Why Product Information Management (PIM)?

In web rooming or purchasing it is hard for the users to touch or experience the products physically, so users pay important attention to the product information and images before making any sort of purchase decision.

Hence, It becomes quite necessary for the store owners to keep a hawk eye on the product information and deliver a rich content experience to the users.

In general, the product data can be collected from different sources in different formats like spreadsheets, CRM, loosely threaded stacks or some other data formats.

Apart from this same data can exist as a complete clone when it comes to locale or lingual dependant data management.

In such a scenario, It becomes a very complex process to manage the data on different platforms and get quality assured all the time.

PIM stands for Product Information Manager which is used to manage the complex data at a larger scale. PIM has the ability to collect and store data, which is provided by different sources in different formats.

PIM has the following set of key advantages:-

PIM acts as a commonly shared resource for product data for all the different channels like Mobile App, eCommerce Store, Physical Store (POS), Catalogues, PLM or any other channel.

PIM ensures the customer is always served with the rich and right product data.

PIM improves the product presentation quality and increases the efficiency and productivity of the product management process.

PIM gives a ready to use interface to manage the complex data structure for the products, keeping performance and scalability on the top of everything.

Which PIM tool to use?

There are several PIM tools and platforms available, but Akeneo and Pimcore are mostly preferred by many online retailers.

Akeneo is an open source enterprise PIM platform based on PHP and built on ORO BAP (Business Application Platform) & Symfony stack.

Pimcore is the next generation framework for building enterprise ecommerce, CMS, PIM, DAM (Data Asset Management) and MDM (Master Data Management) system.

Exporting to Multiple Channels

Managing product information using PIM can be a tough job if every other time product data managers or agents need to export and import data to different channels.

Webkul has developed a growing list of Akeneo Connectors which integrates various platforms of e-Commerce, CMS, ERP, Marketplaces, LMS, and others to automate the data flow.

Check out some of the Akeneo PIM Connectors below for automating the product information flow.