Modern shoppers tend to utilize a vast number of channels to research, shop and purchase products. It is not unusual to see one person research a product on a retailer’s home page, compare prices on marketplaces and then finally buy the item at a nearby brick-and-mortar location.

With that in mind, coordination across all of these various channels is critical to the success of the retailer. If merchants cannot present shoppers with a similar experience regardless of where they shop, it makes the brand look inconsistent and disorganized.

One of the central challenges that today’s retailers face in maintaining that consistency is product information management (PIM). Without a central database managing all of these different SKUs, it is easy for inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date information to make its way to customer touch points.

For example, say a retailer operates an Amazon marketplace as well as its own eCommerce website. In some cases a retailer might want product descriptions coordinated to the specifications and audience of the marketplace, which typically differ from a retailer’s branded website. At the same time, it can be time-consuming trying to manage all of this data and keep it all updated simultaneously. This task gets even more complicated when data is separate, without any true source to pull from.

Fortunately, a PIM solution can go a long way in helping retailers better manage all of this raw data by collecting it into a single database. This allows merchants to maintain that consistency and coordination across all channels, while also making the lives of retailers much easier as well.

With as many as one in three eBusiness professionals listing “investing in a PIM” as their top priority, it is time for retailers to strongly consider whether they should look into one as well.

Check out the infographic below to understand the challenges of managing product data and how a PIM system can unify product data for the multi channel shopper.

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