In many industries, a low time to market is one of the most important competitive advantages. If you have your products available online, you are already miles ahead of your competition. Did you know that more than 75 percent of shoppers begin their research online — and that figure is not limited to business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. Over 70 percent of business-to-business (B2B) buyers do the same thing. In order to compete, you need to make sure that you have the right products available and searchable.
While you could rely on getting lucky or spend money buying and posting new stock early, there is another option. Using a Product Information Management (PIM) system will help you increase your speed to market.
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5 Crucial Questions You Need to Answer Before Choosing a PIM System
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PIM reduces Time-to-Market
The right time to market (TTM) varies for every company and each type of product. In some industries, the change can be very rapid. If you don’t move quickly enough, your product launch could experience catastrophic delays. For some products, a delay of just a few months could cause you to lose market share to a competitor and result in realizing less revenue from that product line than you may have been able to otherwise.
Adding a PIM system will help you be better able to monitor your TTM and get your products out while they are still new.
Centralize product information in the PIM system
PIM systems act as a centralized place for you to store and organize all your product information. If you are like most companies, you have a large assortment of products and you market those wares through a variety of channels.
The information you use to produce the product content you need to sell probably comes from many different sources. You have documents and spreadsheets, supplier information and ERP systems, and so many image files.
Compiling all these resources can take significant investments in time and could still leave you with incomplete product information. Adding a PIM solution will simplify this process.
Automated Product Information Management
In addition to acting as one big searchable data storage solution, a Product Information Management system can automatically pull and populate the data you need to create complete product profiles. Plus, with the right configuration, you can receive an alert when you don’t have complete information for a specific product. Imagine being able to receive a notification when you are missing an image, description, product weight or measurement! Customers want complete product information — most consumers identify comprehensive product information as a primary motivator when shopping.
Improve Marketing Efficiency with PIM
PIM systems can also help you streamline your marketing processes. After your product information is completed and finalized, you can go straight to marketing the item on your different channels. With the right configuration, your marketing team will know when each product information profile is complete, and therefore able to start marketing that new item right away. Plus, your marketing team will have a framework they can use for promoting each product, from the way to write the web copy to how to word your posts on social media.
Download your guide to choosing a PIM system
When you use a PIM system, you save time and that saves money — plus, it gets you to market that much quicker. Still, one question has not been answered: Which PIM system will suit you best?
We can guide you through the decision process with our free whitepaper
“5 crucial questions you need to answer before choosing a PIM system”.
Updated in February 2022