PIM vs PXM: The Key Differences

1. What is PXM?

Product Experience Management, or PXM, is a direct response to a visually interactive online world. Many legacy PIMs have started to branch out into other functionalities to help make it easier for their users to encompass the ‘visual’ and ‘experiential’ aspects of a PIM. They believe this improves both their own user experience and, ultimately, that of their user’s customers. This is because the PXM enables users to pivot between product information and a content management system (CMS). At least in theory. Also, when users wonder what images and descriptions work best for content and product description creation, the PXM provides a tool to conduct A/B testing.

2. How does a PXM differ from a PIM?

Both PXMs and PIMs care about customer experience. However, while a PXM switches the focus to customer experience, a true PIM remains focused on the granular data itself, where the user experience is a byproduct of robust, centralized product information. A PIM is far more technical, getting into the weeds of your most technical product data, centralizing your product content, and streamlining your product management workflows.

Although PXM incorporates PIM and other tools like CMS and digital asset management (DAM), it also provides insights and tools that increase customer engagement. PXM manages customer expectations, while PIM manages product information. However, your PIM is designed to improve customer experience by generating enriched, optimized, high-quality content that makes it easier for customers to find what they need and make informed decisions on their purchases. While a PIM can function without a PXM, a good PXM can’t function without a PIM.

3. Why a true PIM is superior for managing your product data

Facing the challenges of eCommerce, product information and customer experience, your team needs to juggle everything from data governance to collaboration and multiple catalogs and product launches to ramping up market expansion. Although a PXM helps put product information into context for customers, all the other challenges presented by product information management can only be resolved by a PIM.

The problem with choosing a PXM over a PIM is that with an earlier entrance, PXMs have turned their back on the PIM market. Their focus is on the sexier, easier-to-demonstrate features of the platform, but fail to provide an effective product management tool. Although a PIM isn’t pretty, it’s essential for creating, editing, storing, and uploading product information. A PIM like Pimberly is here for the long run, as it provides a fundamental, critical purpose for your business, including:

Deploying information

Whether you use multiple eCommerce sites or need to improve the way your manufacturing company shares product information with sellers, a PIM offers a centralized place for you to manage disparate product data from different sources for easier deployment. An effective PIM enables you to produce product information with context to meet the formatting demands of different platforms and the specific needs of each marketplace’s customer profile.

Expansion

Expanding your reach in different geographies and marketplaces is easier with a PIM. It enables you to adapt languages and currencies, as well as different formats, to get products to new markets faster. As a result, you can easily start selling on new channels anywhere efficiently. You offer a consistent brand experience across your omnichannel model, creating exceptional customer experiences. Automation, validation, bulk upload capabilities, marketplace formatting and more are all possible with PIM.

Control your information

Ineffective governing or industry-specific data can leave your company open to compliance issues. A PIM ensures you create enriched product data without compromising the integrity of the information or the requirements of your industry. It also enables you to comply with different marketplace and regional requirements.

Collaboration

A PIM is designed to manage product information across different teams, making it easy to collaborate internally and with vendors and suppliers. User roles and authorization maintains security and protects proprietary information without interfering with proper workflows and approvals.

Enriched content

The truth of the matter is a PIM is just as capable of generating enriched content to provide more meaningful customer experiences. It is key to creating brand specific omnichannel shopping experience, ensuring customers are engaged with your brand across all touchpoints. PIM enables you to remain consistent with product data while still generating the appropriate content for every sales channel. Building brand consistency is easier with high-quality digital assets ready to incorporate not only for product-specific sales but for use across all eCommerce campaigns and catalog formats. As a result, you increase conversions.

A PIM streamlines data management using system integration that works with a PXM. However, it also eliminates the need for PXM, as it empowers your team to create enriched data. You can remove inconsistencies, integrate disparate tools and departments, and improve the way you distribute information across multiple platforms.