In this fast-paced landscape, where every second counts, productivity isn’t just a preference; it’s a lifeline.
For an eCommerce business, particularly, productivity is the top priority.
This is because they breathe data day in and day out and if there are no proper tools and resources in place to manage this, it could eat up their time and hamper their growth to a great extent.
Imagine a catalog manager working for hours to manually put together a catalog and the marketing team optimizing the content to meet varying channel requirements.
Manual work and repetitive tasks are major killers of productivity.
Today, we’re going to find out how you can be more productive in handling your product data if you are using a PIM platform.
What Are The Productivity Killers When It Comes To Product Data Management?
A lot of eCommerce businesses make productivity mistakes when it comes to product data management. Here are a few instances:
❌Managing product data on spreadsheets
❌ Manual data entry and updates
❌ Disorganized spreadsheets and files
❌ Lack of centralized information hub
❌ Inconsistent data across platforms
❌ Time-consuming content enrichment tasks
❌ Communication gaps among team members
❌ Limited access to real-time data
❌ Cumbersome approval processes
Productivity Hacks If You Have A PIM Platform: An Overview
| Productivity Mistake 😞 | PIMworks Hacks 🤓 |
| Manual Data Entry and Updates | Utilize PIM’s Bulk Import and Update features |
| Disorganized Spreadsheets and Files | Leverage PIM’s Centralized Interface Store all data in one accessible place Real-time Updates: Ensure consistent data across the board |
| Lack of Centralized Information Hub | Store all your data in one place Manage, edit, and enrich on the fly Publish globally from a single source of truth |
| Inconsistent Data Across Platforms | Distribute uniform data across all platforms Utilize in-built templates to standardize Customized data for each channel to personalize Seamless syndication with native connectors to eCommerce platforms and marketplaces Reach any channel with a unified workflow |
| Time-Consuming Content Enrichment Tasks | Automate content enrichment Assess content quality with health checks |
| Communication Gaps Among Team Members | Work with your suppliers, manufacturers, vendors, content, and IT teams under one roof Equip teams to spontaneously jump in and assign tasks to individuals Tag relevant stakeholders if something needs immediate attention |
| Cumbersome Approval Processes | Set up workflow rules Set approval triggers Tag, comment, and assign for visibility and immediate action |
Let’s now dive into these hacks in detail!
Productivity Hack #1: Escape the spreadsheet madness
Enter catalog information – Open a spreadsheet.
Share product information with suppliers – Open a spreadsheet.
Get product data ready for a particular channel – Open a spreadsheet.
This is the biggest mistake that eCommerce businesses are making today. The excessive usage of spreadsheets not only leads to errors but is also a major productivity hazard. Imagine spending hours doing manual data entry that’s monotonous and labor-intensive. Managing product data on spreadsheets leads to:
- Data management on spreadsheets gets tedious beyond a certain point and causes employee burnout
- Manual data management leads to severe issues with data quality – inconsistencies, errors, and mismatched information
- Collaborating on spreadsheets often leads to multiple versions
- Real-time collaboration becomes a hassle – imagine 5 collaborators clicking on the same cell
- As the volume of product data increases, the scalability could be a concern
What’s the mistake?
Using an endless number of spreadsheets to manage product data without organizing it in a central source of truth.
💡 PIMworks pro tip
If you use PIMworks, you can import all the data on your spreadsheets into PIMworks and take back control. You can work on your product data, enrich it on the fly, and publish globally – all from under one roof.
Productivity Hack #2: Reduce data inconsistencies
Getting a product published on a channel is no easy feat. This is because each distribution channel has its own set of rules, guidelines, and structure in which the product catalog is presented.
If you do not have an efficient process in place, it could take a lot of manual effort and time to standardize the product data that matches the fields. Imagine doing this for thousands of products and in a variety of templates – this is a productivity disruptor. This leads to:
- Inaccurate product descriptions lead to poor customer experience
- Time wasted on manual data verification and correction
- Misalignment between marketing materials and actual product attributes
- Difficulty in launching new products due to data preparation issues
- Inefficient distribution of product information across sales channels
- Increased risk of errors in reporting and analytics
- Resource wastage on redundant data entry and validation
- Challenges in integrating data from various systems and platforms
What’s the mistake?
Having cumbersome processes in place to syndicate data without standardizing them with a PIM platform.
💡 PIMworks pro tip
With PIMworks, you can save hours on manual data entry with instant syndication. There are native integrations with Amazon, Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento that help with automatic data sync. There are also in-built templates that cater to channel-specific requirements. This means you can take your products to market faster, automate the whole process, and ensure that your catalogs are nothing less than stunning!
Productivity Hack #3: Automate product data enrichment
Product enrichment refers to the process of adding and editing the product catalog to make it more comprehensive, resourceful, complete, and engaging. This helps boost customer engagement and drive better conversions.
But, the problem is not a lot of eCommerce businesses automate the process of content enrichment. This process is done manually or skipped entirely leading to poor customer experience. The manual process hampers the productivity of your employees as they end up spending hours in monotonous data entry work.
Challenges of manual enrichment:
- Manually enriching product content takes a lot of time and effort, delaying the product launch cycle
- Manual processes are prone to errors, leading to inefficient and inconsistent product information
- The enrichment standards applied by each employee could vary, resulting in zero standardization across product listings
- The number of folks employed on repetitive manual tasks could be better allocated to value-added activities
- As the product range grows, manual enrichment becomes increasingly complex to manage effectively
What’s the mistake?
Skipping data enrichment or doing it vaguely through a manual process instead of automating the process.
💡 PIMworks pro tip
With PIMworks’ automated data enrichment, your product catalog is automatically populated with the required information. PIMworks crawls the web to identify the right information and populates the missing fields in your catalog.
Productivity Hack #4: Make collaboration happen seamlessly
Product catalog creation is never a one-person job. There are multiple stakeholders who contribute to product content creation. The manufacturer gives the data and technical specifications, the catalog manager streamlines the data, the SEO writer infuses keywords in the product content, the marketing manager makes it engaging, and so on.
This requires multiple stakeholders’ contributions. If there is no streamlined collaboration process like a PIM platform that helps in assigning, tagging, and commenting – it could become a major productivity problem.
Teams may end up spending more time on endless email threads and scratching their heads with bloated spreadsheets.
- Inefficient communication methods through endless email threads or phone calls without any records can lead to delays and misalignment
- Tracking changes and managing different versions of documents can go out of control
- It becomes difficult to monitor progress, assign tasks, and maintain visibility on collaborative projects
- Relying on emails and spreadsheets for collaboration can result in data silos and severe errors
- Global teams may struggle to coordinate due to varying time zones
What’s the mistake?
Following inefficient methods of collaboration over email threads, spreadsheets, and phone calls instead of real-time collaboration in a centralized platform.
💡 PIMworks pro tip
PIMworks’ collaboration helps your team members – marketing teams, catalog managers, product managers, SEO writers, manufacturers, and IT teams work together without any limitations. They can manage multiple versions, tag a colleague, comment on someone’s work, and assign on the go.
Productivity Hack #5: Manage data from a single source of truth
Spreadsheets are not the only medium on which product data is messily managed. eCommerce businesses manage product data on ERPs, CRMs, digital images in local folders, content in CMS, and DMS.
This hampers productivity in many ways:
- Integrating data from various legacy systems and databases can be complex and time-consuming
- Ensuring the accuracy and consistency of data across all platforms requires extreme quality control measures
- Manually working on product catalogs by curating data from different sources
- Doing repetitive tasks while syndicating content
What’s the mistake?
Managing data in multiple systems instead of a single source of truth.
💡 PIMworks pro tip
PIMworks is a single source of truth that helps in centralizing product data to a unified location. This enables easy access, and streamlines the process of product data management, content creation, and syndication.
Final thoughts
Incorporating a Product Information Management (PIM) platform into your business operations can be a game-changer, revolutionizing the way you manage and distribute product data.
By implementing the five productivity hacks outlined in this blog, you’ll not only harness the full potential of your PIM system but also propel your organization toward unparalleled efficiency and success.
From centralized data management to seamless collaboration, from streamlined workflows to data consistency, these hacks empower you to unlock the true value of your product information.
Embrace these hacks, unleash the power of your PIM platform, and embark on a journey of enhanced productivity that will shape the future of your business.
