How PIM Tool Simplifies Product Information Manager Flows
The product information role is constantly growing: according to Google, 85% of shoppers consider product content and pictures important when deciding what manufacturer or retailer to purchase from. What’s more, the amount of product content itself is rapidly increasing, considering the growth of eCommerce: Oberlo statistics show that in 2023, online sales are expected to account for over 20.8% of retail worldwide.
With these figures in mind, the role of the product information manager will become even more valuable. On top of that, the importance of the PIM tool will steadily increase, turning from a “nice-to-have” organizational software into a fundamental operational solution for eCommerce businesses.
In this article, we’ll explain how the PIM solution simplifies product information manager flows and how the company can benefit from its implementation.
Who Is a Product Information Manager?
PIM Manager: Key Responsibilities
So what are the essential duties of a PIM officer and what is expected of this role? Here are some of the key job responsibilities:
- collecting and managing content from different sources, data input/export;
- performing information uploads and constant updates;
- managing data catalogs;
- distributing product content to various marketplaces, retailers, and other sales channels;
- standardizing the information according to data endpoint requirements;
- ensuring data quality, consistency, and completeness;
- controlling data accuracy, performing data validation, and preparing reports about information errors and inconsistencies;
- onboarding and training the new users on using PIM solutions or other content management tools;
- communicating with the business stakeholders, developers, and other team members about the use of data within the existing system;
- optimizing the use of product information across the organization and sales channels;
- performing digital shelf monitoring and tracking content coverage across different platforms.
This is just the most essential part of data manager responsibilities. With the expansion of business, the duties of this professional role are broadening, meanwhile, the tasks become more challenging.
Product Data Manager Role: Main Challenges
Despite the multi-faceted nature of the PIM officer role, this job can come with a number of obstacles. Here are some of the main challenges these professionals face:
1. Human errors
Due to the big volumes of information, in the case of manual management, the content becomes error-prone. New data inaccuracies result in poor customer experience and higher customer churn rates. Correcting all the errors takes time and slows down the time to market, which leaves a business far behind its competitors.
2. Multichannel sales challenges
With the growth of the business, its expansion to new markets, and its presence on different eCommerce platforms, the responsibilities of the PIM officer become broadened. Now it becomes even more challenging to manage product content that has to be distributed to each sales endpoint and be adjusted to ever-changing data demands: each retailer and marketplace has its own taxonomy and format requirements. It becomes more difficult to conform to these rules without any automated tool.
3. High competition
With the fast-paced development of technology, it becomes problematic for a business with manual information management to withstand competition and it becomes vital to implement software that can automate many of the time-consuming tasks.
4. Decreased effectiveness
When the whole product information management team is focused on monotonous tasks such as managing data sheets, manual content updates, and error checks, there’s no time and energy left for some business-oriented goals.
5. Professional burnout
All of the above challenges sooner or later lead to a manager’s professional burnout, when there’s no satisfaction from work and no desire to accomplish further tasks. The worst scenario is when not only a manager feels the burnout, but it becomes a tendency inside the whole team.
To solve the above-mentioned challenges, the company needs to increase its capabilities and hire more than one PIM manager, however, it’s not a cure-all for these problems. Another option is to rely on automation and implement a PIM solution to simplify the information manager flows. How exactly do businesses benefit from this tool? We’ll review it in the next section of this article.
Read more about How Much Does A PIM Solution Cost:
Learn how PIM prices are formed and what factors influence the cost of product information management solution.
PIM Prices: How Much Does A Product Information Management Solution Cost
PIM Solution Benefits For Product Information Manager
Product Information Management solution is a software that helps create and edit quality product information, including marketing information, product descriptions, photos, etc. It also helps to distribute data through any communication channel with consumers, including point of sale, social media, and eCommerce channels.
The PIM tool improves product information officers’ productivity and efficiency. It helps them to provide high-quality, reliable, and consistent product information. StuDocu the following advantages of the PIM tool:
- import data from any source and in any format;
- consolidation of all information about goods;
- fewer errors and shorter processing times;
- elimination of duplicates and content verification;
- control of data completeness and validity;
- version control and management of publishing rules;
- secure dissemination of information to partners;
- reduced costs for content management;
- reduced time to market;
- decrease in the number of returns;
- increase in conversion rates;
- omnichannel support.
Using PIM software simplifies the product information officer’ flows during cooperation with both large, medium, and small businesses. So owners of different-sized businesses should pay attention to the PIM tool if they sell large amounts of commodities of different orientations. Let’s review an example of the Gepard PIM tool and see how product information management software can facilitate the following data manager flows:
- When a PIM manager has to maintain big volumes of goods (more than 500 SKUs). If a store has a couple of dozen of goods, it can usually be managed by one or two product data managers. However, if a company is growing and offering a bigger number of commodities, it becomes problematic to manage everything manually.
Solution: If there is a need to update the information regularly and with stricter requirements for data transfer, software for data management will significantly simplify the job. In the Gepard system, you can centralize, enrich, and update all your content for its further distribution to any of your sales endpoints.
- When all the data is stored and managed inside data sheets. Producing and editing information using this old-fashioned method is not only time-consuming but also leads to many inconsistencies, errors, and misunderstandings inside a team.
Solution: With the Gepard PIM solution, you can automatically collect the content from suppliers, while the specialized APIs can help you integrate with a wide range of eCommerce connections and gather the data from them on-the-fly.
- When a business has an omnichannel strategy. In case there are several platforms and online stores for the sale of products, the PIM officer must provide information timely.
Solution: PIM tool gives the product information manager complete control over data presentation and allows them to generate the most complete product information in one place and then export only what each specific member needs for each sales channel. With the extensive data syndication feature, such as the one offered by Gepard PIM, the content can be distributed to numerous sales channels and at the same time stay adjusted to all the data requirements.
- When a product information officer needs to simplify the data systematization process. Structuring and transfer of the required information about goods to other organizations and persons takes a lot of time and can slow down many business processes.
Solution: With the PIM tool it’s also possible to keep changes that were made, as well as save a history of these edits and make it possible to restore the information at the right time. It allows the product information officer to save the necessary data with changes for subsequent analysis and collection of statistics to build a succeeding product information management strategy.
- When the data officer struggles with data quality and accuracy. Usually, it happens due to a lot of manual work and data discrepancies.
Solution: With flexible PIM software, product information managers can significantly improve content quality, accuracy, and completeness, speed up and simplify catalog management. And as a result, they can market goods that meet consumer needs quickly, increasing sales and facilitating new communication channels. For example, Gepard offers a data validation feature that helps monitor the data quality inside the PIM system and also on your sales partners’ websites. In case of any validation errors, you will get auto-generated reports for further content improvement.
PIM Tool FAQ
What Are The Main Challenges Of Manual Product Information Management?
It poses certain challenges for a business: increased number of human errors, data inconsistencies, too many data requirements across different sales channels, slower time-to-market, poor customer experience, decreased productivity, and professional burnout inside a team.
Do I Need A PIM Tool If I Hired A Product Information Manager?
To lower all the above-mentioned potential risks, it’s highly recommended to implement a PIM software that will not only automate many routine tasks but also facilitate the data officer flows. With a product information management solution, thanks to such features as data standardization, validation, content enrichment, automated data collection, and digital shelf analytics, you’ll free up time for more creative tasks and ensure top-quality content.
Gepard: Take A Lead By Data Automation
With all the technological advancements of the world, nothing can take over the role of human beings in any business process. But does it really have to? Modern technology, such as the PIM solution, appeared not to replace human work and intelligence, but augment it.
Ready to learn how to simplify product information manager flaws with an up-to-date solution? Contact us and book your personalized Gepard PIM demo now.
