Why is Akeneo an exceptional PIM system?
If you run an online store, you surely use many different tools to facilitate and accelerate everyday work. One software category that you should be especially interested in is PIM, which stands for Product Information Management. What are PIM systems? How do they help you in managing an e-commerce business? And why should you consider Akeneo as a worthy PIM system? Let’s find out!
What is PIM?
In short, PIM systems are designed to manage all the product information in your online store effectively. Large stores perfectly know what we have in mind – with tens of thousands of products, managing product information manually is close to impossible. Product information management systems facilitate changing and updating product information to streamline the operation of your online business.
The main goal of PIM is to distribute product information to all channels supported by the company, e.g., your websites, mobile applications as well as printed materials. Thanks to this solution, you gain more control over running your business.
At this point, you’re probably wondering which system to pick. The choice is broad, but today, we’d like to turn your attention to Akeneo, which is one of the most popular PIM systems out there. What do you need to know about this e-commerce tool?
Akeneo – Product Information Management
Akeneo is one of the tools you can use to manage your product information. It allows you to create multiple content distribution channels adjusted to your current needs. Moreover, you can customize each of them so that they can be prepared for gathering and displaying a specific type of information.
What is the difference between Akeneo and other PIM systems? First of all, Akeneo is a holistic PIM system. They even go one step further and call their platform PXM – product experience management. With their enterprise solution, you can manage product information processes and optimize them, no matter the size of your product catalog. Akeneo works well in the omnichannel model and can be easily integrated with other tools and platforms (via API). Additionally, the platform’s interface is transparent and aesthetic, and navigating the tabs and features is simple and intuitive.
What’s also important to mention, Akeneo has an open-source solution in their offer. Akeneo PIM Community Edition was designed to help small and medium-sized businesses to start centralizing, managing, enriching, and distributing their product information without large money investments.
Akeneo’s main functions
When you already have collected product information in your database, you can complete and optimize it accordingly. You surely know that not every data source provides sufficient information – sometimes, it has to be completed. With Akeneo, you can expand your product data and create multi-level and multi-group product categorization. Furthermore, you can even broaden product descriptions to make them more attractive to both users and Google bots. Akeneo lets you enrich your information with multimedia files and other attachments, as well as create linking between different products. What’s also important, you can do this in many languages and for different sales channels separately.
Once you have all the necessary product data, you can upload it and send it to all the distribution channels. Akeneo’s mechanisms will allow you to create any data exchange files and distribute them via the connector directly to the given sales channel.
Simply put, the entire product information management process in Akeneo comprises collecting, enriching, and sharing all the product data. All of these activities are necessary for the efficient management of an e-commerce business. In addition, by choosing Akeneo, you get more options to configure different product groups, create relationships between products as well as implement diverse language versions and currencies. All of that makes Akeneo a useful product information management solution for both small and enterprise-grade online stores.
Akeneo and Pimcore
When you choose a product information management system, you can also use the Pimcore software. It is an open-source PIM platform that allows you to manage your data in an automatic way. Additionally, it takes care of building a positive CX (customer experience).
Like Akeneo, this tool is also easy to use. However, in addition to managing information about the product, Pimcore also manages the content on the website. It can cope with the product and other complex data without hassle. The application also allows managing digital assets (DAM) and personalizing the customer experience by building user profiles. Moreover, it enables the management of many different data segments. Unlike Pimcore, Akeneo offers solutions for companies that want to manage only their product information.
To sum up, both tools have their pros and cons. It all depends on your needs and preferences. If you’re looking for the right product information management software, test both Akeneo and Pimcore and see which one is best for your online store.
