What Is a Product Information Management Software? And What ISN'T It?
“Your organization needs to run like a finely-tuned machine,” they say.
Do they say how? No.
At least…not usually. Today, we’re going to change that.
When multiple mechanisms work together to get a bigger job done, they need something that holds them together. For example, take your car’s combustion engine. What’s it held in? The engine block! If you never got under the hood with Grandpa, we can explain: this is the casing that holds the cylinders, timing chain, pistons and other parts of the engine securely in place.
After all, that engine is setting off controlled explosions as you drive down the street. Without the casing, the innards of that engine would struggle to work in harmony. Cylinders would knock into one another, the crank shaft would over-crank, and the oil pump would positively spew all over the rest of the car’s mechanics.
Yuck.
The same is true in your organization when you try to manage product data. To get where you want to go, multiple cylinders—or in this case, departments—are flying along and “doing their thing” as they manage and manipulate product data. But they use different software, different systems, and their data is in no way connected to the department next door. Then, when more inventory comes in, that’s like the oil pump of new data spewing everywhere and hoping each department will catch enough of it to keep moving.
To hold things properly together, organizations use Product Information Management (or PIM) solutions. A PIM is your company’s engine block. Each department continues to do its thing while the PIM holds all the product data securely in place. A PIM provides a “single source of truth” where you collect, manage and enrich product information. This means you can create your product catalog and distribute it to new ecommerce marketplaces in weeks instead of months.
Once you have your product data in order, a natural question is whether that data can be sent to your online channels through shopping platform integrations. A smooth connection with these platforms could make your life easier, right? But not all PIMs have these integrations, and PIMs that do often only offer them with high-profile shopping platforms. If you sell on other channels, bully for you. A glimmer on the horizon says this norm is about to change because technologies like API2Cart can provide a unified API that allows PIM software to get access to the data from e-stores. Whether or not your PIM has this feature already, though, the important thing is that it have a library of export templates you can save your data to. These templates require just one more click of the mouse than an integration would, and poof! The selected subsets of data are saved to a template you can upload directly to any online channel you need.
Not bad, huh?
So, that’s what a PIM is. Next, we’re going to dive into what it isn’t. If you want to see more of what a PIM does, click here to keep reading.
What ISN'T a PIM?
To really understand the nitty-gritty of what a PIM is, we also have to talk about what it isn’t.
Let’s look again at those departments all “doing their thing.” They use several different software solutions between them, right?
A PIM is not the one software that does those other software’s jobs. Rather, it’s the center of your software ecosystem.
Let’s take a look at some key operational solutions you’re already using and what their jobs are: ·
- ERP: Your ERP system is fundamental to supply chain management. It’s where inventory is tracked and financial processes are documented.
- CRM: Your CRM is the number-one support resource for sales and customer relations. Client data is stored here, and communications are powered by this software, too.
- PLM: Your PLM is where products are developed and the lifecycle of those products is managed.
Your PIM is at the center of this software ecosystem. It aggregates all the product data together from each independent solution, not to mention all the spreadsheets floating around. This enables you to easily manage product images, videos, collections, details, listings, specifications, promotions and more. On your PIM, you can just as easily enrich and prepare data for all selling channels, too, including online marketplaces. Selling on multiple marketplaces? That's exactly what your PIM supports.
Different departments need different software for their operational day-to-day. But the inconsistent product data siloed away in these software makes for a hot mess for your product catalog and ecommerce presence. PIM software takes you to market in a fraction of the time by aggregating the information for you so you can save months of manual work.
Sound appealing?
Well, yeah. That's why we built it. We knew this was an itch people needed to scratch.
Why Use a PIM?
We’ve touched on this a bit already, but this is still a great question to ask. So—a PIM can get you to market faster. It can save you headaches. It acts as the casing to hold all your organization’s cylinders together. That much is clear.
There are other reasons to use a PIM, too. Here are just a handful:
Say you want to sell on multiple marketplaces. Your product data will be similar site-to-site, but the optimizations for each marketplace will be different. Even the size of photos, the number of videos, or the fields to fill out for products will differ. Enriching your product data to dig into the advantages of each marketplace will take a magician if done manually! But with PIM, this is not only attainable, but simple to do.
There are still manual ways you can create a “single source of truth” that aren’t a PIM. Of course, just about everyone in the working world wants to ditch excess manual work, but sometimes the only way around it is cost-prohibitive. The thing is, a PIM is a non-invasive solution to aggregate product data and clean it up. This means it doesn’t step on the toes of any existing practices or processes of other departments. Manual solutions, on the other hand, twist each department’s arm to “play ball” with whatever data management system is invented, like a spreadsheet or a shared drive.
A PIM saves you from careless errors, too. The two biggest problems in product data management are missing information and inconsistencies. With a PIM, it’s a lot easier to catch both when you have all your data aggregated in a single system—especially one designed to manage and enrich your product information!
A PIM can help you rock the user experience on multiple marketplaces, too. Read how in this article.
Using PIM software can open up a world of possibilities for you and your business. It’s the casing to your engine…it’s the chain to your bike gears…it’s the solution designed to move you past the never-ending manual work. Updating your product catalog or launching into ecommerce on new marketplaces should be your big break, not a headache! Schedule a demo today to see what a PIM really means for your organization.
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.