Accelerate time to market and improve UX with PIM software

In ecommerce, adaptability is more than just a buzzword—it’s fundamental to success. Businesses must swiftly adapt to market demands while delivering exceptional experiences to their customers.

One of the ways to measure this is through “time to market” (TTM) metric, which tells us how swiftly an idea turns into a ready-to-buy product. When businesses get their TTM right, they often find themselves a step ahead in the market.

However, swift product launches are just one piece of the puzzle. Equally important is the user experience, or UX. A stellar UX ensures that anyone visiting a site finds it intuitive and enjoyable. Take the Nike website, for instance. Its user-friendly design is a shining example of how a well-thought-out interface can make shopping not just easy, but delightful.

Another perfect example is H&M. It has excellent navigation and offers a detailed product classification so customers can quickly find the product they need.

At Gepard PIM, we’ve made it our mission to help eCommerce businesses achieve these goals seamlessly through our Product Information Management (PIM) software. For businesses expanding into global marketplaces, presenting precise and uniform product information is crucial. PIM solution addresses the challenges of managing product details such as data consistency. 

The Power of Speed: Time-to-Market 

The faster a company can introduce a product, the greater its competitive advantage. Even with a breakthrough idea, competitors may seize the opportunity and capture your target market first if implementation is delayed. According to a McKinsey & Co. study, a product that is more than six months late to market can lead to a 33% drop in profits over the next five years. Today, consumers demand the latest products and trends almost immediately. This demand necessitates rapid product launches. PIM software is designed to speed up this process. With features such as automated data imports, intelligent mapping and optimised content creation, the solution dramatically reduces the time it takes to get products onto virtual shelves. This acceleration not only keeps your business agile, but also ensures that you don’t miss opportunities due to slow processes. 

Improve User Experience: the UX imperative 

In eCommerce, the user experience is paramount. The digital storefront must replicate the cognitive  experience and provide users with a seamless journey from product discovery to purchase. However, achieving this can be challenging, especially as product catalogs  grow and become more diverse.

Gepard’s PIM software is designed with ease of use in mind. It centralises product marketing information and ensures that all data is consistent, accurate and available at all points of sale. Whether a customer is browsing your website or using a mobile app, they will have a coherent and engaging experience. This consistency builds trust, fosters loyalty and keeps your customers coming back.

Here are few keys on how to make the UX work for your customers:

• Know your customer (their terminology, buzzwords) and style of thinking.

• This might give you valuable insights on how to organise your catalogs and categorisation right, and would also provide you with good understanding on which product attributes are important for customers and how you should build your product search. For that purpose I would strongly recommend to use in-depth interview techniques.

• Use product tags & keywords

• In some cases you want to have a product attached to multiple categories and arrange categories intuitively for users, replicating their buying decision path

• Think of PDP viewport and place the most important data to be visible without using scroll. 

A guide to using the PIM solution

Using a product information management solution to accelerate TTM and improve UX is a strategic move for companies that offer many products or services. Brands can optimise key words and content for different marketplaces and retailers can automatically collect and optimise product marketing content while enhancing the customer experience. Here are instructions on how to use a PIM solution for these purposes:

Define your goals: Start by understanding your specific business goals, such as reducing time to market, improving product data quality or enhancing the overall user experience.

Choose the right PIM partner: Do your research and choose a PIM solution that meets your business needs. Consider factors such as scalability, integration capabilities, customisability, ease of use and vendor support. Some innovative vendors of PIM have implemented AI-assisted features such as attribute value mappings that reduce manual work and help users configure mappings by making suggestions.

By carefully considering these factors, you can select a PIM solution that meets your current needs and positions your business for future growth and success, while accelerating time to market.

Centralise product information: Centralisation starts with capturing all relevant product data, including but not limited to product names, descriptions, specifications, prices, SKU numbers, images, videos, attributes and any other information that defines your products.

During this process, it is important to ensure the accuracy and consistency of the data. Clean and standardise the data to avoid discrepancies and errors that can negatively impact customer expectations.

Optimise data management: organise and categorise products systematically using attributes, categories and tags to facilitate searching and sorting. This is a crucial aspect of effective product information management. This process makes searching and sorting products easy for internal teams and customers. Start by defining a set of standardised product attributes.

These may include size, color, material type, brand, model, weight and other characteristics relevant to your products.

Categorise products: Create a logical and hierarchical category structure that groups products based on their characteristics, purpose or use. This category taxonomy should reflect how your customers naturally think about the products. Use parent and child categories to divide products into subcategories that allow for more precise grouping.

For example, in an electronics shop, “Computers, Tablets and Accessories” may be a parent category, while “Desktop Computers” and “PC Gaming” may be child categories. Assign products to these categories based on their attributes.
In case you want to support multiple categories assigned to a product make sure you don’t need to maintain product duplicates and you PIM can support multiple categories per product.

Accelerate Product Listings: Utilise the PIM solution to create a structured workflow that automates the approval process for product updates and additions. Enable faster collaboration between teams, reducing delays and ensuring timely product launches. Automate content exchange with partners/customers / etc.

Improve Data Accuracy: Implement data validation rules in the PIM system to ensure product information is accurate, consistent, and error-free. Regularly audit and cleanse the data to maintain its quality over time.

Enhance Product Content: Incorporate rich media assets like images, videos, and interactive elements through the PIM to create compelling product pages. Provide in-depth product descriptions that answer potential customer questions and showcase unique features.

Don’t forget about Data Enrichment. It can involve enhancing product information with additional details. This could mean adding rich media (videos, A++ content) and technical specifications to make your product listings more informative and engaging.

Ensure Omnichannel Consistency: Ensure consistent product information across all sales channels, including an eCommerce website, social media, marketplaces, or physical stores. Use the PIM tool to manage data for different channels, adapting it to meet each platform’s requirements.

Quickly update product information in response to market trends, customer feedback, or changes in specifications, and ensure that the updated information is propagated across all relevant channels.
Integrate with Ecommerce Platforms: Integrate the PIM solution with your eCommerce platform (Shopify, Mirakl, Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, etc.) to seamlessly sync product information, reducing manual data entry and minimising errors.

Track Product Content With Digital Shelf Analytics: Leverage the PIM solution’s reporting and analytics capabilities to gain insights into product performance, customer preferences, and trends. Track content coverage by supervising content providers, monitoring their enriched product listings on retailers’ websites, and fully controlling content completeness and accuracy. Use these insights to refine your product offerings and marketing strategies.

In a world where speed and user-centricity often define success, combining the features of accelerating time-to-market and improving UX with PIM software stands as a testament to the transformative potential of technology. That’s why eCommerce businesses around the globe continue to rely on effective Product Information Management.

Companies frequently postpone innovative solutions because of a tight budget or lack of resources. At the same time, postponing innovations can lead to a wide range of problems, including a long time to market, missed opportunities, and loss of profit as a result.