Killer App for e-commerce

							Title:
Killer App for e-commerce

Word Count:
929

Summary:
Product Information Management, PIM
 for short, is fast emerging as a "
must have" application. Customers d
emand perfect product data and need
 your product information to be acc
urate and easily accessible before
they buy. Product information tools
, affordable and easy to deploy, pa
y off by increasing sales.


Keywords:
product information management, cat
alog management, ecommerce, pim, pr
oducts, parts catalogs, product cat
alogs, marketing


Article Body:
Businesses, in time, can find their
 business systems cluttered with di
rty or inaccurate product data. Bad
 data can slow the progress of the
company like sludge can kill horsep
ower in an engine. Dirty data slows
 the sales process and slows the or
der process because sales channels
may be working off old product data
. This leads to lost sales and a hi
gh rate of order mistakes and invoi
ce errors which must be fixed at a
high cost to the company.

Product Information, or the data de
scribing and specifying a company's
 products can be found in several s
ystems at many companies with no ea
sy way to aggregate or collect this
 product data. This data is not eas
y to manage and is made up of multi
-media like images, audio and video
, pictures, text, and integers all
in various file formats. When produ
ct data is in different formats, di
fferent systems and in disparate ap
plications it is very hard to work
with. Product data is in the erp sy
stem, may be in a graphics tool lik
e InDesign or Quark and can be salt
ed across the company's locations i
n isolated folders on desktops and
laptops. This data, costly to creat
e, is also costly to use and will a
dd little to the corporate marketin
g intellectual property.
Distributors or wholesalers, and ma
nufacturers's representatives have
a heavy product information managem
ent task. A distributor can carry d
ozens of lines and must gather prod
uct data from dozens of sources. Ga
thering supplier data, managing and
 transforming product data and then
 distributing accurate product data
 to sales channels, web catalogs an
d print catalogs is a costly and ti
me eating chore. Often, supplier da
ta is dirty when it finally arrives
 at the distributor and by the time
 supplier product data is cleansed
and distributed some of it is obsol
ete. The product data is obsolete b
ecause a product price may have cha
nged or an image was transformed or
 a short description was rewritten
during the extended time needed to
manage and distribute the product data.

The best way to streamline product
data management may be to install p
roduct information (PIM) software.
A good PIM solution can acquire pro
duct data from all systems, includi
ng your suppliers and disparate int
ernal systems and safely secure it
in one place. Product data acquisit
ion can be pain free and is fast. P
roduct data is put in one place tha
t can be found by marketing teams s
o they can do work. Marketing teams
 can now manage and transform produ
ct data into sales driving web cata
logs and print catalogs and sales m
aterial. This one place is accessib
le to all marketing teams, localize
d to different locations around the
 world, so all marketers can add va
lue. Price changes are easy to edit
, data transformations like buildin
g taxonomies and re-classifying pro
ducts is simple to do. Sizzle and s
ales teeth can be applied to long a
nd short product descriptions and s
ales materials gain a professional
look and feel.

The work includes transforming mult
i-media files like flash and jpegs,
 and to design templates for catalo
gs. Graphics applications like InDe
sign can talk to the PIM and workfl
ow can be built to include outsourc
ed designers into the marketing pro
cess. Sales materials like catalogs
 and sales flyers will be polished
to a fine selling edge and can be s
aved for re-use across sales teams
both direct and in-direct. You can
cut 70% of the time and cost from c
atalog creation and the days of cre
ating a catalog which is obsolete b
efore it is off the press due to th
e large print run and the time to g
et it set up are over. You can prin
t in smaller batches and boost sale
s from key customers and key prospe
cts by customizing the look of your
 catalogs for specific buyers.

Your buyers will buy easier from yo
u because your web sites will be dy
namic and your sites will publish a
ccurate and easy to use e-catalogs.
 Your customers will love this beca
use they are demanding accurate and
 timely data to make purchase decis
ions and if your web site is not do
ing this they will click away fast.
 Your web sites can be designed to
target key customers to sell key pr
oducts and this will increase sales
 because your product data will be
more relevant to key word searches.

Sales data can be punched out to yo
ur PIM solution and product sales r
eports can be analyzed. All catalog
 pages on-line and off-line are mea
sured and reported in the PIM solut
ion. This can give the business lev
erage and negotiation ammunition be
cause you know exactly how much pro
duct is sold and you know how much
space is used. This is just like a
grocery store, you will know better
 how to position the fast and slow
movers and how to offer incentives
and up sells and cross sells.

Your orders will be more accurate b
ecause your sales teams work from a
ccurate timely product data. This m
akes the business stickier, and wil
l retain customers longer because y
ou have your product information ac
t together.

When a company adds speed to produc
t information logistics and builds
accuracy and freshness to product d
ata sales will grow. This is logica
l and this must happen. This is log
ical because if sales teams, both d
irect and in-direct, are showing cu
stomers accurate product data and i
f marketing channels, web sites, sa
les flyers, sales bulletins and dir
ect mail pieces are fueled with acc
urate and professional product info
rmation, order errors will go down
and sales orders will go up.

For a Free detail report on how to
find, select and and deploy the per
fect PIM solution visit pim-data.co
m and register for your Free PIM so
lution guide.