Product data : 4 key principles that will take you to «Zero Excel».

To complete the data in their product sheets - we talk about product data enrichment - several alternatives are available to marketing teams. Excel is the most accessible tool, the familiar terrain to which people almost spontaneously turn at first. But in order to sell well, it is necessary to provide customers - whether on the Internet or in print - with impeccable product information. And when a context of strong competition, seasonality, the race to omnichannel and ever richer data takes hold, the use of Excel can quickly give one cold sweats.

For marketing teams, here are 4 essential needs that unfortunately cannot be fully met by Excel:

1. Making product data more reliable

To ensure that all the information is properly filled in, several Excel files are often circulated for the same product between the Marketing, Product, SEO and E-Commerce teams. With the time constraint comes the organisational constraint.

When the deadline for the release of the Products approaches, it is sometimes very complicated to find the reference file, so contributors work simultaneously on different files.

This type of pitfall can lead to incomplete or incorrect product information that will alter the visibility of products to potential customers.

2. Delete errors

A faithful ally at the beginning, when there is only a small amount of data to be entered, Excel can prove to be a major source of errors as the data flow increases. With the size of the file comes the problem of data readability which prevents proper verification of information.

For example, the same product could appear several times in a file without being noticed and form duplicates that will feed your e-Commerce site and your marketplaces in erroneous data.

The solution? The use of a PIM (Product Information Management) to work with unique, consolidated data. Contributors can then be sure that they are working on the right product sheet, in a user-friendly, ergonomic tool.

Nor can Excel be used to trace contributions in order to carry out precise work. Conversely, the integration of a contribution workflow within a PIM enables data enrichment to be controlled and mastered.

3. Gaining productivity

To gain in productivity, it is necessary to be able to link speed and quality of data enrichment. This is very difficult to do with Excel.

PIM (Product Information Management) has the advantage of offering a completeness system to define the level of enrichment required before publication. For example, indicating that a given product has only 50% of the required fields completed alerts the right contributor to continue filling in the product file.

The contributor knows exactly what to do and when to do it thanks to the PIM dashboard dashboard, which serves as a to-do list, listing the tasks and actions required of each contributor.

Collaborating on PIM means enabling teams to communicate, and gain in productivity and speed.

4. Facilitating collaboration

Excel files are usually sent via the company's internal e-mail system. This method of transfer wastes time because they have to be systematically downloaded and sorted according to a file structure that is not particularly standardised.

It is also time-consuming to identify the right recipients for a specific product sheet. This is because each team has its own tasks and skills and needs to be supplied with the right information to perform its role.

This is why PIM enables fine-tuned management of user rights, offering only read and modify rights by department.

Quable's PIM addresses all of these friction points by providing a solution to centralise product data in one place where different teams can collaborate effectively.

Excel may be an option at the outset, but it can quickly prove time-consuming... Think PIM to facilitate the entire product data enrichment chain. product data enrichment chain.