Why Product Information Management (PIM) is Vital for B2B Selling

Whether you’re a distributor, wholesaler, or manufacturer, you rely on your master catalog of product data. It’s your lifeline. It’s how you communicate and work with your partners, both resellers and retailers.

But do you currently manage your master catalog the best that you can? Is your data quality where you want it to be?

It’s probably not. You know you need to improve it. In this post, we’ll discuss how a Product Information Management (PIM) system can significantly improve your master catalog and help you seize new selling opportunities. (more…)

How Product Information Management Solves Common Problems with Your Clients’ Product Data

When you’re an eCommerce solution provider (agency, developer, etc.), your job is to help your clients grow their businesses—to help them expand into to new sales channels like an online webstore and/or marketplaces. An integral part of this process is prepping and managing their existing product data.

Your clients’ success depends on their ability to attract and sell to new customers through rich, accurate product listings. But, the problem is that clients turn over to you their messy, inaccurate product data.

In some cases, you might even turn down a client because their data isn’t worth dealing with. It’s difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to just clean up your clients’ data in preparation for expansion.

This post will discuss the common problems that you come across when dealing with your clients’ product data. We’ll then provide product information management best practices for solving these problems. (more…)

Why You Need a Product Information Management System

Increasing your customer base doesn’t always come down to likes, shares, and advertising. In fact, the most crucial aspect of increasing your eCommerce business is often overlooked: proper Product Information Management.

Kimberly Struyk, the principle SVP at QualQuant Signals, states that, “product information is the single most influential content to raising purchasing intentions” and on average overall brand impressions drop by 19% because of sparse product information. With out proper utilization of PIM you’re not only missing out on customers who could be visiting your site, you’re losing customers who land on it.

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nChannel Previews Product Information Management Capabilities at IRCE eCommerce Conference in Chicago

COLUMBUS, Ohio – nChannel, a cloud-based integration and operations management platform provider for multichannel sellers, will level the playing field for small to medium-sized sellers with its new Product Information Management (PIM) functionality, which will be previewed in Chicago at the IRCE 2014 eCommerce conference June 10 through June 13. Scheduled for release in July, the Product Information Management App will be an add-on to nChannel’s existing platform.

The PIM App software will consolidate product information data from a seller’s existing systems (including ERP applications, POS systems and spreadsheets)to create a composite view of every item, no matter where the source product data actually resides. The seller can then organize products into collections;add attributes to improve SEO and site navigation; manage pricing and images; and make bulk updates to the data. Once fully prepared, the PIM app will publish the data to their web store, online marketplaces, and/or point-of-sale system.

“Small to medium sellers must match the Amazon customer shopping experience in order to be successful online, and effective product management is a key part of making that happen” says Steve Weber, President and CEO of nChannel. “Companies often underestimate the tremendous complexity involved in accessing, organizing, and publishing product data across multiple sales channels. After implementing multichannel environments for over 80 companies,we saw a need for a tool that could help sellers list products faster, easier, and with more flexibility to get more products to market faster and to improve the customer’s experience.”

The PIM App is one of six apps included in the nCOM AppSuite. The others are Integration, Order Management, Customer Experience, Channel Intelligence, and Supply Chain. In addition to the PIM App, the July release will also feature a comprehensive sales analytics dashboard, order management, workflow enhancements, and a completely new, more intuitive and powerful user interface.

About nChannel: (www.nchannel.com)

nChannel, Inc., creator of the leading cloud-based multichannel operations management software solution, provides sellers with the tools to manage multiple sales channels with unprecedented ease and flexibility. Through its nCOM AppSuite, nChannel helps retailers become the most convenient shopping choice for both B2C and B2B customers. The suite includes applications that create efficiencies in merchandising, order management, inventory, customer interaction, supply chain integration, and analytics between brick-and-mortar stores, web stores, online marketplaces, and back-end systems. In 2013, nChannel subscribers sold more than 1.8M products to 660,000 buyers through the nCOM AppSuite representing more than $225M in revenue, including more than $12M in eBay and Amazon transactions. To learn more, visit www.nchannel.com.

4 Things Every Online Seller Should Know about Product Information Management

1. Why Product Information Management is important

Have you ever searched for a product online only to receive meager results and thought, “I know there are more people selling this stuff, why can’t I find it?” Or maybe you got frustrated browsing a site because you had to scroll through pages and pages of unorganized products. The source of both of these common problems could be a lack of adequate product information management.

Managing products is a key component to the success of selling online.

• You need to get products to market quickly and with complete and accurate detail.
• Product data must be searchable so search engines can find them.
• You must offer and maintain a large product assortment.
• Items must be organized into collections to make shopping easier for the buyer.
• Updating product data should not break the bank or take so long that it’s prohibitive. (more…)