Why choose a PIM system (Product Information Management)
A crucial part of growing an e-commerce business that is often overlooked by many owners is: adequate product information management.
Product information is an important and influential element to improve the purchasing intentions of customers. Brand impressions drop to 20% on average due to scarce or inadequate product information. Without the proper use of PIM, not only could you miss many buyers who should visit your website, you may also lose those customers who visit the site.
The use of the PIM system
According to research, around 30% of the product catalogs contain data errors. In this regard, you must consider whether all your products are listed correctly. In the event that this is not the case, you can lose customers.
As your business grows, it may be difficult for you to manage and maintain a high volume of product information. You have to control the information about each function of the different products. You also need to customize this information for different sales channels you use. It can be difficult to keep up with so much information.
This is the reason why you need a good PIM system. A PIM is an online application specifically designed to keep product data organized. This allows you to make important updates to product categories and features. You can also develop logical and dynamic product groups. You can also edit and adjust the price of the product and other information. PIM systems record data located in different systems to merge or combine them in one interface.
The effective use of a PIM system can offer several advantages. These are discussed below.
Higher turnover
An important feature of many PIM applications is their ability to develop collections. For example, you can create a collection of purple and gold items and mark this collection as a sale. The result is that you can offer your customers a relevant and customized internet experience without too much time and effort. You can give them access to a button that they can click to view summer items they use for their grill or sports equipment.
For example, on Mother’s Day, you can send an email and link it to the various product collections, such as perfumes, flowers, spas and chocolates. This will help your customers with website navigation, making the experience more and more enjoyable. You can adapt more easily to changing market needs. As a result, the turnover will increase. However, this is not possible if you lack the required tools to update product information or to crrect the dynamic collections. A PIM system supports you in both tasks.
Improve SEO rankings
Adequate product information can help consumers to better navigate the website and thereby, to increase the chance that they will stay on the website. Another big advantage of organized product information is that it increases the visibility of products on search engines such as Google.
Google displays the most relevant and compelling content at the top, based on search queries. If you want to score high on Google’s search results, you need sharable and well-written content.
The majority of the content of the online store pages is your product information. As a result, Google reads the product information and determines its relevance, depending on the user’s search query. PIM systems help you to organize and manage your product information so that you can enrich various attributes, such as product descriptions with compelling copies and relevant keywords.
They help you to better understand the different products to ensure that the metadata on the web pages can offer search engines such as Google more in-depth context. This increases the traffic to the site.
Personalize the user experience
According to marketing experts, it is not enough, even if you sell on all your available platforms. You must be able to come up with creative and innovative new ways to enable consumers to interact with your brand. This is where PIM systems are very valuable because they can be used for more than just updating the product information on the web pages. You can use them to implement many creative strategies.
With a PIM system, your website can offer consumers creative and exciting ways to navigate the website. For example, let’s assume that your site sells cookbooks and lists recipes. With a PIM system you can think of unique ways to make your content more accessible. You can customize your page so that when your customers have entered the different ingredients they have in their house, then all the relevant recipes that use these ingredients will be displayed.
And yes, you can include links to the various cookbooks you sell in the recipes to promote your product. The presence of complete and accurate product information allows you to provide your users with a unique, engaging and interactive experience.
PIM systems have different and unique features. Many of these systems have specific features for large companies. Most of them are optimized for managing product information in multi-channel sales environments.
Therefore, consider your specific preferences and needs, as well as the plans, before turning to a solution. A PIM system like Akeneo is ideal because it offers the versatility to meet different business needs.