What is PIM – Product Information Management? (2024)

What is a PIM and how can it be used to access the best product information?

When it comes to product information, there’s no doubt that PIM tools are masters in their field, and rightfully so.

A PIM platform no longer needs to prove its ability to deliver consistent information across all brand sales channels. Paired with a relevant and intelligent search engine, anyone seeking information is sure to find it.

How does PIM software maximize the power of an intelligent search engine? Why combine a PIM platform with a search engine like Doofinder?

What is PIM Software?

A Product Information Manager (PIM) platform is a solution that allows businesses to collect, manage, enrich, and distribute their product information. It’s also known as a PIM system, PIM manager, or PIM software.

It’s often enriched with a Digital Asset Manager (DAM) for handling media associated with product information.

The PIM manager allows each data-contributing collaborator to enrich the data collaboratively. Through specific workflows tailored to work habits, various teams can easily and quickly contribute: marketing, R&D, product, merchandising, e-commerce, etc., all contributing to product data.

What are the goals of a PIM platform?

PIM software serves several objectives:

• Centralize product data to prevent or eliminate data errors and duplicates.
• Ensure reliable and consistent data across all brand sales channels.
• Accelerate digitization and overall brand activity by swiftly and easily deploying high-quality product information.
• Homogenize customer and product experiences, both in physical stores and online, with comprehensive and coherent data across all sales channels.
• Reduce a company’s time-to-market to swiftly get products to market, compete effectively, and maximize key commercial opportunities.
• Harmoniously align contributing data teams (e-commerce, marketing, R&D, product teams) through specific and adapted workflows.

How does PIM software work?

A PIM solution, such as Quable, operates as follows:

1. The software retrieves data from another system (often an ERP or one or more Excel files) and centralizes it on the platform. This product information can include descriptions, materials, ingredients, and even media if the PIM is linked to a DAM.
2. There is now a unified and accessible location for finding product-related data. From this point, teams can contribute to the data by modifying and enriching it. The PIM subsequently manages product-related variants, such as different sizes or colors of the same product.
3. Lastly, the PIM manager instantly and consistently publishes product data across all sales channels (e-commerce site, catalogs, marketplaces, distributors, retailers, etc.). Throughout these processes, the PIM allows for real-time data updates. Any modification to product information is automatically updated across all distribution channels.

What are the key features of a PIM solution?

PIM systems stand out from each other due to their various functionalities. Regarding Quable PIM Solution, its functional richness is an integral part of its power. Nevertheless, you can find different functionalities such as:

• The Product Information Manager (PIM) collects, centralizes, enriches, and disseminates all textual information related to a brand’s products.
• The Digital Asset Manager (DAM) offers similar possibilities to the PIM but focuses on media: images, product packshots, videos, etc.
• The brand portal enables your sales force, retailers, and distributors to access all product information from a single location.
• Workflows that offer your data-contributing collaborators the ability to work harmoniously and efficiently, thanks to processes tailored to their roles and your objectives.
• Data management provides brands with an overview of their strategy, analysis of results, and adjustment of actions if necessary.
• Product sheets allow brands to customize their product and marketing materials, delivering consistent communication to customers while optimizing their brand image.
• Feeds allow brands to import and export product catalogs and efficiently manage data flows from a single platform.

Do You Need PIM or a Product Information Manager?

PIM systems are for companies seeking to enhance their distribution channels and encountering various challenges: delays in product launches, errors, missing or duplicate product information, and scattered product data across different departments, teams, and even files.

These issues lead to confusion in daily workflows, time wastage in searching for accurate information, delayed product releases, and subsequently, revenue loss.

If you’re a brand facing one or more of these challenges, then you need a PIM platform and perhaps an integrated DAM to instantly collect, enrich, and distribute your product data across all sales channels.

Hence, the PIM manager is suitable for brands looking to boost their sales channels and amplify their e-commerce distribution.

What is the Quable PIM platform?

Several PIM solutions are available on the market, each distinct: Akeneo, PIMcore, Salsify, Afineo, and Contentserv, to name a few.

They differ in terms of their development mode (SaaS or Open Source), user-friendliness, connectivity with other e-commerce applications, workflow management, dashboards, asset management (DAM), support methodologies, international deployment, and more.

For companies considering a PIM, it’s crucial to understand their long-term needs and objectives and choose a PIM platform that meets those criteria.

Quable’s PIM includes specific features that set it apart from other PIMs in the market, such as workflows, the brand portal, completions, the Quable App Store, premium services, and product sheets.

Quable’s PIM solution also stands out due to its extensive connectivity with key e-commerce players, particularly its connector with Shopify Plus and its integration with the Make automation platform.

In summary, in a digital world where information is abundant and sought after by customers, organizations must quickly adapt by employing scalable and flexible tools that meet the sector’s heightened demands.

This is the very promise of the PIM system, which, in addition to harmonizing product information, delivers the best customer experience while streamlining operational processes on the business side.

Why Combine PIM with a Smart Search Engine?

To find information, you need the right information. Combining an intelligent search engine with a PIM makes perfect sense. Moreover, the PIM system facilitates updating your product data on your e-commerce platform (for example, with our Shopify app) and all your channels.

By having comprehensive product information through a PIM platform, you provide maximum data to the search engine.

The PIM-manager and search engine duo offer numerous advantages:

• Consistent customer experience: Searchers enjoy a more personalized and seamless user experience. Advanced filters and automatic suggestions simplify navigation and search, boosting customer satisfaction.
• Optimized product search: An intelligent search engine employs various features like semantic search, advanced algorithms, or similarity search, providing the most relevant results. With quality and reliable product information facilitated by the PIM platform, prospective customers can find what they’re looking for more quickly and easily, ultimately increasing sales and conversion rates.
• Time saved for customers: Website visitors no longer waste time searching for desired information. Navigation is optimized, and manually searching categories, pages, and products is a thing of the past.
• Centralized product information: The PIM platform centralizes and manages all product-related information (descriptions, media, components). With the integration of an intelligent search engine, organizations can easily index this information. As a result, the research and data retrieval process is streamlined. Moreover, centralized product information management ensures consistency and accuracy across all sales channels.
• Personalized suggestions: An intelligent search engine like Doofinder can utilize real-time learning techniques to analyze user data and behavior, offering personalized recommendations. For instance, the search engine can suggest similar or complementary products based on users’ recent views, enhancing the relevance of recommendations.
• Enhanced data analysis aiding decision-making: By combining a PIM platform with an intelligent search engine, businesses can collect valuable data on user searches, most-viewed products, search trends, etc. This data can be analyzed to gain insights into customer preferences and product performance, aiding decision-making.

Conclusion

It’s clear that the effectiveness of the PIM and intelligent search engine duo is beyond dispute.

For companies/teams and customers alike, this combination brings forth numerous benefits. 

Companies have the capacity to optimize product data management, offer a personalized user experience, and improve the relevance of search results. 

Customers benefit from tailored navigation and search experiences, aligned with their preferences while saving valuable time.

In essence, this inevitably leads to better decision-making on the business side and an overall enhancement in operational efficiency and company performance.

If you aim to deliver the best possible product information, request your free demo.