The Cost of NOT Using a PIM
Making smart business decisions is a constant dance of cost versus value. You have to start somewhere when choosing a service or solution, and often the first question is, “how much will it cost?” Yet, just as often, you ask first about the value of that service or solution whenever it answers a specific pain point you’re trying to massage out of your business.
For brands that supply or sell any kind of product, the value of a Product Information Management software (or PIM) is pretty clear. You have multiple departments handling product data, and consequently that data is inconsistent and causes major headaches. The thought of aggregating and cleaning that data up leaves you feeling overwhelmed, and a PIM is an attractive solution.
But then, in walks cost. Is the cost worth the value that a PIM brings?
In just about every business decision, however, the cost question is never fully answered. Sure, you can run numbers by your stakeholders and see what they think. But the opportunity cost rarely seems to come up.
Opportunity cost answers the question, “What will it cost me if I DON’T acquire this service or solution?”
Today, we’re going to answer exactly that. Here’s what NOT using a PIM will cost your business.
Your growing pains will multiply
If you’ve already considered a PIM, then you’ve probably seen a lot of growth in your company over time. Product data is inherently linked to growth, whether the result of more products, new selling channels, or additional team members. Whatever the case, the result is multiple departments sticking their hands in and manipulating your product data. And obviously, you can’t have six pairs of hands in the same mound of dough!
So, every department makes their own:
Someone next door is making sourdough (say it’s the department using your ERP to manage inventory). Someone across the hall is making banana bread (let’s say it’s the development department working on new products). And someone upstairs is still stuck in antiquated spreadsheets.
When you think about it, how on earth could you maintain a loyal product data profile with all that dough?
A PIM manages all product data from every source so you can quickly smooth out the trouble you’re in now (and set yourself up for streamlined scaling in the future). Things will never be this messy again.
Now, there’s really no sense in mixing banana bread and sourdough. Right? And that’s not what your PIM will do. It actually acts as the central hub that aggregates all the information from everywhere else so each department can keep doing what they need to in the appropriate software.
Instead of scattered and siloed product data, you will have a fully-sustainable ecosystem.
You will have a hard time prepping for ecommerce
If you’re preparing new products for launch on ecommerce or just getting warmed up to jump into the ecommerce boom, you’ll be turning many stones of product data within your business only to find that things like item numbers, SKUs, images, translations, documentation, custom attributes and so much more have become so gnarly and inconsistent that it makes you downright squeamish.
These data discrepancies are normal, but now you’re looking at months—or even years—of untangling those knots before your brand will see the light of day on online marketplaces.
Whether your product catalog is large or small, trying to manually manage multiple lists, documents and software with product data will take so much time that the continued work of other departments will still tangle the incoming data as quickly as you untie what’s already there! (Say that three times fast.) A PIM speeds the process up so that you’re able to correct and polish your data for ecommerce in a matter of weeks instead of months.
If you go through the pains of all that manual labor and then launch on ecommerce anyway, the cost of NOT using a PIM will include:
Inaccurate or incomplete product listings
Longer time-to-market
Increased returns due to inaccurate or not-the-whole-truth product data
Careless and ineffective product branding
You'll spend way, way too much money
Brands are racking up a lot of technical debt trying to roll out overly-complex solutions unnecessarily. There’s also an enormous over-spend for those trying to reinvent the wheel by building custom solutions.
Don’t beat yourself up if you’ve fallen into this trap, because many businesses do. The number of software solutions out there is larger than anyone can keep up with, and navigating those options is a specialty in and of itself.
Your ultimate goal is to aggregate your product data in a smarter format that is fully integrated with the other essential software you use. If you don’t use a PIM, it will cost you big time, because you’ll be stuck instead with one of these options:
1. You manage a “manual” PIM
You can see it now: multiple spreadsheets with version names, and all those pivot tables added in an attempt to manage the onslaught of new data. This process is error-prone and comes with a requisite “family-sized bottle” of Excedrin.
2. You build your own custom PIM
Software development is so accessible now, heck—why not build your own PIM?
If you can afford the investment and to pause operations to rip out the rest of your tech and build your own PIM, good for you. However, reinventing the wheel will be a bad deal no matter how well-positioned your company is to do it. You will end up with half-baked tools and ineffective integrations, not to mention a hefty bill. (Custom software development requires a 10% contingency when budgeting, because that’s about how much it tends to go over.)
3. Employees or whole departments using certain software unnecessarily
If you leave your teams to navigate multiple tools individually instead of aggregating product data in a PIM, you will be stuck with the status quo of overlapping workflows plus gaps and inaccuracies in product data. For example, if there are employees accessing your ERP who otherwise wouldn’t need to, this is bad for efficiency and bad for the fidelity of that data.
Over time, and especially as you add more products and your business grows, product data will become impossible to manage. Discrepancies will multiply exponentially with each new department sticking their hands in the data, and your operations and brand will suffer as workflows slow and your conversion rates drop.
NOT using a PIM costs you opportunity, time, money, and efficiency.
With the recent launch of our PIM, Amber Engine is in a position to help you. We get you started with centralized data and processes so you can aggregate product information and prepare your business for faster time to market to every channel, including those ecommerce marketplaces you’re itching to jump into.
By the way, we didn’t stop with software! We offer product data enrichment, too. After all, just propping your tent up on a marketplace doesn’t mean you’ll maximize sales. Our data enrichment ensures you do.
Alex Borzo
Writer at Amber Engine
A brand can only communicate with messaging behind it, and that's where Alex Borzo comes in. A digital content marketer with a decade of experience, Alex's expertise shines in the research and writing she does for dozens of clients. When she connected with Amber Engine, it was a natural fit—AE had ambitious plans to provide their audience with even more valuable content to win in ecommerce, and Alex's background working with SaaS innovators positioned her to jump right in. The result? Brands and distributors are now discovering AE and all the best tactics to get to Amazon and other online marketplaces in weeks instead of months.