Why can a PIM solution improve your ROI?

The implementation of a PIM (Product Information Management) or other solution is often part of a "ROI" dimension. Even though many companies are increasingly adopting the PIM platform, it's not easy to calculate the direct ROI following the implementation of this tool. Many of our customers (Petit Bateau, Lalique, De Neuville...) have seen direct benefits from implementing the Quable PIM platform: increased conversion rates, reduced time-to-market, opening up of new sales channels...

However, it can be tricky to calculate the ROI, while taking into account the financial, human and technical investments dedicated to the PIM project.

What is the situation for a company not equipped with a PIM ? What are the expected benefits of a PIM and the Quable PIM ? How can we calculate the ROI of such a project and guarantee its benefits?

Without PIM : a lack of growth

Not being equipped with a PIM solution can lead to many bad practices and habits that significantly slow down the growth of your business. The absence of a PIM platform means you can't ensure optimal, efficient, value-adding management of your product data. This has numerous consequences for your business and your teams in general. These include

Time-consuming management of product data

Without a solution to manage product data, this information is stored in different media and files (often Excel). The information can be on a single file, which goes back and forth, and is passed from hand to hand, and a lot of time is wasted trying to access that file. Sometimes the information is completely decentralized and present on many disparate files. It is also often difficult to know if the information in question is 100% reliable, which employee modified it and when, etc. The fact is that the management of product information via Excel or other files can be done efficiently only at the very beginning of the company's life, when it has to manage only a small amount of data. As the number of references sold increases, it is necessary to move on to the next stage and to equip oneself with the appropriate tools.

A lack of harmonization and standardization of processes between teams

Inevitably, the time-consuming management of product data forces your teams to focus on time-consuming and boring tasks. This leaves them with even less time to devote to more creative and/or higher value-added tasks. Often, teams don't have clear and established work processes that tell them who should do what and in what order according to the business categories (Photo Studio, Product, Marketing, Merchandising, E-commerce...). Each different business works in silos, in its own corner, in a non-collaborative way, often by email and/or phone. The teams are therefore interdependent and need, to move forward on their side, the prior work of other teams, slowing down the activity and making the business teams much less efficient in their daily tasks. The plurality of different teams does not help matters, as was the case with our client AdVini, previously.

Unreliable or false product information

The previous points listed certainly have a negative impact on the product data itself. Versioning problems on the information files, a lack of communication and collaboration between the teams working on the product data can lead to duplication or even errors in the product information. Sometimes, product information is "split" across different files, which are themselves located in different departments and teams. Manual management of this data inevitably creates a greater risk of error. Manual verification of this information is therefore much more time-consuming, which can delay the launch or marketing of products.

Product data enrichment slowed down

Enriching product information manually slows down the enrichment process itself. The long and time-consuming processes mentioned above lead to a loss of product data. As a result, product descriptions are often incomplete or impoverished, which can lead to a high product return rate. These cases are frequently found in the fashion industry, for example, where product information must be as exhaustive as possible (size, colors, materials, photos, etc.) and the product must be put on the market in record time.

A loss of business

Whatever the sector of activity, the marketing of your products requires great speed, especially in the face of competition. In seasonal markets such as food or in highly rhythmic markets such as clothing, the right data must be found quickly. Otherwise, a delay on the display or the change of the windows can be a real brake on the business if they are not updated according to the highlights of the year. Worse: if products are put online with wrong information, a lot of dissatisfaction can come back to the customer service, which could be saturated. This was the case for our client Petit Bateau, whose customer service department recorded 10% of its calls due to bad product uploads on the brand's website.

A lack of consistency in the customer experience

If your company multiplies sales channels, and the data is not homogeneous and uniform across all these channels, then the customer experience can also be altered, and brand sentiment depreciated. Uniformity of information is key; the message you want to get across to your prospects and customers must be the same everywhere, regardless of your sales channels (website, partners, retailers, marketplaces...). A lack of standardization can also affect brand image, a crucial issue for premium and luxury brands. Without a collaborative platform like PIM, data cannot be unified across multiple channels, and the message becomes inconsistent. As a result, the sales promise is not fulfilled due to the heterogeneity of product data. As a result, the customer and purchasing experience deteriorates.

The ROI of the PIM platform

Return on investment is guaranteed once the PIM platform has been implemented and used. While it is sometimes difficult to calculate the overall ROI of the solution, many key indicators that are significant for your business are measurable and verifiable.

Firstly, from a directly measurable and quantitative point of view, PIM ROI can be calculated through :

Time saving

"It's been a real time saver to stop chasing data", Maxime Piot, IS Manager at De Neuville. Indeed, with a single platform where your product data is centralized, there is no longer any doubt about where and how to look for and access the data. The days of going back and forth between different services, departments, teams, by email, by phone and by file exchange, are now a thing of the past. 

The time andenergy saved is considerable: everyone knows where the data is, and can access the platform whenever they want, from wherever they want. What does this time-saving mean in concrete terms? For our customer Lalique, this means that an employee who used to spend eight hours, or a whole working day, entering product data, now spends two hours thanks to PIM, i.e. referencing time divided by 4. For our customer De Neuville, this represents a full FTE (Full Time Equivalent) resource, which has been reallocated to higher value-added tasks.

Thanks to theautomation of certain tasks, and the systematic updating of data, exchanges between your teams and with your partners are largely limited, and the time freed up allows you to concentrate on other tasks that are more important to you.

Increase your sales

With product information that is as complete, transparent, detailed and exhaustive as possible, there is no longer any barrier for your potential consumers to make a purchase. The lack of information or contradictory information, heterogeneous according to the sales channels, is often a barrier to conversion, preventing the decision and the act of purchase.

With a considerably reduced time to market, your teams are able to put products on the market before the competition, and right in the trend or in the highlights of the year (sales, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Black Friday...), and thus generate more sales.

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Reduce your return rate with the PIM platform

If consumers return a product, it is often due to disappointment, which in turn is caused by poor quality product information. Thanks to 100% reliable, accurate and detailed product information, our customer Bonpoint has succeeded in considerably reducing its product return rate. As a result, their customer service department is now much less busy with questions about product information.

A greatly reduced return rate also means lower return policy costs, improved brand reputation and more satisfied and loyal customers from the start.

Increase your conversion rate

With rich, accurate, enriched and consistent product information, the product has a much better chance of being put in the shopping cart of your future buyer. Relevant and reliable product data greatly facilitates the buying process and decision. Our client Petit Bateau has considerably improved the conversion rate of its website, where previously products were not put online on the site, or with missing or false information including images, product descriptions ... etc.

While quantitative data is the lifeblood of your business, qualitative information is also closely scrutinized and is often a key success indicator for your brand.

Enhancing the customer experience with a PIM solution

Unified, harmonized product information across your brand's many and varied sales channels guarantees an optimized customer experience. When you sell your products through different channels (your own website, resellers, marketplaces, etc.), product information and sales pitches can lose valuable information along the way. In the end, the message you want to convey to your customers isn't quite the same, and your brand image can be damaged. This was one of the major issues for our customer Devialet, who, since implementing the Quable PIM , has been able to deliver a clear, consistent, luxurious message that matches its brand image, across all its sales channels.

Customer experience is not just the domain of B2C brands. All B2B players know how much their resellers and distributors also care about a smooth and harmonized customer experience. This is also the case for our client Sun City, a specialist in B2B children's clothing.

Better collaboration between your teams

With customized workflows adapted to your business teams and the very nature of your activity, collaboration between different departments and collaborators is unified and harmonized. Each team no longer needs to be aware of each other's progress in order to progress independently and individually in their respective tasks. Everyone knows what needs to be done, when and how, thanks to workflows tailored to your work processes. The days of interdependence between teams are well and truly over.

Better data quality

With comprehensive and powerful upstream work on the data model, product information is subsequently of the highest possible quality. Constantly and systematically updated across all sales channels, data is now reliable, qualitative, homogeneous and consistent across all your channels, all your media and with your distributors. Data is completely secure, and thanks to certain restrictions and controls, you can choose who has access to your data within the PIM platform.

A better quality of the data in real time allows you to be systematically ahead of your competitors and this whatever the high points of the year, related to your activity.

Guaranteed ROI thanks to the PIM platform

The benefits of the PIM platform are well established. Both qualitative and quantitative ROI approaches make the difference when choosing a PIM solution. In addition, the time it takes to deploy and activate the solution plays a major role in your company's strategy, a promise kept by the Quable platform, with a record deployment time compared to other solutions on the market.

While change management can be a daunting task when it comes to integrating a new solution like PIM, the new workflows, processes and ways of working will be beneficial both immediately and in the long term.

Interested in the Quable PIM platform? Find out more about our prices and request a free demo.