Statistically, every 2-3 years a complete eShop relaunch is required to stay successful in eCommerce, while technical enhancements usually already need to start being carried out after 6-12 months. With a Product Information Management (PIM) system, however, the efforts of such a relaunch could be significantly reduced.

Contentserv AG, for instance, a software vendor for Enterprise Marketing Management Solutions (EMMS), is able to support all your marketing, creative media and communication processes. Without professional expertise, catalogues, websites, eShops, portals as well as online and print advertising media can be implemented via a web browser and fed with content from the central product information. In other words, processes are centrally optimized and achieve high cost and time savings, with the convenient side-effect of achieving faster time-to-market with product communications, hence, having a competitive advantage.

Technologies come and go - product data remains

We know that the product data is the most valuable asset of a company, especially in the fast-paced eCommerce world. Generated, structured and classified with great effort, the data ensures on the one hand to be the holy grail for many years to come but on the other hand it needs to be constantly updated. With an e-shop relaunch or expansion to other distribution channels you are again facing the challenge to provide this data consistently across all channels every time.

Multichannel - more than an online store

Nearly every smartphone or tablet user buys and gets informed via mobile: on the road, on the couch or in the shop – often right after searching online for information about the products. For the multichannel retailer though, it is not enough to optimize online stores for mobile devices. Uniform, current product information is essential, especially in eCommerce.

If the product information has to be administered repeatedly in different online stores, this causes enormous maintenance expenses. In particular the expansion of the product range or the integration into a new shop drives the costs up, which is a true nightmare, especially for multi-shop system operators. Not to mention, that the online store is only one channel out of many and in fact a trend that is steadily developing with new trends looming almost every day.

Express into the net

However, if the product information is maintained and kept in a central Product Information Management (PIM) system, new channels can be integrated quickly and securely. Another advantage is that if a technology change occurs, for instance in the shopping system, no product information is at risk to get lost.

So, taking a look at Contentserv’s solution could be worth it, as it is providing a specially developed PIM system for the requirements of multichannel management, in which all product information, media, and translations are managed centrally and efficiently. It makes it easy to deliver data flexibly to electronic channels, shop systems, print channels and many more channels and formats. The automated transfer of all product, image and video data in real time ensures timeliness without effort.

However, while out on the market everything networks at a tearing pace, it still seems to me as though managers inside of organizations nonetheless waste valuable time with hierarchy posturing, delusions of control and silo management. Unfortunately, formalisms, command and control, as well as customer-unfriendly standardization delusions are currently the largest hinderances on the way to a new world of business. So keep in mind that new ways and methods are constantly needed as technologies come and go. Be open-minded and strategically strong to remain optimally positioned for new channels and technologies in the future.

By Daniela La Marca