E-commerce is certainly not new. Brands have been selling on the internet since the early days of the World Wide Web, taking advantage of evolving technologies to constantly improve their offering to online shoppers.
However, after COVID-19 accelerated the shift towards digital commerce, selling online is no longer a nice-to-have for brands and manufacturers. It’s a must-have. From global marketplaces like Amazon and eBay to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, there have never been more e-commerce opportunities.
It’s not just B2C brands that are enjoying huge growth in e-commerce. The growing consumerization of B2B buying means more B2B brands and manufacturers are looking at ways to transform their e-commerce strategy. Thankfully, there is one software solution that can help both B2C and B2B businesses elevate their e-commerce game: PIM.
But what is PIM? How can it help you meet today’s e-commerce challenges? And how can it take your digital shelf to the next level? Let’s find out.
> Today’s e-commerce challenges
> What is a Product Information Management (PIM) system?
> What is PIM in e-commerce?
> Benefits of PIM for e-commerce
> What does PIM mean for e-commerce?
> Important PIM for e-commerce features
> Why are PIM solutions important for e-commerce?
> inriver: The PIM that goes beyond e-commerce
There’s no question that e-commerce has skyrocketed in recent years. In the last decade alone, US e-commerce sales have more than quadrupled. This rapid onset has led to considerable growth opportunities for brands, retailers, and manufacturers selling online. However, with all that opportunity comes several unique challenges, including:
So, how can brands, manufacturers, and retailers overcome these e-commerce challenges? The answer lies in three letters: PIM, which stands for Product Information Management. PIM software empowers sellers with a single source of truth to streamline their e-commerce strategy.
Let’s say you’re working in a product warehouse, and you’ve just entered a room packed from floor to ceiling with unlabeled, disorganized boxes. You need to find one specific item, but in this environment, it’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack.
While this may sound like a hyperbolic tale, finding product data needles in virtual haystacks is the reality for many businesses that lack adequate PIM software.
PIM is a business-critical solution that lets you organize, access, edit, and manage crucial product information on one centralized platform. Basic PIM solutions give you easy access to all your most detailed product information.
However, advanced PIM software goes further by offering built-in syndication and digital shelf analytics (DSA) technologies. Syndication lets you distribute accurate, localized product content to all digital touchpoints. Digital shelf analytics lets you monitor and respond to your product’s online performance. Having both of these capabilities built into your PIM solution lets you close the loop of your e-commerce operations.
These advanced PIM solutions also help you:
For brands, manufacturers, and retailers chasing endless moving targets in their e-commerce strategies, as well as ever-evolving channel and consumer demands, a PIM solution is invaluable.
PIM solutions not only address the challenges e-commerce sellers face today, but they also empower more effective online selling. An advanced PIM solution enables rich product information and packages it into cohesive, compelling brand stories to connect with your customers online.
For brands selling online, PIM solutions can be used to:
A PIM solution can enhance your e-commerce operations from an external and internal perspective. From streamlined data comes product information that supports better experiences for the shopper and for the brands. The benefits of PIM for e-commerce include:
Simply put, building your e-commerce strategy on the foundation of an advanced PIM solution enables you to compete and thrive on today’s digital shelf. With a powerful PIM solution at the center of their tech stack, brands, retailers, and manufacturers selling online can reach more of their target audience with a more credible brand story.
This means that e-commerce sellers can go from meeting the demand to creating it.
Advanced PIM solutions are designed to integrate into your existing workflow to minimize disruptions. Your PIM can then bridge any gaps in your current processes, delivering ultimate visibility and resource efficiency.
PIM solutions offer the following capabilities designed to power winning e-commerce strategies:
For brands selling online, the equation is simple. More products sold equals more revenue. What’s not as simple is managing a suite of products on high-traffic platforms that are seen by today’s digital native consumer and compels them to hit the buy button.
Advanced PIM solutions, like the inriver platform, give you total clarity on your entire product ecosystem and complete control over even the most complex digital shelf. Capabilities like product syndication and digital shelf analytics can help you unlock more insight, engagement, and value at every e-commerce touchpoint.
With a fully scalable PIM solution, your whole organization can plan for growth. That’s because of the foundational single source of truth PIM provides. This truth helps remove internal data siloes, streamline workflows, and accelerates your time-to-market.
As the challenges of the digital shelf continue to evolve, it’s clear that the supporting software also needs to move with the times. To meet the e-commerce demands of today and tomorrow, off-the-shelf PIM solutions no longer go far enough. That’s why inriver has created the most comprehensive PIM solution on the market to give our customers the tools they need to succeed on their digital shelf and beyond.
Here are a few ways the inriver PIM solution gives our customers more digital shelf expertise:
From intuitive data onboarding to real-time insights into your buyers’ behavior, the inriver platform provides the ultimate solution for every brand, manufacturer, and retailer that sells online. Inriver’s composable PIM is the complete muli-tenant SaaS solution that powers e-commerce by turning product information into profit at every digital touchpoint.
Schedule a personalized, guided demo with an inriver expert today to see how the inriver PIM can get more value from your product information.
The inriver platform offers limitless integration potential with all leading commerce solutions. This means you never have to worry about derailing your current ecosystem. For example, if you currently use a Shopify PIM solution alongside webshop PIM solutions for other retail channels, inriver can collate them into one easily navigable space. Businesses that currently rely on other solutions, such as Adobe or Salesforce, can seamlessly integrate these onto our versatile platform as well.
There’s never a bad time to implement the inriver PIM solution into your e-commerce workflow. Our PIM solution powers the entire product journey, from development to sales and beyond. If you’re in the planning stage, hosting all your product information in a single hub makes it easy to plan ahead. If you’re already in the thick of multi-channel selling, coalescing your data takes no time at all. It can also save you hours in the long term.
Yes. Our PIM solution can manage data from a variety of sales and development channels beyond e-commerce platforms. It can also be used to broadcast product information across multiple mediums, including digital and print. Is your company pursuing an omnichannel approach to marketing? Do you aim to meet customers wherever they are? Then inriver is ready to launch you toward your goals.