How PIM makes e-comm management easier

E-commerce managers can wear many hats — from ‘digital merchandiser’ and ‘content wrangler’ to ‘fire-fighter’ and ‘strategist’ — and that’s all during a single day.

So, in order to be at their most productive, e-commerce managers need to ensure that they maximize their capacity and prioritize any tasks efficiently — and that can often mean juggling projects like launching a new product, ensuring product data errors are corrected, or optimizing the digital shelf.

The reality, however, makes this quite challenging to achieve. That’s because, in a typical e-commerce business, product data resides in multiple spreadsheets and disconnected systems, teams work with data in silos, and carving out time for analyzing product performance is difficult. It’s a recipe for delays, errors, and missed opportunities.

That’s where a Product Information Management (PIM) solution can be such a game-changer. To demonstrate what we mean by this, let’s take a look at what a typical working day might look like for an e-commerce manager, and explore how the introduction of a PIM platform can quickly make a significant impact on productivity levels.

Morning: Dealing with a product data headache

The day begins with a flood of tasks. SKUs need updating, a supplier’s new images need processing, and the marketing team has flagged inconsistencies in the product content residing on all UK and French-specific sales channels.

Without a PIM solution in place, the e-commerce manager will need to spend a considerable amount of time and effort checking data across several outdated systems, before manually correcting the content for each online channel that needs updating.

While all of this is doable, it makes for a very slow process — and one which carries a risk of further errors being made.

But utilizing a PIM system means that the e-commerce manager can always start the day more productively. For example, from the PIM platform’s centralized dashboard, they can easily check product performance and quickly identify any products in desperate need of content corrections.

Any updates made to product data are made directly in the PIM system, with changes quickly rolled out to marketplaces and websites. What’s more, there’s built-in version control and localization capabilities, so several jobs are handled all at once.

Productivity levels now: Hours are saved each week on identifying errors and making manual updates. In turn, The PIM platform enables the business to put product data governance in place, while quicker product content updates improve the customer experience across every touchpoint.

Mid-morning: Conquering coordination chaos

Later that morning, the e-commerce manager joins a meeting to prep for a major product launch.

• The marketing team is still waiting for finalized product descriptions.
• The sales team need up-to-date specification information.
• The legal team is reviewing disclaimers.
• The digital team is asking why the product still isn’t live…

Having to deal with different departments that ultimately work in their own silos is a common scenario for e-commerce managers. It results in a perpetual lack of alignment between teams; leading to product launches that are delayed for days, weeks, or even months.

By introducing a PIM system, the e-commerce manager can work with all of their stakeholders in one central hub, where workflows, role-based tasks, and review ‘checkpoints’ are firmly in place.

The result? The e-commerce manager can see where each product is in the product information lifecycle and deal more quickly with any hurdles or bottlenecks causing a delay.

Everything is transparent, trackable, and standardized.

Productivity levels now: The product launch process is a more transparent, trackable one, which means that launch deadlines are more likely to be met.

There’s also less confusion and miscommunication

Afternoon: Seeking more agility with analytics

After lunch, it’s time for the e-commerce manager to spend some time reviewing and analyzing the latest batches of product performance data.

The task now is to try and identify which products may be missing attributes, are underperforming, or should be enhanced to help conversion rates. However, it’s hard for the e-commerce manager to tackle these tasks effectively without access to a single source of truth for the product data.

As a result, they may find themselves spending the entirety of the afternoon switching between different analytics tools, spreadsheets, and marketplace seller portals — just to try and identify which data needs attention.

With a PIM system in place, the e-commerce manager can access real-time analytics that naturally integrate with the overall product information lifecycle. This enables them to quickly identify and correct product information problems, and spot new opportunities to enhance existing product content with, for example, rich content.

Productivity levels now: Faster, easier access to important data analytics enables your e-commerce manager to make informed decisions, take prompt action, and work smarter by harnessing a product content strategy that’s truly data-driven.

Real-life customer case study: MonkeySports

Retailer MonkeySports, Inc., a global leader in hockey, baseball, and lacrosse equipment, faced the challenges set out above.

Managing 150,000+ SKUs across six e-commerce stores in the US, Europe, and Canada, as well as 10 physical retail stores, their e-commerce team was constantly hindered by its outdated, clunky technology — and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of manual data entry work needed.

After implementing Inriver PIM, the results were impressive:

• MonkeySports now require 50% fewer people to manage its product data; freeing up significant amounts of time for the rest of the e-commerce team each week.
• The e-commerce team now works on the basis a six-month lead time for enriching and merchandising products before launch — using Inriver PIM. This allows them ample time to get everything done ahead of launch date.
• MonkeySports can automate the distribution of its product content to all of its e-commerce platforms, with multi-languages applied through Inriver PIM’s built-in localization capability.
• Importantly, customer experience improved with MonkeySports new ability to roll out richer, more consistent content for omnichannel with Inriver PIM.

“If a customer does discover a product specification we have failed to update, it’s fixed instantly using the inriver PIM. It is super-fast and super-efficient. I don’t know how we survived without it.”

— Ki Song, Director of E-commerce Development, MonkeySports

Using PIM means boosting productivity beyond just today and tomorrow

Making a PIM system part of your product content operations is about transforming the way e-commerce managers (and the wider teams) work — it’s not about ‘surviving’ another single day!
Inriver PIM helps e-commerce teams scale because there’s one source of truth for all data and content. This reduces the wastage of your resources and the likelihood of product listing errors.

Workflows align teams across departments — wherever they’re based in the world — reducing friction, encouraging increased collaboration, and enabling faster product launches.

Routine processes like content syndication, language localization, or channel publishing are automated, meaning that your e-commerce manager can focus on more valuable tasks and activities.

And with instant visibility into product readiness and performance, e-commerce managers can be more agile; correcting and optimizing product content far more quickly, while acting on emerging market trends as and when they’re happening.

Is it time to work more productively with Inriver PIM?

With evermore products, SKUs, and channels to manage, the role of an e-commerce manager isn’t likely to get any easier. However, with Inriver PIM embedded in your organization’s product data operations, managing this complexity can unlock significant time savings, greater efficiency, and a big boost to productivity.

Just imagine what your e-commerce manager could accomplish with those extra hours each week…