PIM Programs

What Are PIM Platforms?

Product Information Management, often referred to as PIM, describes the process of managing all the different types of product information that marketing, selling, and servicing products require. If you’re wondering what PIM is good for? The ability to control and manage all of the information associated with a company’s products is a critical component of success. The best PIM programs centralize all of the product information in a single location, allowing for effective management. This method also allows multiple people across the organization to access the most up-to-date information wherever they are, simultaneously.

What Is PIM Software Used For?

Product information can be any sort of information that is in any way related to a product. This can include everything from SKUs to pricing, features to dimensions, functionality to features, and much more. Product information can also include digital assets. These might be product photos, how-to videos, owner’s manuals, spec sheets, and so forth.

And what is PIM good for? It allows a company to centralize all of that disparate information, in whatever format it is in, in a single location. That is the answer if you're wondering what is PIM used for?

Product Information System Examples

Oftentimes, a company will elect one person, or a team of individuals, as “owners” of the product information. This allows a designated person or people to be responsible for ensuring that all product data is properly entered and kept up-to-date. This centralization allows a company to achieve true consistency across the board.

Many companies will also designate specific individuals to be responsible for specific products. This adds an extra level of protection in making sure that product information is accurate and up-to-date, two critical aspects to keeping the customer happy and the company running smoothly.

By choosing a third-party software called a Product Information Management (PIM) solution to most effectively manage product data and digital assets, each individual tasked with monitoring and keeping up-to-date specific products can simultaneously access the database to make necessary modifications that will instantaneously be available across the organization. Product information management software allows those who are responsible for keeping product data consistent and up-to-date can do their job while also ensuring that employees can take full advantage of that quality information.

PIM Software and Its Role in Creating a System

A PIM solution is designed to centrally store and manage all types of product data, from product dimensions to SKUs, and including product descriptions, benefits, features, pricing, functionality. A PIM creates a single source of truth for all product information. Multiple users can simultaneously access all of this information, which a company is then able to keep up-to-date and accurate across the organization.

The best PIM software is not limited to spreadsheets, but can also include digital asset management, allowing for the centralized storage and management of all of the digital assets associated with the product information. This can include product photos, how-to videos, owner’s manuals, and spec sheets. By choosing PIM tools in market with a built-in digital asset management system, a company can ensure that it has a way to easily access the valuable content and assets that it produces to best promote a product.

Who Needs PIM Programs?

One of the biggest beneficiaries of PIM software companies are manufacturers. Who better than to take full advantage of all the benefits that a PIM provides than an industry that is product-based.

Currently, many manufacturers keep their data stored in spreadsheets. This old-fashioned system requires that the spreadsheets be shared in a variety of file folders on the company network or on an individual’s hard drive. They may even have a variety of systems in place for dealing with different digital assets, with one hard drive storing owner’s manuals and another storing product photos. This creates an unwieldy and obsolete method for sharing product information that makes it impossible to implement a reliable system for ensuring consistency and up-to-date accuracy.

Even something so simple as free PIM software can make a world of difference for manufacturers who have not updated how they manage product information. By choosing one of the solid PIM software examples a company can create a single centralized place to store all digital assets and product information, ensuring that management of the information and assets can be kept seamlessly consistent and accurate across the organization. This has the additional benefits of increasing brand consistency, while also allowing multiple individuals within the organization to manage the product data.

Who Uses PIM Software?

It has gotten to the point that manufacturers that don’t take advantage of one of the PIM software examples are guaranteed to fall behind to the competition if they stay dependent on obsolete methods for product information management. But it is not just manufacturers that can benefit from improving Product Information Management techniques. In addition to manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and any business that needs to centralize the management of its product data across the organization can benefit from implementing PIM software.

Oftentimes it is the marketing team or the product management team within an organization that will take ownership of the PIM solution. But the use of the PIM solution is not limited to that team. Many of the teams within the organization will find the PIM software supplies a vital component of their job. Departments including sales, customer support, product management and many more will all find the PIM software will make their jobs both easier and more effective.

Which of the Following Is PIM Software?

PIM software takes Product Information Management to a higher level. The Top 10 PIM Software allows companies to centrally store and manage all types of product information.

Companies like Pimcore, Plytix, Salsify, Inriver, and Lumavate, as well as others all allow a company to centrally store and manage the information they most need such as features, SKUs, product descriptions, dimensions, and pricing as well as digital assets like product photos, how-to videos, owner’s manuals, and spec sheets.

For any company that manufactures or sells a physical product, this information is the lifeblood that allows the company to operate and thrive. By centralizing the information, a company can ensure effective management that will allow everyone in the organization to have consistent access to the most up-to-date and accurate information possible,

Not just manufacturers, but retailers, distributors, or any company that deals in physical products in any way can all benefit from a PIM solution. This is reflected in the size of the market for PIM software companies, as well as its projected growth. In 2022 the PIM market size was a very healthy $12.2 billion, but that number is expected to grow to $23.8 billion by 2027. Any company that doesn’t adopt this critical technology is bound to be left behind.

What Is an Example of PIM? A Competitive Landscape

Due to there being so much market growth in the PIM software industry, there is a great deal of competition when it comes to examples of PIM software. Some of the solutions available for PIM on today’s market include Plytix, Pimcore, Salsify, Acquia PIM, Akeneo PIM, Inriver, Catsy, and Lumavate.

Every single one of these solutions offers the ability to both centralize and manage all of the product data that a company has. Some, however, offer additional functionalities. Lumavate is a preferred solution because in addition to centralized data storage and management capabilities, it offers one of the most robust functionality of any PIM, with its built-in Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution as well as its Digital Experience Platform (DXP).

Do You Need a PIM With Shopify?

At first glance, Shopify can seem like a PIM. It is in fact an eCommerce solution that while it often contains product information, such as product images, descriptions, and pricing, this product information is limited solely to those that are strictly for eCommerce purposes. This means that the product information that you can store in Shopify is not geared towards use for the entire organization. It cannot be managed or accessed in the same way in which a PIM can be.

Unlike Shopify, a PIM solution will provide a comprehensive storage and management solution for all product data (and oftentimes digital assets as well) so that they can be used by multiple teams within the business. This will also include product information that is not relevant to eCommerce.

This means that a company that uses Shopify as its eCommerce solution can also benefit a great deal by investing in a PIM solution to better integrate their product information into all aspects of how they run their business so that it can promote consistency, efficiency, and accuracy across the board, not just in their eCommerce solution.

How Much Does a PIM Cost?

The cost of a PIM can vary greatly and is dependent on which solution a company chooses as well as its functionality. This is also a complicated question to answer because there are several different schemes for pricing PIMs. While some companies base their price on the number of SKUs stored in the PIM software, others will base it on the number of times the product data is used.

There is one company that takes a different approach, offering a transparent pricing model. Lumavate offers a comprehensive Product Experience Management (PXM) Platform, which enables a company to start accessing all of the functionality contained within for just $499 a month. This has created a solution that is typically 75 percent more cost-effective than competitors.

How Do I Choose a PIM?

There are a lot of PIM solutions available on the market; it can seem overwhelming to choose which is the best PIM software. But the question should not be which is the best, but which is the best for your company.

To come up with the solution it is important to consider five key questions:

What functionality do you need?
What other systems do you need to integrate with?
How will the product information be used?
What type of budget is defined for this initiative?
What is your timeline for implementing a solution?

One of the best choices for a company trying to choose a new PIM solution is Lumavate. This is because it offers complete Produce Experience Management (PXM) functionality. This means that within the Lumavate platform, employees have access to a Product Information Management (PIM) solution to use to centralize the management of product data, but they can also access Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality to store product-related digital assets, a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) to build digital product experiences in minutes, as well as such cutting edge functionality as text messaging capability, and a comprehensive form builder solution that integrates to the company’s system of record. There are no other solutions on the market with the breadth of functionality that Lumavate has, and Lumavate is often 75 percent more cost-effective than competitive solutions that have less functionality.

Why You Need More Than a PIM

While a Product Information Management (PIM) solution is a must-have for every manufacturer and retailer of physical products, the centralization of the product information is only so useful if it can be easily shared and consistently updated. It must be accessible to be used in digital experiences and for channel partner marketing efforts. Accessing printed materials should be a breeze.

So while accurate data stored in a PIM is a great start, for a PIM to really do its job, product data needs to be seamlessly passed to a company’s website, sales resource, and channel partners. Most PIM solutions don’t offer this level of integration to their centralization system. Rather than offer this as a built-in ability, many PIM solutions will instead offer countless third-party software solutions that require a customer to build their own integrations ensuring that product data seamlessly flows to where a company needs it.

Lumavate, however, offers a built-in solution to guarantee product information and assets can seamlessly show up in digital experiences, marketing materials and anywhere else a company needs it to go. This built-in Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that automatically connects to Lumavate’s PIM solution and Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality allows Lumavate users to create digital product experiences in minutes that dynamically pull in both product data and related digital assets in real-time. A complete solution like Lumavate makes it seamless for companies to centralize product information and use it with marketing, sales, and customer service materials without requiring any technical resources.

What Lumavate Offers

Lumavate is so much more than a PIM, in that it offers a complete Product Experience Management (PXM) platform, it endows companies with a powerful tool enabling them to create and manage everything related to their digital product experiences.

In addition to Lumavate’s built-in Product Information Management (PIM) solution, the software also offers Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality, a Digital Experience Platform (DXP), text messaging, a form builder, as well as more than 40 other integrations.

Lumavate is an all-in-one solution that provides any company that manufactures or sells physical products with all of the technology they need to effectively manage their product data and digital assets, as well as to do much more, including create and update digital experiences containing product information, send highly targeted text messages, collect product registrations or lead registrations, and much more

There are no other platforms that offer the same breadth of solutions that Lumavate does. On top of that, Lumavate is a fraction of the cost of most of its competitors which offer far less functionality.

How to Get Started with Lumavate

Unlike many other PIM software solutions, it is extremely easy to get started with Lumavate. You can get started with a 14-day free trial or by scheduling a demo. Lumavate offers multiple subscription plan offerings to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes with a wide range of product information needs. Plans start at $499 a month.

Once a subscription plan is purchased, companies are onboarded right away and can start fully implementing the Lumavate Platform the very same day.

Lumavate is built for marketers to use, so it doesn’t require any technical resources, and is extremely easy to use. Lumavate does offer professional services if companies need assistance with implementing their product data the first time. Getting started with Lumavate is so easy, most companies can launch digital product guides in just a few days after getting started.