A product information management (PIM) solution is a business solution that gives online sellers a central location to gather, organize, and enrich the information about the products, build a product catalog, and disseminate it to their sales and eCommerce channels.
Distributors’ revenue is directly impacted by how they handle their inventory. Due to their high SKU count, they must constantly monitor stock levels across various channels. If distributors don’t address declining stock levels or out-of-stock items, it will destroy client relationships, especially in the uniform industry were timely availability of uniforms is uncompromised.
Therefore, these organizations make use of the product information management (PIM) system to collect, manage, collate, catalog making, distribution, and sales of the product through the eCommerce channels.
Challenges faced by distributors
Distributors have different needs when it comes to streamlining and preparing their product data for consumers in a variety of ways. Furthermore, regional and product-category specific needs for product information management may vary greatly. All of this requires a lot of time and work.
The different challenges faced by uniform distributors while distributing the product through eCommerce include:
- Managing product information across numerous channels.
- Absence of a central data store for product information.
- Management of the products’ digital assets.
- Delivering goods in a timely and efficient manner.
- Maintaining the inventory based on customer demands.
Why do uniform distributors need PIM?
The distributors serve as a direct link between the manufacturers, the retailers, and also the end consumers. They offer a range of services, such as providing product details, cost estimates, technical support, after-sales service, credits, etc. The distributor will be able to manage all of this data effectively by utilizing a suitable and advanced PIM system.
1. Central repository for product data
Managing the volume of items from many manufacturers and clients is one of the distributors’ challenging tasks. The distributor can become overloaded as the number of products and demands rise, which would cause more confusion.
A suitable digital repository will assist in handling the large amount of data from one spot, reducing this confusion.
PIM system provides a single storage repository for all the product information. It gives employees role-based access to manage the data.
To support multichannel marketing and unified commerce, product managers, marketing, and commerce teams can generate, maintain, and access a single version of truth of rich product content and digital assets through a PIM system.
2. PIM reduces time-to-market for distributors
PIM makes product data delivery accurate as well as quick. It gives departments the ability to quickly build data hierarchies and structures, validate data, and monitor various versions. Additionally, it enables faster description enrichment, paving the way for quicker communication among numerous organizational functions, improving workflow and operational efficiency, and making the jobs of sales and marketing professionals easier.
As a result, its adoption speeds up the launch of new products and the time it takes for products to reach the market, giving firms a competitive edge. Additionally, multichannel product distribution and delivery increase the likelihood of customer interaction and sales by ensuring that products quickly reach the target audience on those channels.
Distributors need faster time-to-market for a variety of reasons:
- To adapt to a market that is rapidly changing
- Keep up with competition.
- Shift to a B2C model
- Maintain the supply chain
- Address incoming client expectations
- Handle a lot of products quickly.
While many systems can address some of these specific aspects, a PIM system thoroughly ticks them all off. It acts as a vehicle for decreasing the process time, streamlining product data management, and assisting distributors get on their feet in eCommerce.
3. PIM is a single hub for distributors SKU
A PIM is a home for all uniform distributors’ products. When a distributor activates an SKU elsewhere, perhaps an ERP, it automatically gets added into PIM. From there, it joins the enormous family of SKUs that a distributor has in its inventory. The centralization of all SKUs, even whether the number goes well into the thousands or tens of thousands, is by far PIM’s most noticeable feature.
- Distributors can modify and update current SKUs, or items, on PIM. With the help of the tagging system, they can readily find what needs updating. All attributes of product data follow the SKU no matter where it is.
- Distributors can also control every SKU variant on PIM. A product does not appear by itself. A distributor typically offers several options for each product. Each choice or variation has its own SKU. Distributors have the ability to be quite detailed with the characteristics, requirements, and other information of each version.
4. Consistent information across different channels
A uniform distributor may distribute on a variety of channels such as eCommerce website, marketplaces like Amazon, social media platforms etc.
A PIM system collects and standardizes product data no matter its format and syndicates it seamlessly on every leading channel. It also offers a variety of options to customize according to the requirements of different customer-facing channels. Optimizations such as autogenerating creatives can also be carried out and included in titles, promos, logos, etc. dynamically. The product data syndication ability also helps in the distribution of product catalogs to any channel in any format, regardless of the market.
5. Integrations with other systems
One of the main advantages of product information management is that no current enterprise system needs to mold itself to work with it. As a matter of fact, it is PIM that fits like a glove with almost every enterprise software. A long list of systems can be integrated with it, such as ERPs, CRMs, existing product catalogs, relational databases, tracking or logistics systems, electronic data interfaces, partner data systems, as well as transactional data apps.
Furthermore, the majority of PIM solutions available today are 100% API-driven, allowing them to link with any new or existing technology, enabling real-time, two-way communication at any time.
PIM for distributors unlocks potential
eCommerce is a competitive warzone for distributors. The presumption is that distribution companies lag behind in the competitive, fast evolving eCommerce industry because of their function.
However, distributors have a greater opportunity thanks to PIM. In other words, they become more competitive by being able to compete with the millions of other merchants and direct-selling businesses.
Distributors can only expand more effectively when they have a well-organized SKU network. The first step in growing them is being able to cover SKUs.
PIM serves as a link between product data and enriched content, enabling distributors to develop into more adaptable, agile organizations that can keep up with market changes.