Once you, as a company, experience how a webshop can contribute to an increased turnover in the domestic market, the idea of expanding sales to several countries is intriguing. In practice, however, it can be a tall order to take on. Fortunately, the task can be made somewhat simpler, if you can manage all of your product data – including the new language layer – centrally from the marketing department via a product information management system, aka a PIM system.
E-commerce is the route to the global market
Marketing is complex, and one of the tasks that can make you pull your hair out is going from marketing online in a single country to conquering new markets in several languages. On the other hand, e-commerce presents an obvious opportunity to reach a global market much more easily than if the company were to have a local sales presence in all the countries.
Language, currency, customs regulations and shipping options, etc. are some of the parameters that make demands on what the e-commerce platform must be able to support. At the same time, translating all the necessary product information can be a big job, not least later on when changes have to be made, and the marketing department faces an extensive project to get all the language versions edited.
This is where the PIM system comes into play.
The PIM system processes translations and language revision
In the PIM system all product information (e.g., product descriptions, marketing texts, technical information, high quality images, video, data sheets, related information, etc.) is saved and managed in as many languages as you wish. It is easy to import and export text and data from a PIM system in a format that translation agencies can work with, and then subsequent translations can just as easily be imported again into the right places in the PIM system, from where they are sent on to your webshop.
Webshop data managed from a single place: the PIM system
With a PIM system, you can organize product data in just the way you want it to appear in the webshop. You no longer have to go into your e-commerce platform in order to rearrange the products’ order or remove or add products or product data. It is all handled in the PIM system, and the changes are automatically reflected in the webshop (and in all the other sales and marketing channels you choose to link with the PIM system).
The entire task of getting the translated texts pasted into the right places on your e-commerce platform is eliminated, because the whole thing is controlled from the PIM system. A lot of the administration otherwise associated with translation thus disappears like dew in the sunlight.
With a PIM system linked to the webshop, the marketing department can be completely sure that the products will always be presented properly and that the necessary product information is present in the right form in all the languages.
Although it is still a complex task to market yourself globally, managing product information across markets and languages is no longer an obstacle.
Would you like to know more? Download white paper
Would you like to know much more about how a PIM system can help you succeed in e-commerce? Download our white paper ‘A CMO’s Guide to Online Store Success Using PIM’.
