit.

5. Boost Your Conversion Rate

With a PIM system, you have command over various functions for increasing product data quality. Such functions can make clear which data records still need more attention to boost the overall data quality. Also, quality gates can be set up to validate when exports to the online shop, for example, are allowed and when they aren’t because the given data quality guidelines are not met yet. This way, you can always make sure that the product is only offered once all relevant information is fully prepared. Complete and high-quality product data can contribute to increasing your customer conversion rate in this manner.

Equally as relevant for an increase of your conversion rate are the relations between products with regard to up-selling and cross-selling. In a PIM system, you can realize this by simply creating links or references between objects. All in all, this constitutes yet another feature which can contribute to higher sales.

6. Enhance Customer Retention

Product Information Management does also support you in forming emotional bonds with your customers. This is because a PIM makes sure that your data is contradiction-free at all times. Complete and high-quality product information make Product Experience skyrocket and provide your customer with a positive purchasing experience – which will strengthen your brand as a whole. You want to learn more about Product Experience? In our free whitepaper, “4 Steps to Using Product Data Efficiently and Creating Product Experience”, we demonstrate to you how you can get the best out of your product data with just a few tweaks.

7. Minimalize Product Return Rate

A high return rate means higher packaging and transport costs – this hurts both your company and the environment. Which is why a low return rate pays off double. With the use of a PIM system, you can define measures which can lower the return rate significantly. To take Germany as an example case study, 30 percent of the product returns in Germany are caused by insufficient product descriptions and false product information according to empirical research (source: https://de.ax-semantics.com/). Here, the benefits of a PIM software solution come into full effect, making sure that product data and corresponding assets are supplied to the various e-commerce platforms, shops, etc. in the right quality. The product information improved in this manner has helped many PIM-powered retailers to lower their product return rate by a large margin.

eggheads Suite, the Go-To PIM System for All Your Requirements

As a PIM developer, we’ve got just the right software for you. The aforementioned advantages of PIM are easy to put into practice with our system. Your company, too, can establish a more effective use of resources, more efficient Product Communication, and a lower product return rate.

With our PIM, you can manage and refine product data centrally, while utilizing its interfaces to supply all relevant sales channels. Form your own educated opinion and inform yourself about eggheads Suite.