First the Data, Then the Sale: How Product Data Maintenance Contributes to Business Success

1. What is product data maintenance?
2. Why is product data maintenance important?
3. These challenges exist in product data maintenance
4. These advantages are offered by product data maintenance
5. How a PIM system can help you with product data maintenance
6. These Product-Information-Management-Softwares you should use
7. It’s all about the data

Maintaining product data is time-consuming and therefore very costly. New images, new descriptions, new categories and much more need to be considered and diligently added. In addition, the update of master data initially brings no visible benefit. But appearances are deceptive. In this article you will learn what product data maintenance means and why it is a key factor for success for your company. We also look at the challenges and advantages of this task and find out how the introduction of a Product Information Management Tool can relieve you.

What is product data maintenance?

The characteristics of your products are called product data. This includes, for example, color and brand as well as weight, item number, a meaningful image and a appealing, informative short description. The better you present your product online, the more likely it is that your customers will buy it. With up-to-date and correct product data, you ensure that buyers can be sure that they receive exactly the product they want, and no unpleasant surprises that eventually lead to a claim. Some data of your products are needed not only in your online shop, but also in your merchandise management system for invoicing and inventory management. Therefore, these systems are also used to maintain the product data. Here, you go through each product individually and check whether you need to change images and texts or whether other properties, such as dimensions and colors, have changed. 

Why is product data maintenance important?

Regular upkeep of your product data is important, as these contents are transferred to your online shop and can serve as filters in the web search of your customers. If the data is not correctly created, it can happen that the searchers get no or even wrong results. If the product description is not detailed and clear enough or the images of your products are of poor quality , this also negatively affects purchasing behavior. Because your potential buyers infer the quality of your items from the quality of your data. Just as well, it can happen that customers are dissatisfied with their order if the information they received before the purchase was incomplete or incorrect. The probability that they will return the ordered items to your company and this experience negatively affects the perception of your brand is very high. 

That's why product data maintenance is such a key factor for success: Well-maintained, up-to-date product data give your customers better search results and convince them of your products. This in turn leads to an increase in your sales and thus your revenue. Besides, your customers know that your company keeps its promises and will stay loyal to you in the future and recommend you.

These challenges exist in product data maintenance

Perhaps you know it from your own company - the task of product data maintenance has a very bad reputation. In order to integrate all important data for the entire ordering process into your inventory management system, you have to maintain quite a few fields manually. When it comes to revising several articles, it is only too understandable that you wonder how to make time for this unloved task. This can be due, among other things, to the fact that there is no return on invest for the optimization of your product data and its success is therefore very difficult to measure. In addition, very few employees find this manual and at the same time monotonous work exciting and stimulating. Often, employees are tasked with product care who are not even told why they should update this data. This means they don't even know what the end result is at the end of their checked off to-do list. If you make clear to them, why this task is important and why this data is needed at this point, you create transparency and thus motivation. Surely, updating master data will not become the favorite task of your colleagues - but you can try to evoke motivation in them this way. 

These advantages are offered by product data maintenance

Even though the advantages of your product data maintenance are probably already obvious, we want to summarize them here one more time. When you deal with the data of your products, you can understand, what is really important to your customers. Which data do they need to make a purchase decision? If you present all relevant data for them in your online shop, you make their decision-making easier. Maybe they are attracted by your product description, which is timely or the different images on which they can view your product from all angles. Even if your buyers already know what they need, it may still be that your product has to assert itself against competitive products. Here, the information about the available colors and shapes, the weight and dimensions, but also the duration until or how long it can be used, can make the difference. With current product data you tell your customers everything they need to know about the article of their choice - and rule out nasty surprises. Satisfied customers will recommend you and your company. Well-maintained product data thus contribute to your sales targets, your image and the establishment of a solid customer base.

How a PIM system can help you with product data maintenance

PIM stands for Product-Information-Management-System, that is a software for managing your data, around your products. Your PIM Tool builds on your existing data base. You can import the Excel lists, Word files and ERP data with a few clicks. By importing, you reduce the risk, that a mistake slips into your master data. You can also use different functions to check and if necessary increase the quality of your data. But what else suggests that you should get a product-information-management-software?

In companies where many different departments take care of a product, such as marketing, sales and purchasing, data silos quickly develop. Each person has their own folders where they store information, images and other data. Due to the different storage locations, it can happen that you lose track of your data or maybe even don't know that new data is available. The big advantage of a PIM like for example Pimcore or Contentserv is that with them you create a Single Source of Truth. All information about all products your company markets are fed into the software. This allows all employees to be up to date at all times and use this product data for their work.

Another advantage of the PIM is that it automatically updates the data within certain time intervals. This saves you a lot of manual work and the stress of having to remember to adjust your data on all platforms relevant to your company, as they are automatically transferred. You can also use the possibility of inheritance. This means that if you change the product information for a category, this change is automatically pulled for the products arranged below. This function reduces your working time many times over. The already reduced susceptibility to errors can be further reduced by release workflows within your Product-Information-Management-Tool. For example, you can specify that a certain employee is notified by email each time product data is changed. This person can then do the review and approve or reject the update. 

If you want to keep your data up-to-date throughout the various stages of the product lifecycle, a Product Lifecycle Management Tool can assist you.

These Product-Information-Management-Softwares you should use

Now that you know the advantages of a Product-Information-Management-Software you probably want to read on and find out, which tool is best suited for this. Then we will not keep you in suspense, but tell you which paid and Open Source PIM-Softwares can save you a considerable amount of work in product data maintenance and thus contribute to your e-commerce success.

Contentserv

Pimcore

Plytix

Akeneo

eggheads

mediacockpit

ANTEROS

Salsify

Catsy

Based on the numerous reviews of our users on OMR Reviews you will easily identify the software that fits your company.

It’s all about the data

Even though product data maintenance might be tedious, it is an unavoidable and valuable process that you should definitely pay attention to. A PIM System can automate most of this work for you. You will notice that success will come quickly and your claim rate will noticeably reduce. Because the motto of a successful e-commerce company is: Current data equals satisfied customers.