5 best PIM solutions for Magento stores

Appropriate tools are needed to develop e-commerce activities. With a large number of products sold, one of the necessary products is the PIM system for product information management. Thanks to it, it is able to optimize the work and functioning of the entire online store.

According to the Infomratica report, as many as 65% of companies have started using PIM in their sales service. These types of solutions remove errors related to product information and minimize the costs incurred for printing paper catalogs. However, these are just some of the many advantages and reasons why online store owners use PIM.

What is product information management and what are all the benefits of PIM in multi-channel sales? Which software should I choose for the Magento 2 platform? 

What is the PIM system?

PIM is, as we have already mentioned, a product information management software. It provides one place to collect, operate, maintain, update and organize product information. It enables creating product catalogs and distributing data to various sales channels – not only online.

Thanks to PIM e-commerce, you can enrich information and descriptions of articles available in your store. So you don’t have to use any additional tools. PIM software usually easily connects to the e-commerce platform because it is easy to integrate.

What should the product information management system offer? First of all, being able to import data from ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, DAM (Digital Asset Management) systems, Box folders, spreadsheets, accept flat files (Excel) via FTP (File Transfer Protocol), and also allow access from various location with direct integration using an open API (application promramming interface).

With PIM e-commerce software, you can handle various types of information:

– technical – product specifications, e.g. color, size, weight, material,

– emotional – vivid product descriptions, stories, photos that evoke emotions in the recipient and help to establish a bond with him,

– utilitarian – product descriptions with the place and method of use, e.g. examples of usage suggestions.

Please note that PIM software only includes product descriptions and specifications. It does not retrieve information about transactions, inventory levels or costs.

When is it worth investing in a PIM system?

Each company, regardless of its industry or size, can use product information management software. However, there are situations in which the PIM system is a mandatory marketing tool. This happens if your company:

– Has a complex collection of various products. When the assortment is large and has many attributes (parameters). Then you need a huge workforce to organize everything and provide reliable information on each type of product.

– You have many sales channels (omnichannel) and you want to choose the right product depending on where they are distributed.

– You want to quickly introduce new products to the market.

– You trade international and you must process various products in many languages ​​and in different outlets.

– You want to provide your customers with the highest quality product information that is consistent regardless of sales channel.

– You need to regularly update product information and collect data from many different suppliers.

– Several times a year you expand and send new product offers to your contractors.

– You care about minimizing returns and complaints from customers.

– You want to improve compliance processes and comply with specific regulations in each country where you sell.

– You want to track sales progress and create custom product data files.

If the above points apply to your business, bet on a PIM solution! Thanks to it, you can quickly and smoothly create engaging product experiences for your clients and simplify the management of even an extensive product catalog.

How can PIM help an e-commerce company?

Product information management software often brings beneficial changes to marketing strategies. Therefore, it is worth considering its introduction. How does PIM contribute to marketing success?

It allows you to create content optimized for all sales channels.

What is the most important in online trading? To be wherever our potential recipients are. This is the aspiration of most online sales companies. So it’s important to be able to open new distribution channels, and thus – to create rich, consistent content suited to all sales channels.

Unfortunately, each channel has different requirements for product information to achieve optimal sales results. By creating a unique, current and reliable source of product information, PIM software provides the marketing team with tools to smoothly distribute optimized product descriptions regardless of distribution channels.

Offers high quality enriched product content.

Providing comprehensive and comprehensive product data results in customer satisfaction. However, creating separate descriptions for individual channels, varied depending on the country, is a time consuming and arduous task. Fortunately, PIM guarantees you fit to the context and the channel, thanks to which you get a higher conversion rate.

Limits product returns by eliminating manual errors in the data. 

PIM guarantees you safety. Thanks to it, you know that all data about your products is accurate, current and adapted to the sources of sales. What’s more, you can be sure that your customers really understand your product and know what they are dealing with before buying it. In this way, PIM helps you reduce the number of returns and associated costs. It removes manual data errors, avoiding incomplete and incorrect inventory information.

Increases work efficiency and effectiveness.

The PIM solution automates up to 80% of manual, tedious and repetitive tasks. Thanks to this, you and your employees can concentrate on creating suggestive product descriptions.

For example – PIM reduces the time-consuming and inefficient need for data in various distribution channels or the transfer of product information from one department to another. Therefore, thanks to workflows, it automates a number of processes that require large resources. This increases the company’s productivity and allows salespeople to add missing product information and collaboration between departments and departments in different locations.

It helps new devices organize and centralize product information.

There are many e-commerce trends currently shaping the online retail market. These include voice assistants, chatbots, progressive web applications (PWA), augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI). A common feature of all technological trends is the growing demand for structured data. With PIM, you can centralize and organize product information. In this way, the implementation of new technologies becomes much simpler than before.

Meet the 5 best PIM systems for your Magento 2 store

Magento 2 is a very popular e-commerce platform. It is used by over 130,000 retailers. Due to such great interest, there are many suppliers offering programs for product information management. Get to know them and choose the most suitable for your business.

Akeneo

This is highly configurable open source PIM software. It enables sellers to manage all content and product data in one place. It also allows them to be exported to different channels. What’s more, it also supports content in many languages ​​or currencies and allows you to select data for export, their method and place and time of export. Suitable for almost any type of business. It offers integration with: Magento 2, WooCommerce, Google Shopping, eBay, AliExpress, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, WordPress, BigCommerce and many others.

Akeneo is available in three versions: free Community, Cloud and Enterprise, based on a paid subscription. Akeneo allows you to import data from various Excel and CSV files, connect to third party systems and suppliers to get a full and transparent view of all imported files. Buyers can therefore easily connect their Magento 2 store with Akeneo PIM software to quickly export and import a large number of products.

InRiver

InRiver PIM helps multi-channel B2C and B2B commerce in handling and distributing relevant product content from a central location to various sales channels. Also in many different languages.

InRiver software offers you one control point where you can manage incoming and outgoing product information from one desktop. What’s more, InRiver includes the Planner application, thanks to which you can plan and track activities, control the work process and cooperate with the sales team directly in the PIM system.

The clever InRiver software also has the option of marketing content management. Including customer ratings and reviews, comments and behaviors needed in other areas of e-commerce. Third-party applications, such as Magecloud, ensure seamless integration of inRiver with the Magento 2 store.

InRiver is perfect for both B2B and B2C industries. It also enables integration with e.g. Amazon, Google Shopping, Magento 2, Shopify Plus, Salesforce Commerce and Cloud.

Pimcore

It is an open source PIM system ready for use. It combines many useful functions such as data modeling, data management and workflow management. Thanks to Pimcore, you can smoothly manage complex product information and send it to many sales channels.

The Pimcore system allows you to centralize and structure all marketing and technical information about a product, enabling you to provide product data at all points of contact with the customer. In addition, Pimcore is the only consolidated open source digital platform covering product information management (PIM), master data management (MDM), digital asset management (DAM) and online sales. You can easily integrate Pimcore with Magento 2, Shopify, Amazon, Google Shopping, eBay, Facebook and others. Pimcore fits any size company that specializes in any industry.

Salsify

It is a cloud-based PIM software platform that collects and stores marketing content, product descriptions and logistic data in many languages ​​in one place.

Salsify allows you to manage product attributes and provide approved content for each distribution channel. It easily integrates with all major ERP, DAM and sales platforms (Amazon, Magento 2, Shopify Plus, SAP, Oracle). Trellis external connector ensures seamless integration of Salsify with Magento.

With Salsify, you can centralize and transform movies, images and other files that will be used in different channels. Salsify supports content performance analysis and is available in custom priced packages depending on your business needs. As a PIM system, it is perfect for large companies with large amounts of data changes.

Bluestone

Bluestone is a user-friendly API based PIM software. Manages digital images and product content, and helps build categories and subcategories that can be exported and imported in a variety of formats, including CSV.

If you want to combine sales omnichannel Bluestone PIM will help you improve the quality of service to your customers. It will also speed up the introduction of new products to the market.

Magento 2 Bluestone extension provides easy and automated management of the product catalog, images, categories and attributes in Magento. Thanks to immediate synchronization with one click, Bluestone PIM Product Sync will enable automatic data export to Magento 2. In addition to Magento 2, it easily integrates, among others from Amazon and Adobe InDesign. It suits every industry and various sizes of enterprises.

How to integrate the PIM system with Magento 2?

The integration of PIM with the Magento e-commerce platform enables product information management in the user interface via the website. Do you want to integrate any PIM system with Magento 2 using third-party extensions? If so, follow the steps below.

1) Import category and product data into the PIM system.

2) Test the Magento device. Make sure the same PIM database fields exist in Magento.

3) Create a PIM connection channel and give the fields the same name in the PIM and Magento systems.

4) Install the third-party extension.

5) Perform preliminary tests with several products. Thanks to them you will make sure everything works properly.

6) Check if all product content is properly synchronized. Particular attention should be paid to images and custom attributes, which are sometimes the most problematic.

7) If the results are correct, add the rest of the products until the catalog is full. 

Do you already know if you need a PIM system in your company? It is certainly a solution that facilitates the functioning of an e-commerce website. By using PIM software you will save time and start distributing high quality product information. Thanks to them, your sales and the number of satisfied customers will increase. Just remember to choose the type that best suits your business!