Expanding Into New Marketplaces Made Easy with PIM

If you feel your company is on the cusp of expanding into new marketplaces but don’t have the resources to achieve your goals, it might be time to review your product information management (PIM) process. A PIM software enables you to seamlessly enter new marketplaces. PIM technology improves your agility allowing you to meet the special formatting requirements for each marketplace. It also manages automated tasks. As a result, you empower your team to focus on marketing and remain competitive in new marketplaces.

1. The benefits of centralized product information

A PIM provides a centralized product information system allowing you to meet marketplace requirements. You can reduce time to market to make the prospect less overwhelming and continue to beat the competition as you expand your product offering. Products with images, video and enriched copy can be live on your site and various marketplaces quickly, so you can start selling and gain market share by always being the first one there.

But it isn’t just about time to market. You can also be the first out of the gate for your entire promotional strategy. Your centralized product information is shared across all departments. As a result, your marketing team is working alongside the e-comm team with everything happening at once.

 

2. Seamlessly upload product specs to new marketplaces

Now, you might be fretting over how your small team can possibly keep changing and reformatting files to suit the needs of each marketplace. However, you can target sales on the most profitable marketplaces for your eCommerce business and quickly have your inventory up and running using your PIM. You can access millions of new customers and increase your brand profile and offering in a seamless process by leveraging powerful automation.

With the ability to store multiple formats, content versions tagged by marketplace, and then collect and upload that information in one step, you can be set up on new channels in minutes instead of weeks. PIM workflows and reporting capabilities make it easy for your team to do more in less time, all without losing track of your progress and product range. You become efficient in unexpected ways, allowing you to take full advantage of the opportunities new marketplaces present.

3. Automated attribution

The more SKUs you manage, the more you have to fuss with attributes such as size, color, flavor, etc. This becomes even more difficult to manage when you expand to new marketplaces with unique requirements. For example, if you are considering Amazon, they require:

  • You have to use special product name formats, including details such as capitalizing the first letter of each important word, ensuring buyers can identify the product by name alone and including the brand name or manufacturer. They also want you to avoid “descriptive data or hyperbole.”
  • Product descriptions are 350-character features and product specs that can’t include unnecessary capitalization and punctuation. They also frown on links that redirect customers to other sites. Descriptions must be informative with correct spelling and grammar.
  • You’ll also need to provide three bullet points with your top-selling highlights.
  • You can choose categories and subcategories relevant to your products. You then have keywords separate from categories for common terms shoppers are likely to use to find your products.

Each marketplace has its own version of these rules — an overwhelming prospect without a PIM that easily matches attributes to marketplace formats.

4. Why a PIM for expanding into new marketplaces?

If you’re not already convinced a PIM is the answer to your marketplace expansion strategy, here’s why it absolutely is:

Centralized Product Information

As mentioned, your PIM provides a single source of truth for all your product information. You won’t contend with outdated, unsuitable, or unapproved content ever again. This makes it easy to upload to new marketplaces.

Leverage Your Digital Assets

With a PIM, you can leverage all your digital assets based on what new marketplaces allow. As a result, you can maximize the information shared with customers, improving customer experience and encouraging more conversions with enriched content.

Seamless Uploads

A PIM makes it easy to seamlessly push relevant product data to each marketplace. All of this is done without the worry of inconsistencies from channel to channel. Since you are using a central data system, you ensure brand consistency with approved, brand-appropriate digital assets that are seamlessly incorporated into your marketplaces and your omnichannel marketing campaigns.

Cross-Channel Updates 

Powerful automation makes cross-channel updates a breeze, saving your e-comm team time and energy. No more manual data uploads, with workflows set up to automate the collection of product information and digital assets that can also be coordinated with marketing campaigns.

When you centralize your product information, you can reduce the time-consuming process of aligning product attributes and assets with new marketplace demands.