Let’s start with a quick definition: A PIM is a business application that provides a single place to collect, manage, and enrich your product information. It creates a master catalog of product data which then becomes the primary driver for use and distribution to your channels.
Most manufacturing businesses soon discover they need a PIM in order to work effectively. However, just adding this tool is not the cure-all answer to the real issue—poor data loaded into a PIM does nothing to push business results.
While this sounds like the perfect solution, it only works effectively if the product content already exists. Without rich, accurate, and complete product content, a PIM cannot fulfill its purpose. Essentially, it becomes a high-tech repository for information that doesn't exist, or isn’t complete and accurate, rendering the investment almost useless until the necessary product content is created.
Product content helps customers and prospects understand how the product works and why it is the right solution for their industry challenges. For manufacturers this often means detailed product descriptions, important specifications, the proper product images, CAD drawings necessary for customer use, and instructional videos.
The importance of accurate product content cannot be overstated. A recent poll showed that 50 percent of consumers say they have returned a product purchased online because it didn’t match the online description. Dissatisfied customers lead to lower sales and decreased profits.
Beyond the annoyance of customers not receiving their anticipated orders, product content issues have ripple effects on overall perceptions of customer experience. Imagine the damage created when a first-time buyer experiences issues on their very first interaction with your company. Even if the problem is quickly resolved via some human interaction, the transaction may be burdened with costly special handling, extra customer service costs, time-consuming return processes, and expedited freight costs.
Unpublished products create another common content issue. Research done by the Distribution Strategy Group demonstrates that 90 percent of manufacturers in our industry have less than half of their product content available online. This not only provides the wrong impression of your company, but can result in decreased customer confidence and the accompanying loss of sales.
Many businesses only focus on the fact that the top 50 percent of SKUs sold represents a dominant slice of the overall business. This way of thinking overlooks the key point that niche products purchased less frequently are often more profitable. Further, many experts view these small-volume products as door- openers to major sales. Many customers find new suppliers because they need something that ends up leading them further down the “long tail” of products sold.
KYKLO handles the heavy lifting of setting up a PIM system. Besides providing a world-class PIM, KYKLO takes care of creating the right kind of enriched content for your products. All the content is curated and designed expressly for ecommerce success. KYKLO covers data governance and maintains the system with a secure cloud infrastructure, greatly reducing the work required in-house.
To put the icing on the cake, the powerful KYKLO PIM supports inventory and warehouse operations thanks to accurate and detailed product data. And the system can be integrated with eCommerce platforms without concerns about slowdowns or IT infrastructure costs.
The KYKLO system also eliminates the need for additional sourcing in your marketing or IT groups. One KYKLO client went public with this observation:
“When we started working with KYKLO we discovered we were able to get things going without investing in any additional headcount. KYKLO’s customer success managers allowed us to basically provide periodic feedback, and they did the rest. There wasn’t a big learning curve for our team. And even now, it takes only about 10 percent of a single person’s capacity to keep up with the system overall.”
Sound exciting? Now might be a good time to check out what KYKLO PIM can do for you.
