How to manage big data more efficiently
You are serious about scaling your online business?
This article will provide answers to many questions you may have.
First off, if you’re scaling your business and your product catalogue is expanding — you need to implement the Product Information Management (PIM) system!
Your customers are shopping on various different channels and marketplaces. Your duty is to cover all of them and to provide your customers with the correct product information.
Product information management is one of the core elements of Pimcore, an open-source digital experience platform. It’s focused on providing your customers with the omnichannel experience in the most modern fashion.
Some time ago, when we first noticed it, Pimcore caught our interest in a second. Now, we’re a professional Pimcore development agency and a certified Pimcore Silver partner. We’re always happy to help you if you’re ready to scale your business!
“What exactly is product information management?” — this may be one of your first questions today.
We’ll cover that in the next chapter of the article.
What exactly is PIM?
PIM (or product information management) is a set of business practices and a category of business applications which focus on managing product information.
Okay, now you have a general idea about what product information management is.
Why should I even use product information management?
…we can already hear you ask. The need for product information management system arises when the requirements of your product data become too much to handle.
How does the product information management system solve this issue? By centralizing all of your product information in one central point.
PIM can be extremely useful to marketers, as they can improve the quality of their product data and simplify the whole process of product management.
By improving the product data and simplifying the process of product management, you directly make an impact on your sales conversion rates! In a positive way, that is.
Product information management system can manage 3 types of information:
- Usage information
You can define this as usage suggestions, descriptions of how to use the product and where.
- Technical information
Here, we can include some product specifications, such as material, ingredients, colour, weight and so on.
- Emotional information
Emotional information creates emotional connections with your buyers. Here are included images, stories, rich product descriptions and so on.
You already see why you should have a product information management system!
Imagine if you included wrong technical information on your product page!
So the scenario goes something like this:
- Customer orders the product — let’s say it’s a yellow wristwatch
- The product arrives at the customers’ doorstep
- Customer opens the package and sees the blue wristwatch.
What do you think how does the story continue? Let’s see.
4. Disappointment fills the mind of your customer, as they were hoping to receive the exact same thing they ordered.
5. The customer writes a complaint and returns the wrong item and asks for a refund.
This is just technical information. It’s possible to make a mistake whilst managing usage and emotional information too.
Product information management system is a must-have nowadays. It’s a basis for every successful strategic initiative. PIM is rising in popularity, thanks to companies focusing on the omnichannel model of business.
Some really serious businesses, such as SEAT, already chose Pimcore as their digital experience platform. They implemented the PIM product to improve their sales conversion rates and what happened?
Keep reading a little bit longer and find out!
The benefits of using product information management
Customers are the basis upon which your business is built. According to that, it makes sense to provide your customers with the correct and complete information.
To provide your customers with an awesome shopping experience, accurate product information is prerequisite. Besides that, what are the other benefits which you can experience?
Great question!
Let’s take a look at the 3 crucial benefits of using PIM
There are three key features you will experience by using PIM.
Let’s start and first name all of them!
- Eliminating data silos
- Decreasing time-to-market
- Omnichannel enablement
Three considerably big statements, you might say. Let’s go through each one of them and see what it’s all about, shall we?
Eliminating data silos
This is extremely important. If you’re unsure about your knowledge of data silos — worry not! We already wrote on the topic and prepared for you a small introduction to data silos… and why they are bad for you!
Anyways, let’s see what’s this all about. First off, why would you want to eliminate data silos?
Besides common sense, there are a few more concrete reasons. You can consider the data silo as a repository of fixed data that’s under the control of one of the departments. Often, they are isolated from the rest of the company.
You can see now why they are bad.
Imagine your marketing team having some crucial data on your customers. That same data could help your sales team to, let’s say, close more clients.
But that’s not happening. Why is that?
It’s not happening because the data from one department is not shared with the other departments. In short, we call that a data silo.
Consequently, data silos tend to create severe problems with interdepartmental communication.
Okay, how to get rid of those data silos then?
To eliminate data silos, you need to create a single point of truth. Single point of truth is one central place where all the users can see the information.
In essence, the single point of truth is a unique master record. There are no more communication issues and no more false or duplicated information!
What happens next?
You save your business a lot of money! Data silos tend to cost a lot, so eliminating them is a high-priority task.
How much money can you save?
Let’s put it like this.
How much money are you going to lose when your project gets pushed back because of data silos?
The answer is — a lot!
Pimcore’s product information management stands as an ideal solution for data silos. Many successful companies have documented their Pimcore journey and we’ll provide you with one of those — later in the article!
For now, let’s move on to the next benefit of implementing Pimcore’s PIM product.
And that is…
Decreasing time-to-market
This is a big one. Why do we think that?
Today, businesses are customer-oriented. They are the centre of every business activity.
Needless to say, this poses a great challenge for a lot of businesses. That is thanks to the ever-changing customer needs and expectations.
Therefore, to stay one step ahead of your competition, you need to adapt your technologies and processes. You should aim to increase your customers’ satisfaction and maintain a positive brand image.
All of that will bring you closer to the point where you’re functioning as an omnichannel business. This will result in improved time-to-market of your products and reduced overall cost over time.
The number of product data sources increases day by day. The more you delay implementing the product information management system, the harder it gets to manage all of the product information.
Pimcore comes in very useful here, as it features a product information management product.
It provides you with flexibility, speed and agility and can adapt to every one of your business needs. Pimcore’ PIM product will give you a push towards becoming an omnichannel business.
This leads us to another important benefit of Pimcore’s product information management product.
Read on.
Omnichannel enablement — the newest trend of online business
Let’s consider this the most important benefit of implementing a product information management system.
We already wrote on this topic on several occasions, so check out why is omnichannel a future version of retail and how can businesses successfully go through the digital transformation process.
Nowadays, omnichannel enablement stands as a prerequisite for the success of your online business.
In short, what would it mean to function as an omnichannel business? It would mean that you need to be everywhere.
This may have confused you, so let us elaborate on this a little bit.
Omnichannel is a cross-channel content strategy used to improve customer experience. All of the communication is synchronized.
If you can design all of your communication channels to cooperate, your customer will always have the same shopping experience. Regardless of which channel the customer is currently using.
If you’re wondering which communication channels are there, here is a few of them:
- Website
- Retail store
- IoT device
- Etc.
You get it.
The key to becoming an omnichannel business is to communicate with your customers in the same way on all your channels.
How does Pimcore’s product information management product enable you to go omnichannel?
Let’s see:
- Eliminates data silos
- Improves multichannel marketing agility
- Provides seamless customer experience
That’s it. Those three key features are what enables you to go omnichannel with your online business.
As for the data silos — we already talked about them, didn’t we? You’re already familiar with how can elimination of data silos help your business.
Pimcore’s PIM solution gathers all of the product information in a single point of truth. There is no false or duplicate information. All of the content is delivered to the customers in the same manner. Personalized, of course.
Secondly, the improvement of multichannel marketing agility. There is a short and simple explanation behind this.
As we mentioned, all of the data is focused on a single point of truth, right? So, what can marketers now do? They can segment the customers, they can personalize their communication in full, and they can automate their marketing activities!
As the platform brings together all of the needed data, there are no unnecessary mistakes and marketing seems more agile.
And lastly, seamless customer experience. By far, the best thing about Pimcore’s product information management. Your physical and online inventory data is synchronized with customer data.
If you take a good look, now you can see everything about your customers. Everything they want and need.
Pimcore does really seem like an ideal solution now, doesn’t it?
By using it, you can use IoT devices, POS, kiosk, mobile phones, tablets, PCs and other devices to stand out as an awesome omnichannel business.
One last note here! If you’re already in eCommerce, take a look at how mCommerce and Voice commerce are changing the whole domain of eCommerce. The whole eCommerce game is changing so check out some of our articles to stay in the loop.
Nevertheless, it’s time for us to continue. Next on, we’ll show you how SEAT used Pimcore’s product information management system and came out as the winner.
One of the fastest-growing European car brands uses Pimcore’s PIM!
Yes, in case you didn’t know — SEAT is one of the fastest-growing car brands in Europe!
SEAT was relaunched in 2018, rebranded as a young and modern brand for younger customers. The fact that the average SEAT customer is 10 years younger than the average car customer works in favour of that statement.
As they positioned themselves as a young and modern brand, they now have the mission of exploring new and innovative marketing methods.
What did they do?
They went all-in with providing a digital experience to their customers. Thanks to the new Pimcore’s product information management solution, the customer can now order a test drive or reserve a car in just a few clicks.
Also, purchasing is now done in just a few clicks and the delivery time for most of the models is just 6 days! Just a few clicks and less than a week, and a new car is in your garage. Isn’t that just great?
By using PIM and analyzing their customers, they successfully found their customer’s pain points. They heavily invested in solving their customers’ issues and it paid out great.
This is just one of many Pimcore success stories. And imagine just if SEAT leveraged more of the products which Pimcore offers!
Nevertheless, your main focus should be on improving your business and setting yourself on the right way to success. Think about how could you leverage Pimcore’s product information management to improve your online business!
How to start with PIM?
Now, you can already see what PIM can do to a business and how it can help.
The main purpose of PIM is to provide your customers with the best options. The better options they have, the better your sales conversion rate is!
Important to mention is that omnichannel and PIM are two deeply connected terms. If you’re familiar with omnichannel, you shouldn’t think twice about implementing PIM!
Secure your business and use your product information wisely!
We’re already reaching the end of this article. We hope it was a pleasant one and that you enjoyed it and learned something new today!
If you’d like to talk more about your business — we’d like to hear from you! Reach out to us!
We would be more than happy to help you and develop your Pimcore solution!
