What Is PIM Software?

In a nutshell, PIM (product information management) software makes it easy for merchants to manage their product data from just one central system.

By using a single view of all their products, businesses have a much clearer opportunity to rectify inconsistencies and missing data within their catalogue and ensure that all crucial attributes are present.

As products are optimised and data enriched, catalogues can then be updated quickly to be marketed and sold across multiple distribution channels including websites, third-party marketplaces and mobile apps.

Traditional data management could take hours upon hours of manual sense checks and edits, which doesn’t guarantee that all attributes would be addressed.

PIM provides commerce businesses with the opportunity to overhaul their data management, providing a cost-effective way of viewing incomplete data at a glance, reaching new marketplaces, and informing better purchasing decisions.

PIM vs PDM vs PXM vs…

With the PIM landscape constantly evolving, it can can be confusing keeping up to date with acronyms and synonyms for similar products. Here’s a quick overview:

PIM – Product Information Management

PIM is software based around a central set of product information, which can be updated and edited quickly and easily.

PDM – Product Data Management

Usually associated with CAD (computer aided design) PDM focuses on managing and tracking the creation, change and archive of product updates.

PLM – Product Lifecycle Management

PDM covers the entire product process from initial inception, design and manufacture

PXM – Product Experience Management

An extension of PIM to include areas such as personalisation, automation and product content analytics.

As well as this range of P-based acronyms, there are several other common terms used, such as:

ERP – Enterprise Research Planning System

This allows businesses to manage resources such as assets, HR, IT systems and logistical operations on a large scale

MAM / DAM – Media Asset Management / Digital Asset Management

Organises, stores and collates files, permissions and distribution rights for digital assets including images, music, video and other multimedia content

CMP – Cross Media Publishing

Allows you to reach audiences by any channel by publishing rich media content

The Key Benefits of Having A PIM

Any PIM worth their salt will be able to operate smoothly with your key systems to provide a streamlined product enrichment service.

Hosting all product data in one central repository allows you to update product information including inventory availability, imagery or pricing to catalogues, webstores, marketplaces and all other services connected to your PIM – saving you countless hours of manual data entry.

In essence, PIM allows you to take advantage of the following benefits:

A centralised view of all your product data
Consistent and accurate data updates across your whole product catalogue
Optimised and up to date product data to help your customers make better purchasing decisions
Integration with multiple data sources and feeds to external channels
List on multiple channels with less effort and outlay
Save time, effort and overheads by streamlining your workflow

If your product catalogue is proving unruly to manage, and your goals of reaching new marketplaces are being held up by a bottleneck of your staff’s workload then a PIM is the solution you should seriously consider.

As Akeneo PIM partners, iWeb can help you consolidate all of your data into one easy to use solution. Better product information means more purchases and fewer returns with a typical conversion rate increase up to 55%.