The need of manufacturers and suppliers to be able to quickly and efficiently forward product information to their customers is increasing with the move towards digitization. In a world where more than two billion people purchase goods or services online, the critical consumers demand more and more quality product information. As a result, access to detailed, accurate and rich product information becomes vital. This is where a PIM system comes in! PIM software can manage large amounts of product data and centralize it in one location. This makes it easier to optimize the content and publish it effectively to multiple (sales) channels. But a PIM system offers more benefits than just the centralization of product data; the quality of your product information will improve significantly. What are the benefits of good product information?
The benefits of good product information?
LOWER COSTS
Because businesses rely on their data to make critical business decisions, there’s no room for error. But without quality product information, your product team will spend valuable time digging through different systems and departments, combining spreadsheets, and checking accuracy. With a PIM system you can avoid this effort and your team will be able to focus on more profitable activities. Once the product is ready for sale, you can access all attributes (size, color, parts, ingredients, etc.) in one place, reducing the time your sales and marketing team has to spend on compiling catalogues or product specifications. You’ll also have a better idea of which products are selling well, enabling your development team to move forward, for example by evaluating the budget of popular products. PIM also gives you the visibility needed to reduce costs associated with inaccurate transactions. Think about the return process. By investing in a data management strategy that keeps your product data accurate and up-to-date, customers know exactly what they’re getting – and you can avoid returns.
FASTER TIME-TO-MARKET
We know that product life cycles are getting shorter and shorter. This should come as no surprise, as all organizations want to get new products into the hands of customers as quickly as possible. And certainly much faster than the competition. But it takes a huge amount of resources to get a product through development: sketches and designs, distribution and promotion. So, how can companies get products to market faster? The answer lies in good product data! In practice, this often means the need to streamline the processes for collecting, creating and enriching product information. Doing this manually using spreadsheets, emails, or product data stored on someone’s hard drive can quickly turn into an uphill battle. What’s worse – and this is an interesting paradox – is that to improve time to market you are actually wasting your precious time on something that should have been automated a long time ago.
IMPROVE COLLABORATION
The lack of a PIM strategy can also have a negative effect on work culture, both between internal departments and with external partners. When companies maintain data silos that are managed by different administrators, obtaining the necessary authorization to view data that is critical to the development or promotion of a product can be very difficult. It leads employees to see their colleagues as obstacles to overcome, rather than teammates working towards a single goal. It is also more difficult for companies to share information with partners which they need to launch new products or offerings. If you have the right processes within a PIM system and good product data, you only need one system to determine which departments are allowed to see which data. Enabling two departments working on the same project to see the same data in real time encourages innovation and encourages collaboration.
ENHANCE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND SELL MORE
Today, brand loyalty is critical, and this loyalty is built through a deep understanding of customers’ preferences and where and when to find their favorite products. You don’t want a customer to buy a shirt online, get it delivered at home and discover that the length of the sleeves was wrong. Providing more accurate, complete and consistent product information can increase conversion from 17 to 56% according to A.T. Kearney. Implementing a PIM system ensures a consistent customer experience across all platforms. It also helps you understand which products sell best in which stores, so you can fill your limited space with the right items and reduce the number of times a customer leaves the (online) store without purchasing.