“Incomplete and poor product information is the greatest obstacle on the path to e-commerce and multichannel marketing success.”
Rob Neumann CSS Commerce
The #1 barrier to digital transformation is not having centralized product data management and related media formatted for publication across all channels and eCommerce marketplaces. Furthermore, marketing and sales spend considerable time gathering and verifying unstructured, fragmented product information needed to launch campaigns, export to digital marketplaces, or close sales in real-time.
Digital marketplaces are expanding rapidly making product data management & syndication more complex due to the multiple formats required for internal and external data feeds. PIM software consolidates and organizes product and customer data to make omnichannel marketing more efficient.
Composable API-Driven Architecture
A PIM is an integrated middleware extension that consolidates and normalizes complex product portfolios for omnichannel agility. Furthermore, it captures customer behavioral data that can be leveraged to deliver personalized and uniform shopping experiences across all digital and print channels.
Modern PIMs use an open architecture for unlimited scalability and flexible API-driven integration functionality to tie everything together. Essentially making your product data management the best it can be.
Furthermore, organizations can:
- Standardize product data by setting minimum product data thresholds for publication
- Automate product data importation for millions of products from thousands of manufacturers and wholesalers and normalize to standard
- Reduce 33-80% of product administration costs through automated data importation, consolidation, advanced rule engines, dynamic workflow notifications, and dashboard oversight
- Define data set feeds specific to each digital channel and e-commerce platform through user-friendly drag-and-drop functionality
- Localize products through version management and automated language translations
- Launch products faster through dynamic product data creation. Sales and marketing can begin work on product launches, promotions, and marketing collateral once the minimum data threshold is reached. Then you can get real-time updates
- Reduce cart and search abandonment through product and SEO data enrichment strategies
- Increase close rates by providing a central source of product data and marketing collateral to close sales in real-time eliminating the phrase “I’ll have to get back to you”
- Improve cross- and up-selling by creating product matrixes for related product suggestions, alternate brands, kits, and bundles
- Consolidate product, marketplace, and customer intelligence across all digital channels
Dynamic Product Data Management Functionality
“More than 60% of B2B online stores will return a ‘null search’ when someone enters a query for a product. And if it can’t be found, it can’t be bought.” Rob Neumann CSS Commerce
Many companies use the PIM solution for product data development due to its flexible data modeling functionality and front- and back-end API two-way integration. It acts as a sandbox where product information can be developed and enriched simultaneously by all authorized users with workflow notifications to keep the process moving.
Proper Product Data Management allows companies to contextualize product information for more effective search. Companies can enrich imported product data with
- keyword-rich product attributes, descriptions, features, and benefits
- customer- and industry-relevant search terms
- search engine meta data
- SEO-optimized digital assets like images, pdfs, videos, technical documents, and service manuals
- product matrixes to increase up- and cross-selling opportunities through related product suggestions, alternate brand recommendations, targeted promotions, and discount bundles
- drill-down functionality for an improved user experience and more targeted product recommendations
- version management for product segmentation based on region, industry, channel, market, brand, customer type, or language
Channel Congruence for Seamless Shopping
Version Management for Segmentation
Win the Digital Sales Race
PIM software ensures that product data is centralized, optimized, and digitally mapped to the exact specifications of each digital channel and e-commerce platform. Its two-way integration functionality normalizes product information across all relevant IT systems creating a single source of truth throughout the company.
Process automation and centralized marketing collateral eliminate the need for sales and marketing to collect and verify product data, freeing them to focus on revenue generating activities. Dashboard analytics and custom drag-and-drop reporting functionality offer actionable intelligence to increase cross- and up-selling opportunities through targeted promotions, product bundling, A/B channel tests, and customer-centric marketing.
To compete in global marketplaces and win the digital sales race requires agility. Structured, centralized product information provides marketers with the agility to onboard and launch new products quickly, accurately, and efficiently across all digital channels to win the eCommerce sales race.
