Strategies to Control Omnichannel Commerce with Centralized Product Information Management

Online, June 5, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Retailers across spectrums are facing a tough time creating brand loyalty. Multiple sales channels, abundant product options and customization options have led to customers being spoilt for choice and becoming highly price sensitive.

Competitive pressures are only mounting by the day with the emergence of many players, both big and small, trying to tap the unlimited potential of omnichannel commerce. Product Information Management thus becomes a prerequisite for omnichannel commerce operations. PIM enables a single view of the deluge of product-related content available. This helps in better decision making capability, operational efficiency and omnichannel strategizing.

Centralised product information management can improve profitability, performance and customer experience all at once. It is essential for product content expectations to be met across channels for the success of the brand in the long term.
For omnichannel commercial success, the strategies to be followed with PIM are:-

Centralize - A central source of product content must be built in order to deliver the very best content. In order to achieve this, the PIM software should necessarily have ERP integration which would save brand owners the task of consolidating data from across all departments. The data of product categories, product families, product images, product attributes, product descriptions etc. would be included in one database and help do away with unnecessary silos thereby feeding the print catalog software, web catalog software, and other omnichannels.

Update - Product content, packaging redesigns, nutritional values etc. are constantly changing. To top that the marketing department changes the message sent across to consumers depending on the trends. With such constant updates, inaccuracy and inconsistency can be a threat to brand integrity. Product information updates thus play an important role in product content management in the omnichannel commerce scenario.

Flexibility and Scalability - Product information management must include strategy for content creation, maintenance and distribution. Companies usually have varied kinds of internal and external customers with different requirements. To account for the varying needs, the content distribution system should be flexible enough to meet the customer needs. With more and more channels for sales opening up, consumer demand for product content is also increasing rapidly. Scalable and flexible content distribution is required for data consistency and proper brand control. Questudio's CatalogStudio helps manage content and store them in a central repository.

Connect - It is essential for one's business to connect to one's customers across all touch-points. A consistent experience regardless of the customer touch-point chosen can be ensured with PIM. Making online and offline stores work seamlessly together drives revenue and sales. Complete integration of online and in-store systems would help one experience greater commercial value. It would also help in tracking results through one holistic omnichannel reporting and analytical capabilities. Print catalog software, web catalog software, and Integration with ERP helps drive content to Omnichannel.

Communicate - In such times of omnichannel commerce, one cannot afford to ignore the internationalised commerce. It becomes imperative for a company to use a PIM platform that is capable of communicating in multiple languages, manage multiple currencies and taxes. It must be able to conduct an interaction with other applications by importing and exporting product, customer and order related data.

Thus product information management system allows businesses to operate their products from a centralized location and publish their product range in their print catalog, mobile site, eCommerce website, call center and other systems simultaneously for omnichannel commerce