PIM (product information management) tools are designed to help online businesses manage and store product data centrally. These tools work by unifying unorganized product information from multiple sources, such as ERP, CRM, spreadsheets, and local folders, into a common, centralized platform.

Automotive eCommerce businesses benefit immensely as the introduction of PIM tools lets them avoid errors, improve their overall efficiency, help customers find the right product faster, and eventually boost revenue.

Keep reading the understand how PIM tools can benefit the automotive industry.

Comprehensive Overview of PIM Tools

The primary job of PIM tools is that of a centralized repository that offers a range of product-related data. These tools consolidate crucial product info from multiple sources including manufacturers, internal systems, suppliers, etc., and integrate with various external channels and marketplaces to enable flawless data distribution.

One of the biggest advantages of using PIM tools is that they guarantee consistency across every format, attribute, and unit of measurement through standardization and normalization of product data, which ensures 100% data accuracy and amazing data quality. Additionally, you, as a user, will have the power to add missing information about your products. You will even be able to incorporate media assets to enrich catalogs.

When you use a trusted PIM tool, you will enjoy the benefit of data governance. To be more precise, the tool will enable advanced lifecycle management, constant data quality monitoring, and rigorous access control. As a result, staying compliant with various regulatory requirements will no longer be difficult for you. Winning customer satisfaction and trust will also become a lot easier.

How Will You Know That It’s Time to Use a PIM Tool?

You might be a seller who’s doing great without a PIM tool. However, that doesn’t mean that things will always stay the same. Here are a few situations that make using a PIM system mandatory:

You collect product data from numerous suppliers.
The number of product SKUs in your inventory is growing.
You have plans to expand your sales channels.
You dream of offering your customers an Omni channel experience.
You and your team need to put in a lot of manual effort to complete tasks.
You are struggling to manage multiple teams.
You are facing issues like data inconsistency.
You belong to an industry that requires you to handle complex data.

Why PIM Tools Are Essential for the Automotive Industry?

Complex and Diverse Product Data

If you are into selling automotive products, you’ll need to deal with a wide variety of vehicle types and models, engine choices, trim levels, optional features, and so on. All these make data handling an exceedingly complex job. Things become even more complicated due to constant technological integration, which requires users to manage technological specifications, variant details, and accessory information in even larger quantities.

Thanks to all these complexities maintaining data consistency and accuracy often becomes impossible for users. This is not good news as data discrepancy can prevent the perfect assembling of automobiles resulting in expensive errors. Such events can also take a toll on the company’s brand image. The only way to avoid such situations is by automating the process of product information management and the PIM tools do exactly that.

Growing Difficulty in Managing Product Lifecycle

To manage product lifecycle in the automotive industry, one needs to keep constant track of the modifications in vehicle configurations. You cannot omit this step as it’s crucial for the vehicle’s regulatory and historical purposes. Other than that, showcasing maximum agility during the procedure is also important to beat rival groups.

Inflexible information management systems (those run by humans) can disrupt the entire process. The complexity of the process becomes even greater when customers choose to use the same vehicle for years as that requires maintenance and accommodation of ongoing changes.

PIM tools can keep things simple and accurate by enabling flawless product data management. They let automotive companies operate according to market demands, abide by industry regulations, and offer customer support throughout the lifespan of a given vehicle.

The Need for Following ACES and PIES Standards

An all-inclusive PIM tool will let you follow industry standards such as ACES and PIES and thereby enable smooth data management across your supply chain.

While PIES aids product data exchange and management, ACES issues standards to be followed for the communication of product info among various stakeholders including suppliers. Product information management works by organizing product data in the above-mentioned universal formats and thereby guarantees complete data integrity.

The Need for Delivering Product Info to Multiple Markets and Platforms

Conventional inventory management solutions might turn out to be inefficient and cause inaccuracies when catering to different markets and platforms. They cannot tailor data copies according to the preferred format of various supply chain partners.

PIM solutions have no such limitation. They can send data in a wide variety of formats including printed formats to enable catalog management and XLS/CSV in case of digital use.

How Do PIM Tools Streamline Product Data Management?

Here’s how PIM tools streamline product information management:

They Maintain a Centralized Data Mine: These tools acquire data from multiple sources like CRMs, ERPs, etc., and store it in an accessible, central location.
PIM Tools Perform Regular Data Cleaning: A top PIM system always comes to features for cleaning product data, validating it, and finally enriching the validated information. This ensures that every piece of information is accurate and there are no duplicate entries.
PIM Tools Enable Seamless Workflow Management: They allow team members to collaborate and complete tasks like translating and updating content, approving edits, etc.
PIM Tools Can Be Integrated with Most Enterprise Systems: If it’s a top PIM system, you will be able to integrate with CRMs, ERPs, etc.
These Tools Help with Catalog Management: They can be used for creating, managing, and distributing catalogs across various sales channels.

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be stated that it would be a bad idea to run an automotive business without the assistance of PIM systems. They not only make business operations more efficient but also help in saving money by preventing discrepancies in product data management.