Insights
PIM 101: What You Need To Know About Product Information Management.
Nowadays, product data is everywhere. As your product catalog grows, managing all that information quickly becomes a challenge. That’s where Product Information Management (PIM) comes in.
Whether your business is in retail, wholesale or e-commerce, this guide gives you a clear overview of what PIM is, what it can do for your organization and how to select the right solution. We’ll also talk about when it might be time to upgrade your current system and how we, at Squadra, can help you in this process.
Quick access:
- What is PIM?
- Benefits of PIM
- What is the best PIM system for your business?
- How to select the right PIM system?
- What does a PIM system cost?
- When to replace your current system?
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Is PIM?
PIM stands for Product Information Management. It refers to the systems and processes used to centrally manage product data within organizations.
A PIM system is a central platform for collecting, managing, enriching, and distributing product data such as specifications, descriptions, translations, and (when required) pricing information. For digital assets like images and videos, a DAM system is typically used, often integrated with the PIM.
Instead of juggling spreadsheets or outdated databases, a PIM system gives your team one reliable source of truth. This means faster product launches, fewer errors and consistent product information across all your channels.
In short: a PIM system makes managing product data easier, smarter and scalable.
What Are The Benefits Of PIM?
Implementing a PIM system offers many benefits, especially for organizations with an extensive product range sold through multiple (online) sales channels:
- One source of truth: Avoid duplicate data and manual errors. Everyone works with the same product data.
- Faster time-to market: New products and updates can be published across all channels in one go.
- Better customer experience: Rich, complete product information helps customers better and improves findability, SEO and conversion rate.
- Smarter workflows: Automate repetitive tasks like categorization, translations or approvals.
- Scalable growth: Easily manage thousands, or even millions of SKUs across multiple countries or labels.
- Improved collaboration: Marketing, product management and e-commerce teams work more efficiently together.
- Smart automation and AI: Modern PIM systems leverage AI to automate many time-consuming and error-prone processes.
- Direct channel connections (data syndication): Publish product data not only to your webshop but also directly to external marketplaces and social commerce.
Sustainability and ESG
In addition to all the points mentioned above, a PIM system also contributes to sustainability transparency and ESG objectives.
More and more organizations want to communicate transparently about materials, origins, packaging, and their carbon footprint. Modern PIM systems support the capture and management of this data, enabling easy reporting, compliance with (future) regulations - such as the Digital Product Passport (DPP), Corporate Sustainability Directive (CSRD), or Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) - and helping customers make informed choices.
Real-time personalization
Personalization is one of the most important trends in e-commerce and contributes to an optimal customer experience. Customers increasingly expect companies to recognize and offer them customized experiences, both within their own online stores and through external sales channels. Hyper-personalization is the next step, with AI and machine learning taking personalization to a new level.
PIM delivers the rich, consistent product data these personalization and recommendation engines require. Think of contextual sorting or recommendations based on behavior, inventory, or location. With effective integrations, your digital shelves can adapt to the customer and context in real time.
Which PIM System Is Best For My Business?
There is no one-size-fits-all PIM solution. Some tools focus on ease of use, while other are highly customizable for complex environments.
Some well-known PIM platforms include:
- Syndigo
- Contentserv
- Stibo Systems (STEP)
- Akeneo
- ConnectingTheDots
- PimCore
At Squadra, we can help you select the right PIM through a structured and vendor-independent RfP (Requestion for Proposal) process. Based on your goals, team structure and technical setup, we assess which solution best fits your needs, now and in the future.
How Do You Select The Right PIM?
Selecting a PIM system can be a complex process. It is not just about comparing features, but also about matching a system to your organization’s ambitions, workflows and tech landscape.
Here are a few key steps:
- Define your goals: What do you want to achieve?
- Map your requirements: Think about product types, number of SKUs, channel integrations and language needs.
- Involve the right people: Include stakeholders from e-commerce, marketing, product and IT teams.
- Compare objectively: Don’t get blinded by flashy demos but evaluate based on your needs.
- Plan for implementation: Think ahead about integrations, data migration and training.
- Think composable: Choose a PIM that easily connects with other systems like your webshop or ERP. This keeps product information consistent everywhere and prevents data from being locked into one system.
- Assess AI capabilities: in your RfP, request concrete use cases (e.g., automatic categorization, NLP-based descriptions, data quality scores) and evaluate performance on your own dataset instead of relying on generic demos.
This is where Squadra comes in. Our PIM experts support you through the whole selection process, from shaping your business case to running comparisons with over 400 pre-defined selection criteria. This ensures you choose the PIM system that actually delivers on your goals.
Learn more about Squadra’s PIM RfP approach .
What Does A PIM System Cost?
There is no single answer to these questions, as costs can vary significantly depending on:
- Your number of SKUs and attributes
- Your number of users and teams
- The level of customization or integration required
- Cloud vs. on-premise solutions
Entry-level PIM systems can start at a several thousand euros per year, while enterprise implementations with custom workflows and global rollout can reach into the hundreds of thousands.
But keep this in mind: the real value of a PIM system lies in efficiency gains, faster product launches and fewer costly errors. A good system often pays for itself quickly.
When Is The Time To Replace Your Current PIM System?
Maybe you already have a PIM system in place, or you are still using spreadsheets and tools like Excel to manage your product data. Here are a few signs it might be time to upgrade:
- A lot of time is (still) spent on manual product data management.
- It’s difficult to scale up or add new sales channels.
- Data updates are slow and error-prone.
- There’s no support for multilingual or omnichannel needs.
- The existing system is outdated or difficult to maintain.
Modern PIM platforms are cloud-based, fast, and flexible. If your current solution is becoming a bottleneck in achieving your business goals, it’s time to look ahead.
FAQ: Common PIM Questions
Is your organization looking for expert advice on PIM and PIM systems?
Squadra helps you take your product data management to the next level: strategically, technically, and efficiently.
Get in contact with us or check out our PIM services to learn more.
