PIM: What is product information management?

PIM stands for Product Information Management. PIM software covers a variety of processes that are required for the successful management of product data. PIM product information management includes methods for collecting, maintaining, processing, and distributing data across systems.

PIM is useful for any business that needs to manage large amounts of product data, or who has multiple distribution channels. Organizations have a central hub to store, enrich, and share this product information, simplifying the process of creating, maintaining, and distributing product descriptions and specifications.

PIM has a number of benefits for businesses that manage product data. It helps brands deliver consistent and relevant product information through every distribution channel they manage. Like digital asset management (DAM), PIM also provides a secure, centralized location for product information, so the correct data is always used and any updates synchronized. Brands can use PIM to speed up the process of producing high-quality content and reduce the time it takes to get a product to market.

By connecting Bynder's DAM and a PIM system, businesses can integrate all product information with all their digital assets—read our blog on the topic to find out more.

Download our guide "Digital asset management for e-retail" and learn how Bynder's Digital Asset Management, templating tools, and ability to integrate with the best PIM systems help consumer brands worldwide stay relevant and competitive in the e-commerce race.

One of the many benefits of integrating a product information management system into your organization’s daily workflow is that it’s extremely intuitive, making it easy to automate the collection and distribution of product data. Here are the general steps of how PIM software works:

• Collect data: The first step in the PIM process is the collection of product data. This data can come from various channels like spreadsheets, databases, suppliers, and your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
• Import data: Once collected, product data will be imported and centralized into your PIM system’s database, serving as a single source of truth for your business’ product information.
• Configure data: With your product data collected, teams can use your PIM system’s tools to enrich product data to ensure accuracy and relevancy. Examples include adding product descriptions, technical specifications, marketing content, language translations, and more.
• Connect data: PIM systems can easily integrate with other third-party applications, such as DAM, CMS, CRM, and ERP systems, for a seamless exchange of data between these systems.

There are countless reasons why organizations should turn to PIM systems to manage their product data better. Here are some of the reasons why brands across all industries use a PIM platform:

Better management of content

Businesses manage an enormous amount of data. With PIM, images, text files, digital assets, and other product data are accessible from one centralized, secure location. By integrating PIM and DAM, users can be confident they are always accessing the correct data and can distribute it easily on a variety of channels.

Discover more about integrating your digital asset management system with the rest of your wider marketing tech stack with our simple guide: "Integration 101".

Boosts productivity

PIM automates a wide variety of tasks, reducing or even eliminating the need to move between multiple platforms and applications to find the right information. Images and texts can be extracted automatically from the DAM library, reducing time spent in both the creation and publishing processes.

Additionally, some of the best PIM tools have workflows baked-in that clarify processes, helping to save time, reduce human error, enhance internal and external collaboration, and streamline systems.

Improves the digital customer experience

PIM software helps ensure customers only see the correct, up-to-date product information, across all marketing channels. This reduces order errors, cart abandonment, and customer complaints; thereby increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty, and promoting brand consistency.

Ensures consistency

With a PIM system in place, you can ensure multichannel consistency throughout your organization, as this intuitive software seamlessly syndicates product data across various sales channels. From your mobile app or physical storefront to your e-commerce website and marketplace, a PIM system ensures consistent branding, messaging, and product information at every touch point. In turn, you can enhance your overall customer experience for each channel.

Enables cross-selling and upselling opportunities

One of the top benefits of product information software is its ability to make product data readily available. With key information at your fingertips, your PIM can equip you with the data you need to identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities. Your PIM system can make identifying recommendations for related items, product bundle suggestions, and personalized marketing campaigns simple. From there, your team can implement a brand strategy to promote and upsell products to drive growth and revenue based on what your customers are already buying.

Scalability

Whether you’re considering a product line extension or tapping into new markets, your product information management system can scale with you. As your business grows, so will your PIM system, ensuring an increase in data volumes and complexity are managed with ease. Additionally, most PIM software is flexible in terms of data modeling and configuration, allowing your organization to adapt to ever-changing industry standards and requirements seamlessly.

A product information management system is one of the many e-commerce tools you might employ to manage your business. But how does a PIM system compare to other key tools you may be considering? Let’s dive into different solutions that can help you run an efficient organization, including DAM, MDM, and MRM software.

PIM vs. DAM

A digital asset management (DAM) solution works differently than a PIM system in a few ways. When it comes to DAM vs. PIM, DAM is used for content management and media asset management for digital assets like images, videos, and documents. In comparison, PIM is used to manage product information to make sure that it’s accurate and consistent throughout the product lifecycle. 

However, while both solutions differ in the type of information they help manage, they overlap with one another. Integrating PIM with a DAM platform enables retailers to automatically sync assets to their PIM, and enrich asset metadata with product data provided by the PIM.

PIM vs. MDM

Another popular e-commerce tool is a master data management (MDM) platform, which is a tool that helps centralize an organization’s master data related to customers, products, suppliers, markets, financial data, and other business information. The purpose of an MDM solution is to govern master data to ensure consistency, integrity, and quality across all systems. When comparing PIM vs. MDM, certain business-critical information collected from a PIM tool is often housed in an organization’s MDM platform. This product data can then be cross-referenced with other business data to understand important relationships and the status of business operations.

PIM vs. MRM

Marketing resource management (MRM) software helps organizations keep track of all their resources in a single platform. MRM can help you manage information like budgets, assets, campaigns, and workflows. With an MRM, companies can streamline their marketing operations to boost productivity and bolster revenue growth. One of the benefits of MRM is its ability to integrate easily with other e-commerce tools. Integrating MRM with DAM, for example, is a simple way to transfer assets from the MRM to the DAM to ensure only the latest, brand-approved assets are used.

So, who can benefit from using a product information management system? Many, in fact. From small organizations to large enterprises, PIM systems play an integral role in the organization and management of your product data. Here’s who needs a PIM tool in their day-to-day role:

• Product managers: Product managers oversee the entire lifecycle of a product, from ideation to discontinuation. With a PIM tool on hand, product managers can manage product attributes, ensure consistency across channels, and maintain accurate product information.
• Marketing teams: Marketing teams continually rely on PIM systems to retrieve product data and digital assets to create marketing campaigns, promotional materials, and more. Marketers can share product data supplied by PIM software across various marketing channels like social media, websites, and email advertisements.
• E-commerce managers: If you’re an e-commerce manager, a PIM tool can prove invaluable. With a PIM tool, you can maintain product catalogs, enrich product data with detailed descriptions, update specifications and pricing, and create an engaging online shopping experience.
• Merchandising teams: Data provided by PIM systems helps merchandising teams create appealing product displays, optimize product assortments, and promote and categorize merchandise effectively. 
• IT teams: An organization’s IT team is often tasked with implementing and maintaining its PIM system, controlling tasks like technical support, data migration, and customization.