Why should you incorporate PIM into your omnichannel strategy?

Omnichannel has gradually become an almost indispensable challenge for brands with an online presence. To ensure optimal visibility, brands are progressively broadening their reach with the aim of engaging different customers through different channels. This requires adapting sales and communication strategies to ensure that the customer experience remains consistent and positive. However, 78 per cent of retailers now admit that they do not offer a consistent brand experience across all channels.

Why is this the case, and how can it be addressed? And where should you start?

A PIM for your products and your omnichannel strategy

In a digital and omnichannel environment where information is accessible almost instantly, a delicate touch is essential. It’s about ensuring continuity in interactions with customers across all channels, whilst making these interactions highly relevant by personalising them. This starts, first and foremost, with what lies at the heart of the brand: its products and all the information relating to them.

And with good reason: when product information isn’t harmonised across an omnichannel approach, there are consequences…

Of the three-quarters of visitors who notice inconsistencies in information about the same product across different channels, 87 per cent have delayed their purchase, according to the Product Information Report (Shotfarm, 2017)

The lack of consistency between the content or media presented across different channels creates ‘cognitive dissonance’ in consumers, who are unable to reconcile differing product information. This can affect their loyalty and damage the brand’s image.

It is therefore essential to ensure consistency in product-related information across all channels. This helps to create a seamless experience for customers when they interact with the information or images that tell them about a product: the product experience. This experience comes into its own within an omnichannel strategy, where the search for information, from the potential customer’s perspective, is a key stage in the purchasing process.

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The ingredients of an omnichannel product experience

Regardless of the mix of channels a brand chooses to utilise, the quality of product information – and therefore the product experience – must be impeccable. Harmony and consistency of content across channels, accessibility and accuracy of data, a uniform brand identity… these essential ingredients of a high-quality omnichannel product experience require clear and seamless internal processes to centralise and then distribute verified and calibrated content.

Barriers to cross-channel product promotion

However, there are numerous obstacles to overcoming before a product can be promoted effectively and across all channels. Firstly, collecting product information can prove complex, particularly if internal processes and supplier relationships are not optimised.

This becomes even more complex when the information that needs to be provided varies across different channels. This is particularly the case for marketplaces, which have different requirements (left-aligned images, character limits for product descriptions, etc.).

In such contexts, processes for contributing product information are often poorly formalised or not formalised at all, leading to unnecessary delays and effort. This can result in high costs in terms of resources and time spent on opening new sales channels, particularly where product information is not centralised.

How does PIM (Product Information Manager) address the challenges of an omnichannel strategy?

In this complex omnichannel environment, tools such as PIM are designed to make life easier for e-retailers. PIM (Product Information Manager) offers several advantages:

• It eliminates product information silos for each channel,
• It enables all channels to be updated in real time,
• It automates business workflows (information enrichment processes) that apply across all channels,
• It enables businesses to address channel-specific listing challenges.

By centralising product information in a single database—available in real time and easy to connect to—it becomes possible to launch new sales channels in just a few clicks. Thus, for an e-commerce business, PIM reduces time-to-market across all channels – a key factor in an omnichannel strategy.

This is also true in the context of an international strategy: PIM enables the centralisation of product translations, facilitating the launch of products in new markets.

And depending on the specific requirements of the various channels, PIM also allows information to be presented in different formats, such as print communications. It enables catalogues and brochures to be easily produced via web-to-print using the product information centralised within the system.

Conclusion

The PIM therefore serves as the central repository of product information at the heart of an omnichannel strategy. Integrating new stakeholders, opening new sales channels or producing new marketing materials via web-to-print: these are all actions that are made easier, enabling e-retailers to save considerable time and boost efficiency whilst optimising their omnichannel strategy.

Whilst the PIM is perfectly suited to the challenges of an optimised product experience, it remains adaptable enough to support e-retailers as they evolve their strategy to embrace new technologies and channels, in order to meet consumers’ changing expectations. For example, it is possible to link the product catalogue to customer interaction scenarios via chatbots, and, in the future, to integrate product descriptions designed to be spoken (rather than read) on new voice-enabled channels. The omnichannel of the future is already possible thanks to PIM!