How to Streamline Your product catalog management with PIM
As product-centric businesses continue to expand their offerings, the amount of product data they manage grows and efficient management of product catalogs becomes increasingly important. Product information management (PIM) software offers a solution for businesses to streamline the product catalog management process, saving them time, money and hours of effort.
What a PIM does
A PIM is a software solution which enables businesses to manage their product data (including product descriptions, images, pricing, and other product-related information) from a centralised point. Using a PIM, they can manage product information across multiple channels like e-commerce platforms, mobile apps, and print catalogs. It ensures that all information is consistent and up to date across all channels to guarantee a superior customer experience.
Among a PIM’s extensive range of features are: onboarding of product data from suppliers, product data storage and management, product data enrichment, product categorisation and taxonomy, and product information syndication and distribution to channels.
Product Catalog Management
For a product-centric business, managing its product catalogs is fundamental, but there is several common challenges which they face, many of which are down to poorly organised product data.
Updating Product Listings: bad product catalog management makes updating catalogs a time-consuming and laborious process. Time wasted on badly organised catalogs creates inefficient workflows.
Handling Multiple Sales Channels: catalog management needs to support various online marketplaces, such as Amazon or Shopify. EThese channels (and many more) have different protocols for accepting product specs and categories and if you have to tailor catalog data to every one, it takes too long if your aim is to get to market fast, particularly if the catalog is incomplete or messily structured.
Incorporating Third-Party Data: Businesses don’t always generate their own product data. It comes from third-parties (like suppliers or content providers), often in a different format or missing attributes you need. Efficient catalog management involves cleansing and standarising this data so it is usable.
Expanding product range: a badly organized catalog makes it difficult to add new product. Businesses aim for growth, and this issue puts a brake on how fast a company can grow.
How PIM Streamlines Product Catalog Management
A PIM solution streamlines product catalog management. By making it easy and fast to manage their products, such as the details and description of each item, and its price and availability. Catalog managers can also use its tools to efficiently integrate new products and update existing ones.
More benefits include:
Consolidation of product catalogs so that they are always consistent and up to date. Users can easily define and map new product categories and add new products, including pricing, and discounts. This eliminates manual processes, reducing the risk of error and saving time.
Instant catalog creation: Users can upload large volumes of product spreadsheets in bulk very fast.
Generation of catalogs in multiple languages: For businesses expanding worldwide, modern PIM systems can create catalogs in multiple languages, with automated translation and tools for variants like British or American English.
Catalog sharing: There is a ‘golden record’ of data in the PIM for internal teams, supply chain partners and purchaser networks, so Instant catalogs can be shared in real time. Moreover, catalogs can be assigned access levels – open access, or private catalogs, for example, information for the eyes of select buyers, sales, or distribution.
Customised catalogs: Some PIMs have the option of selecting data fields to display or hide, as well as to ability to rapidly create customised catalogs to share immediately across selected channels.
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The benefits of streamlining catalog management
Using a PIM solution to power gile, efficient catalog management generates a series of business benefits:
- A simply better customer experience: can find items they are searching for more easily and the business also makes more accurate product recommendations
- Search engine optimisation, because site navigation and product searches become easier and more intuitive, so potential customers using search engines find landing pages quicker
- Targeted suggestions for upselling and cross-selling (accessories, add-ons)
- Quicker time-to-market: because teams can update, amend, and expand catalogs faster
In today’s competitive marketplace, efficient product data management is not just an option—it’s a necessity. As the digital landscape evolves, ensuring that your product data is organised, consistent, and easily accessible can be the difference between thriving and merely surviving. Leveraging a PIM solution not only streamlines your operations but also propels your business forward, ensuring that customers always receive accurate, timely, and engaging product information. Don’t let outdated systems or scattered data hold back your potential.
Ready to streamline your product data management and drive business growth?
Contact our team of experts today to learn more about how our Product Information Management solutions can streamline your operations, improve collaboration, and enhance customer experiences. Embrace the future; start your PIM journey with us.