Scaling Ecommerce: How Global Brands Leverage Product Information Management (PIM)

No matter how attentive to scalability, when a business grows it’s inevitable that product information becomes scattered, duplicated and siloed.

The specifics depend on how things have needed to evolve as the company grows (e.g., operational workflows, staffing, system requirements, etc.).

Data becomes stored in a variety of formats or is held captive by individual employees and systems.

Over time things like item numbers, references, catalogs, SKUs, images and videos, translations, localizations, documentation, custom attributes and more become impossible to manage.

Discrepancies arise, workarounds are implemented, workflows begin to slow, conversion rates drop and cart abandonment and returns rise.

It’s an unfortunate but common reality as businesses grow.

Mid-market and enterprise organizations with large, complex product catalogs often suffer the most as they add and edit volumes of products at a rapid pace across multiple channels.

Once other factors are added like trying to manage multiple price lists, geographic locations, languages, currencies, promotions, etc. you will see one, if not all of the following:

• Delayed time-to-market.
• Inability to collaborate across internal and external departments.
• Error-prone and inaccurate product updates.
• Inaccurate orders and increased returns impacting the bottom line.
• Inefficient processes, resulting in higher costs.
• Increased customer dissatisfaction due to incomplete, out-of-date, or inconsistent data across channels.
• Depleted or overstocked inventory.
• Ineffective product branding and merchandising.
• Inability to scale (e.g., internationally, multiple stores, additional product launches, etc.).

Clearly the challenge of maintaining consistent and accurate product information across multiple stores and sales channels continues to be a top issue stifling brand growth and expansion.

Yet, product information serves as the lifeblood of commerce, and finding a solution that can seamlessly integrate into commerce technology stacks and handle the entire process of managing, merchandising and marketing inventory has proven to be daunting a task.

Confusion in the market is rampant, and brands are building large amounts of unnecessary technical debt in implementing custom or overly complex solutions for quick, scalable global expansion.

In this piece, we’ll review:

• The 3 most common ways brands attempt to solve product information management issues.
• The only 3 systems scaling brands need for seamless data orchestration, including product, accounting and customer data.
• When a brand should invest in a PIM (product information management software).
• Benefits of a proper product information management solution.
• 3 PIM case studies and the software benefits to prove value.

The goal is to help you and your team understand the options, the use cases and the best next step for global expansion for your brand without compromising data orchestration and organization.

Let’s dive in.

Common Product Information Management Attemps

1. Manage a “Manual” PIM.

Companies typically start by balancing multiple Excel sheets with pivot tables and cross scripting SQL to help them attempt to manage the deluge of product data.

This process is prone to error and management becomes a bear.

Additionally, headcount becomes costly, back-office workflows slow and you risk unsatisfied customers which almost always impacts your bottom line.

2. Custom Build a PIM.

Few businesses can afford to pause operations so they can build or rip and replace technology systems.

To solve for product information management issues, then, many brands resort to building a custom solution for what they perceive is their unique product information management problems.

This is often counterproductive.

Suddenly, companies find themselves inundated with tools, half-baked integrations and mounds of technical debt.

Additionally, teams are left attempting to navigate multiple tools, overlapping workflows, gaps in product data and questions about their overall product data integrity.

Jon Marsella, CEO of Jasper PIM explains,

3. Buy an All-In-One Platform.

While all-in-one platforms may promise to be an efficient choice, the trade-off is specialization.

Customizing front-end merchandising workflows, inventory and accounting back office processes, and integrating fulfillment systems are simply too large a software challenge to be handled by a single software suite.

For most merchants, customers find themselves underutilizing the features and overinvesting for the value that they get out of the platform.

In short, it’s often a high cost and low return scenario.