Sales: 4 reasons to invest in a PIM to ensure success
22 June 2023
The summer sales are just around the corner, and every brand knows it: this is one of the most important business periods of the year. With inflation, consumers are increasingly likely to prioritise these sales events, which therefore account for a significant proportion of retailers’ annual turnover.
Many sectors are affected: electronics, DIY, ready-to-wear, culture… and, unsurprisingly, e-commerce sites are the clear favourite for half of all French people looking to take advantage of the sales.
To prepare for these peak periods with confidence, it’s essential to be properly equipped in advance to cope with this surge in activity. A PIM is the ideal platform for distributing consistent and reliable product information across all sales channels. Here are four more reasons to implement a PIM to make the most of the sales periods.
Improve time-to-market
During these busy, high-pressure periods, the time it takes to bring products to market must be as short as possible.
Once a product is launched, whether in-store or online, the relevant data and information must be available quickly. It must also be tailored to the medium on which it is presented and to the target audience in question.
In this specific case, the PIM platform is the ideal tool for managing the processes involved in making product information available. As well as streamlining the work of marketing, e-commerce and sales teams, PIM enables you to manage all product information quickly and easily: descriptions, materials, visuals, translations, etc. For a fashion brand – or any other brand – information is thus managed and distributed consistently across all your sales channels, and updated instantly.
With PIM, brands managing product refreshes and producing large volumes of products can manage product information and approval processes more easily.
A significantly shorter time-to-market therefore enables brands to bring their products to market quickly, giving them a real competitive advantage. During sales periods, a time-to-market reduced by a factor of seven – as achieved by our client Jennyfer – clearly makes all the difference.
Focusing on your e-commerce strategy
Digital channels are key during sales periods. Indeed, high-quality, up-to-date and reliable product information is essential. This is precisely what a PIM aims to achieve. Transparent, comprehensive and exhaustive product information removes barriers to purchase and helps prospective buyers make a decision. Thus, maximising product data leaves customers with no excuse not to buy.
Furthermore, ensuring consistency between online and in-store channels is also a winning strategy during sales periods, for customers looking for bargains. Consequently, ensuring consistent product information across your digital sales channels (website, retailers, marketplaces, etc.) and in-store helps to unify the customer experience during this crucial peak period. For example, thanks to PIM, the Devialet brand has managed to standardise its product messaging and sales proposition, despite its wide range of sales channels. During sales periods, when the hunt for the best deals is the top priority, a consistent customer experience sets a brand apart from the competition.
Maximising distribution channels is key during sales periods. Consequently, focusing on an omnichannel strategy remains a major asset. With PIM, control over product information is guaranteed, despite the wide variety of sales channels. This makes it easy for PIM contributors to decide which information to send via which distribution channel. The product data is then disseminated in a consistent and uniform manner, regardless of the channel.
Put simply, PIM is the tool that boosts and maximises your e-commerce, a key channel during peak business periods such as the sales.
Automating your e-commerce processes with Make
During these busy sales periods, teams are often overloaded with work and severely short of time. This is where automation comes into its own to address this problem.
Quable can now boast of being the first PIM available on Make, THE go-to platform for everything related to automation in the world of e-commerce. Automating teams’ repetitive and tedious daily tasks saves valuable time.
As such, many processes can be automated using the Quable and Make connector. Manual errors are reduced or even eliminated altogether. Data is accurate and consistent thanks to the PIM, so the processing of automated tasks is also consistent as a result.
As well as improving quality and productivity, teams also become more flexible, as automation processes are able to adapt quickly to constraints and a changing environment.
For example, during sales periods, stocking online shops quickly and efficiently is essential. This is one of the processes that can be automated using the Make and Quable connector. You can automatically add new products to your store using Google Sheets, create workflows to publish Shopify blog posts… the possibilities for automation to save time during your peak business periods are endless.
Growing your e-commerce business with Quable and Shopify Plus
Maximising your e-commerce business during sales periods has become essential. However, you need the right tools to achieve this. The synergy between the Quable PIM and Shopify—the leading e-commerce platform—is well established, enabling you to sell faster, more easily and from anywhere.
Consequently, during sales periods, your sales channels can be updated very quickly with the most comprehensive and reliable product information, thanks to the PIM. The product experience is therefore standardised and streamlined for both customers and the business. By including specific, market-differentiating data, your customer experience also becomes fully localised and tailored to your target region. Managing multiple shops is straightforward using the Shopify Plus dashboards, giving you a comprehensive overview of your strategy and results.
Finally, the seamless integration of Quable’s PIM with Shopify Plus enables fast and hassle-free data management and distribution during sales periods. Data is distributed in just a few clicks, regardless of the number of channels and Shopify stores.
Conclusion
Equipping your business with a PIM to prepare for key sales periods with confidence is a highly sensible choice for brands. Its flexibility and connectivity with platforms such as Make or Shopify greatly enhance its capabilities. As a result, your e-commerce business is boosted: you save time whilst selling more quickly, regardless of the number of distribution channels you use.
Your product information is consistent and reliable across every sales channel, your time-to-market is reduced, and your e-commerce business is maximised.