4
min read

2021 - the year of PIM?

The expansion of e-commerce due to pandemic means more players in the market and a lot more data to manage. PIM systems are an essential piece of the puzzle to deliver growth for businesses in 2021.

The pandemic has had a huge impact on the pace of change in the world - no one can deny that. The digital revolution we've seen unfold over the past decade or so is a reality today. Pandemic means also a huge growth of e-commerce - and there is no indication that this fast car is going to stop. The adaptation of enterprises to new conditions is a must in order to stay in a competitive environment. One of the main problems in the transformation turns out to be the lack or low quality of product data, without which it is impossible to provide customers with a proper shopping experience. The expansion of e-commerce also means more players in the market and a lot more data to manage. This also translates to the need for a tool that is a central source of data for the organization across all business channels. It turns out that PIM systems are an essential piece of the puzzle to deliver growth for businesses in 2021.  

To give you an idea of the scale of PIM growth, let me use data collected by Mordor Intelligence:

“The Product Information Management Market was valued at USD 9.88 Billion in 2020, and it is projected to be worth USD 33.78 Billion by 2026” (source). 

Data, data everywhere…

As a result of the pandemic, e-commerce has grown much faster than expected - and not just in the leading markets. Also a whole new group of consumers has entered the scene, who up to now have been used to traditional shopping. New users bring with them new data that needs to be processed and aggregated. Data is key today - both the data we collect about customers and the data we provide to them. Analyzing such a huge amount of data and extracting the right conclusions and insights for a particular segment is very time-consuming - collecting and editing data can be a full-time job. Wouldn't it be great if all product information was gathered in one place? 

We have something for you that you'll like:

PIM is a platform that will give you a central source for all your data. It also facilitates data management and the matching of product information to the relevant channel or market. PIM is a system that we believe will shape the e-commerce market in the coming years. 

Ergonode is a modern open-source PIM. It allows you to deal with your data in the most convenient way.

We have written about what PIM is and what its benefits are on the website. We even have a whole ebook dedicated to it. So if you are still unsure whether this is the tool for you - we recommend you check out our materials.  

Many people think that an organization will do just fine without a product information management tool. Of course, this depends on the size of your company. If your product range is only a few hundred products that you sell in a single channel, you can really do without PIM. For larger players - such a tool is a must have. 

Why the fuss about PIM?


You don't run a business for the sake of running a business - you do it for making a profit - on this point I think everyone agrees. And what if we tell you that PIM, apart from making product data management easier, and ensuring greater consumer satisfaction (a well-described product is a must for customers), it also guarantees bigger ROI. Win-win, right?

The truth is that there are a whole bunch of sales support tools on the market. We imagine it can be overwhelming when it comes to deciding which tool will be the most beneficial for us. 

According to Ventana Research, more than half (52%) of organizations struggle with mismatched and non-complementary tools, and 48% struggle with different data sources. PIM solves it.

A PIM system is essential when scaling your business, it fits perfectly with the omnichannel strategy. Providing an excellent customer experience across all channels is our reality. Your entire company will operate on a single set of product data, workflows will be improved, and you'll be able to adapt to the demands of dynamic omnichannel shopping faster and with less effort. In fact, this optimizes your enterprise not only to survive current challenges, but also for long-term growth.

Let's pause here for a moment to analyze some of the weakest points (including the less obvious ones) of today's e-commerce market. 


  • High competition on the market. The customer, having several other shops offering similar or the same products, does not forgive such shortcomings as a poor product card, a bad photo of the goods or incomplete information.
  • Human errors can result in huge financial losses - let the Foreo slip-up during Black Friday in 2019 serve as an example. Long story short: at the time, Foreo surprised customers to as much as 96% off of electronic facial cleansing brushes. A simple human error, not a business strategy. Consumer law is clear: the customer has the right to buy the goods at the price that appears on the tag/on the online shop. You can guess the end of the story: by the time the mistake was realized, the brushes had sold out at a staggering rate, causing the company to lose a lot of money - the two-hour site failure cost the brand more than $10 million!
  • Manually filling in data - the product range is growing, companies are going global, so there are more language versions - completing product data by hand is a very time-consuming task.
  • Lack of consistent data across all distribution channels.
  • Problems with communication within the team and improper flow of information between individual departments. Workflow is particularly important in the case of joint work on data - it is important that each member of the team knows which elements still need to be supplemented or corrected and which are complete and ready to be implemented on the website. 
  • High work pace and the need to quickly enter hundreds of thousands of records. 
  • Low productivity of employees as a result of overloading them with repetitive tasks. 


Of course, this is only a small part of the problems that e-commerce has to cope with today. This environment is very dynamic and sensitive to changes occurring in the global economy. We can't save the whole world, but we already have a solution to the above issues - the PIM system can handle any of them. 

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Today, it is necessary to take care of the ever-increasing amount of data and digital sources, all the while keeping in mind the growing consumer demands for quality and consistency of this data at all points the customer encounters it. An unclear photo or a different price in a digital catalog and a different one in an app is nowadays a situation which can effectively discourage purchases. Meeting all these topics requires a system that not only handles all product information efficiently, but also enables its processing and frequent updating. Among other things, this is what we focus on at Ergonode.


Will you survive without PIM?


Yes, you will probably survive, but you won't grow. In the long run, you may lose money, expose your company to content inconsistencies across sales channels, and your team will spend long hours manually filling in data. We must also warn you that you will fall behind your competitors - who are already using a PIM system. Of course, the decision is entirely up to you. But if you don't want to be left behind - let us know and schedule a demo of Ergonode. We will show you how a modern open-source PIM will help you boost your business.