Product Information Management System: What Is It and Why Is It Important?
What exactly is PIM?
Nowadays, various online stores, as well as other channels on the internet and mobile searches, are the prominent places consumers go for details about products. As per Retail dive, over 70% of shoppers conduct research on products online before entering the retail store. Over 55% of customers visit stores prior to buying online, highlighting the fact that seamless and high-touch experiences across all channels are crucial to modern retailing. Due to the shifting consumer habits and the growing expectations for seamless shopping, companies have begun to employ the digital market in a variety of ways.
With the increase in the digitalization of the world, it has become essential for every company to have consistent branding and precise product information across all channels. A product Information Management system is consequently required to handle the massiveness and complexity that is generated by various channels, both offline and online.
PIM is used extensively by marketers, online merchandisers, and managers of products who are constantly seeking out more user-friendly tools to organize all their product data in one place, without having to continually ask for information from colleagues or partners through emails or calls.
What’s the significance of PIM crucial?
The product information management systems are essential to control the customer-facing strategy. The reason for this is that consumers nowadays spend a significant amount of time looking up products online prior to making a purchase. Therefore, the requirement for quality content is becoming more crucial for retailers, manufacturers, distributors, and CPG companies. The description of the product nowadays has an important part to play to help make sales on the internet.
In actual fact, retail stores are placing a premium on online content enhancement over a variety of other merchandising companies like product recommendations testing, A/B testing, and personalization. These are two major reasons for this situation:
A detailed description of the product is the most important factor in the customer experience. Studies have revealed that 30% of US consumers would rather purchase from online stores they’ve never purchased from if the description on the site is clear.
There’s a new generation of purchasers due to the need for accurate and consistent information on products. In the end, 33 percent of channel strategy experts and businesses said the importance of investing in product information management systems is their top priority.
Why should businesses make investments in PIM?
The choice to purchase a PIM solution isn’t identical for all. Retailers’ needs differ according to the sector and the type of business. There are many situations that prompt businesses obsessed with their customers to invest in PIM. Here are the most common scenarios.
The need for an all-in-one view of information about the product that is facing. Businesses that develop their own product have relied on products information management systems from the beginning to gather supply chain data relating to the buy-side, such as product weight and dimensions. Businesses also require the PIM to be a central source for authentic, consumer-friendly and approved product information that is accessible all across their company to internal users. They are also available to their outside channel partners, such as retailers and resellers.
To speed up the time required to launch innovative products which have been introduced. Processes that are manual hinder the purpose of streamlining, such as design publishing, creating, and the approval process—the PIM assists in automatizing most of the processes involved to create products.
In order to be able to accommodate more extensive product catalogs. PIM provides scalable solutions that enable companies to expand their product lines and SKUs without worrying about system scaling.
To meet the ever-demanding channels of distribution partners. PIM can manage the specific contents of each partner channel as well as tools for distributing the content to meet specific specifications.
To ensure a consistent cross-channel customer experience.