The global eCommerce market size is expected to surpass a whopping $7.5 trillion by 2030. And this is just in the B2C space. With consumers increasingly transitioning to digital purchases, businesses are engaging in a race against time to put up their entire product and service catalog online and facilitate easy sales.
The widespread use of modern eCommerce platforms has given much-needed digital support for businesses to transition into the world of eCommerce. But along with it, they face a slew of challenges on the data front. Among them, managing product information and data is the toughest nut to crack.
The Complexities Of Product Data
Today, products sold online by businesses typically come from numerous suppliers or partners. However, from a customer’s perspective, they do not bother about how the product is sourced within the business. All that matters to them is getting the right product in the shortest time with known search keywords.
Furthermore, shoppers may also have specific customization or personalization demands for products like localization, translations, documentation, custom pricing, etc. which add more complex data management layers on the backend for eCommerce businesses.
Their operational systems must aggregate data from different sources, combine it for made-to-order product selections, add the custom pricing information, etc., before offering products to the customers at checkout. This applies to various product marketing campaigns as well. In the payment stage, further data would be generated based on personalization in payment options.
This is especially true for B2B businesses, where payment terms often include different options for bulk purchases. As you can see here, there is a mountain of data and information that exists and is created as part of daily operations within an eCommerce business. Enterprise leaders need a way to manage the large gamut of information flowing within their business systems, and this is where Product Information Management, or PIM, comes into the picture.
What Is PIM?
PIM is the systematic process of managing product information across your business to enable easy marketing and sales across different channels. It acquires information about a product from different business systems, centralizes and organizes it, and transforms data into the tailored format required for different outbound initiatives of the business such as web, print, digital marketing campaigns, 3rd party channels, etc.
PIM offers businesses a collaborative workspace for different stakeholders like marketers, product managers, etc. They can edit and manage all product information like catalogs, item identifiers, documentation, and multimedia insights like images, audio, video, translation texts, etc., in one place.
How Can PIM Become A Key Driver For Personalization And Conversion Optimization?
With PIM, eCommerce businesses have a powerful approach to managing their complex product data. Much of their customer engagement and lead nurturing initiatives require custom data configurations to be shared with the respective marketing or sales channel tool in real time.
PIM enables this custom data supply by aggregating information from diverse systems and transforming it into the desired formats for consumption. A PIM system enables businesses to build more value for their data and ultimately use the data to build a winning eCommerce experience.
Here are three major areas where PIM brings about a transformational change in eCommerce product data:
1. Quality Control
By centralizing information from across the digital landscape, PIM allows stakeholders to work on the most relevant and recent data snapshots for their individual or joint needs. Moreover, it can consistently ensure that the accuracy and completeness of data is established centrally and subsequently across all channels where it is utilized like marketing, web, email, etc. Quality will become an integral part of the product data lifecycle when PIM is leveraged.
2. Digital Asset Management (DAM)
PIM systems inherently offer DAM capabilities that help in organizing a diverse range of digital assets for consumption by different audiences across various channels. Today, PIM platforms help in bringing more context to product information by allowing companies to not just map textual content to a product item but also audio, images, videos, and other rich content types. These assets can then be consistently distributed to suit different customer experiences and branding expectations across channels.
3. Data Synchronization
PIM systems allow seamless integration with popular eCommerce marketplaces and shopping storefronts across search engines and social media platforms. This enables companies to not just publish tailored content on their own eCommerce websites but also on 3rd party channels with no compromise on content quality, relevancy, and recency.
These systems help push content with dynamic titles or media frames that can adapt to the target storefront in social media or search engines while maintaining consistency in the information supplied.
Wrapping Up
These three core elements bring an unprecedented amount of control for eCommerce companies to establish a powerful network of sales channels without worrying about personalizing or optimizing their data or content delivery streams. All they need to do is to select the right PIM services, connect their business systems and enjoy the benefits of streamlined product data across their sales channels.
Building a native PIM capability could be a challenge for eCommerce companies because of the technology and data handling expertise needed. This is where an expert partner like EnFuse can help. Connect with us to know more.
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