PIM in e-commerce: why use it?

Whatever your e-commerce activity, optimizing the management of your product data must be at the heart of your business challenges. That's where PIM (Product Information Management) comes in! Find out more about this e-commerce solution and its essential features for your omnichannel strategy. We tell you all about it!

An e-commerce solution PIM

PIM (or Product Information Manager) is the simplest solution for managing a company's product information and optimizing the product experience. The platform brings together all product-related data (technical characteristics, description, origin, labels, composition, etc.). So you can create perfectly optimized product sheets for your e-commerce business and your future customers!

The structure of a ideal product sheet should include :

• a qualitative description at the right length;
• comprehensive product attributes;
• at least one good quality media.

Is the quality of your product sheets up to scratch?

Are you wondering if your product sheets are really qualitative and optimised for your natural referencing? We can help you find out: evaluate the quality of your product sheets for free with our Product Quality Score (PQS). 

💡 To go further, discover our complete guide on PIM!

The benefits of PIM for your e-commerce business

Benefits from an experience, marketing and e-commerce perspective

Without a dedicated solution, managing product information within a company is a headache: "home-made" tools, exchange of Excel files, manual data entry... Such an ecosystem shows that it's difficult to work without PIM: increased workload and risk of error, lower productivity for product marketing departments, etc.

Need arguments to convince management to invest in a PIM? Here are some tips : 

• rapid marketing of products: the time-to-market is divided by 7 on average;
• an ecosystem of interconnected tools (ERP, print tools...), to facilitate the supply of sales media and maximize the power of your e-commerce;
• easier internal collaboration, thanks to a dedicated platform and a nominative distribution of workflows;
• a limited risk of error, thanks to the centralisation and harmonisation of the information produced.

These benefits allow companies to invest in their future strategy, notably through :

• considerable time savings: on average 60 days per person per year can be redistributed to higher value-added tasks;
• easier translation and multilingual processes;
• well-informed customers and improved conversion rates, thanks to enriched and reliable product data (not just for BtoC, but also for BtoB);
• easier access to other international markets and the acquisition of new sales channels: merchant sites, marketplaces, distributors and other e-commerce channels.

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Who is this solution for?

The PIM, or Product Information Manager, is an invaluable resource for both large and small e-commerce sites. Large companies looking to modernize their e-commerce platform or transform their digital infrastructure benefit greatly from its efficiency. This solution enables them to centralize and optimally manage a vast array of product data and customer interactions across various online sales channels, optimizing the PXM.

For small and medium-sized businesses looking to take the next step in their digital transformation, PIM offers a valuable opportunity. By adopting this solution, they can streamline their internal operations, improve their online visibility and deliver more consistent, personalized customer experiences. It enables them to structure their product data effectively, synchronize it and manage their digital resources efficiently.

In a competitive environment where online presence is crucial, this solution gives companies a significant advantage by enabling them to dynamically manage and enrich their data, rapidly integrate new products onto their site, and respond agilely to changing expectations. Finally, PIM is an indispensable solution for any company wishing to optimize its operations, strengthen its online presence and offer exceptional shopping experiences to its users.

Benefits from an IT perspective

What does this mean for IT Departments? TheProduct Information Management tool has been designed to adapt to all structures:

• Its ergonomics and ease of use make it a perfect tool for small and medium-sized businesses;
• It integrates perfectly into an IS ecosystem as a complement to an MDM (Master Data Management) tool or an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).

How does it work?

Information is pooled on a single, easy-to-use platform. Say goodbye to Excel files for data governance! Everything is designed to automate processes. What's more? All your channels are fed in real time.

It supports your omnichannel strategy: your product and media information is managed en masse thanks to automated workflows. The risk of error is reduced to 0.1%. Last but not least, each product benefits from an adapted listing on one or all sales channels, for better management product catalog.

The implementation of a solution PIM in company: instructions for use

Before choosing the right solution

You have the project to market products in e-commerce? You must consider the management of product information with the deployment of a PIM from the start! This will allow you to control your product catalog on all your sales channels.

Do you already have a well-stocked omnichannel product repository? We can also implement it as part of a process overhaul.

Some advice before you start

Before deploying a PIM for an e-commerce project, set clear and ambitious goals, while remaining achievable. Here is our advice to launch your PIM in the best conditions: 

• Set up a reference team led by a PIO (Product Information Officer): this team will be responsible for setting up the tool and ensuring the quality of the data produced;
• Involve, inform and train your teams: it is a cooperative project that serves the interests of the company as a whole;
• Allocate time: set aside dedicated time slots to meet key milestones and maintain project efficiency;
• Test and adjust to optimize your tool management. 

Launching the project

In order to manage your PIM efficiently, there are 4 steps to keep in mind. 

1- Define your objectives: think omnichannel

The point is to be able to pool and make reliable information across all your e-commerce and other media: marketplaces, web, print and phygital, for example. You therefore need to define your objectives and your marketing plan with omnichannel in mind, rather than multichannel.

2- Assigning roles in your company

Prior to implementation, you need to set up an expert Product Information Management team, consisting of a contact person and other staff who will feed the tool.

3- Framing the project

Then it's time to get down to business: 

• setting up a Data-Model around your products, to customise the design of your tool, but also the feeding and dissemination of the data;
• map all integrated data: what is it, where does it come from and where does it go?
• Build a workflow to automatically assign tasks to your employees, from data enrichment to distribution to the various sales channels.

4- Define the product data needed to feed the solution

To feed the solution effectively, a variety of data sources are required, depending on the company's specific objectives. These sources include structured ERP data, information from management and multimedia tools, marketing and logistics data. Integrating supplier data is also recommended, especially for perishable products.

The solution integrates a complete synthesis of this essential e-commerce data, covering basic information, sales details, logistics standards, inventory, media, contextual data, consumer-generated content, product associations, sales performance and even competitor data. What's more, the solution integrates DAM (Digital Asset Management) for centralized management and harmonized distribution of product and media information across all online sales channels.

5- Get support

Our mission is to provide you with technical support for the implementation and follow-up of your project.

Would you like more details on the 4 key steps for framing your tool ? Download our free ebook. 

Quable's specificities: the PIM of brands

The advantages of Quable

We offer a dedicated product information management solution specially designed for brands wishing to take their e-commerce to the next level. Thanks to our PIM & DAM platform, you can enrich your product data sheets not only with text (composition, descriptions, technical specifications), but also with media via the DAM (Data Asset Manager) natively included in the solution.

To make life easier for our customers, we provide tailor-made support and offer a wide range of features:

• Our tool is available as SaaS: we take care of hosting and updating your tool, so you can concentrate on your core business;
• you will have access to a unique and user-friendly dedicated universe: it will be easy for all your collaborators to manage the content associated with the products and toexport the data they need;
• All your IT tools can be interconnected with Quable PIM : our solution is compatible with the largest ERP, MDM or PLM on the market. And if yours is not, we will make it compatible with custom solutions.

Our customers share their success

Brands that have chosen to use our solution have achieved their objectives, and much more besides. Here are just a few success stories: 

• The Jennyfer brand was able to reduce its time-to-market from 7 days to just 24 hours;
• Stokomani went omnichannel in just 3 weeks, integrating over 7,000 supplier references into its web catalog from the outset. Today, 500 references are added every week;
• Club Med was able to launch a collaborative tool on an international scale, thanks to the translation and simultaneous availability of data in over 35 languages.

Are you inspired by these results? Discover other success stories from our clients.

Imagine reliable product data, a simplified e-commerce ecosystem, SEO-optimized product sheets and real-time feeds to all your sales channels. Quable makes it possible! For a simple and effective digital transition, test Quable's PIM today.

I want to see a Quable demo!

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