Another year has gone by, and what an eventful year it was. While we could talk about all the things that went wrong last year, we prefer to look at the positives that came out of 2020. There were many innovations and advancements in technologies that came out of the COVID crisis, which helped improve the overall efficiency and helped individuals adapt to the new normal.
From maximizing our work by working from home to finding new ways to keep ourselves refreshed, technology has gained so much over the year.
A few like the telehealth industry saw a massive opportunity in these challenging times. Telehealth has emerged as an effective and sustainable solution during the pandemic crisis. It helped bridge the gap between people, physicians, and health systems, enabling everyone to stay at home and communicate with physicians through virtual channels, helping to reduce the spread of the virus to mass populations and the medical staff on the frontlines.
COVID AND THE IMPACT ON ECOMMERCE
Other industries that have gained so much during the treacherous last year was the ecommerce industry. With safety being a primary concern throughout the year, everything and everyone went online, which became a blessing in disguise for the ecommerce industry.
According to the Hindu Business Line, the ecommerce industry grew by almost 40% this year compared to the 23% growth during 2019.
Of the total sales for the last quarter of 2020, the ecommerce industry alone accounted for 15% of the total sales, which was quite remarkable considering the decrease in overall sales across other industries.
From bulk buying to online shopping, people changed what they’re buying, when, and how.
As more cities went under lockdowns, customers avoided public places, and the importance of retailers being present online became even more important.
According to a McKinsey report, 75% of all customers now prefer online shopping, with more than 49% of customers shopping online for the first time.
In short, the pandemic has accelerated the shift towards a more digital world.
In countries like the United States, more brick and mortar retailers are taking a leap into the ecommerce world, with the share of ecommerce retail shooting up by 16% during the pandemic.
Retailers who made the shift to ecommerce platforms stood out in the market, and we were glad to help those retailers win over their competitors.
THE EVOLUTION OF PIMWORKS
“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” – Stephen Hawking
2020 was a crazy year for us as well. With the world moving ever so closer to a digital market, we also worked on many new features in PIMworks. As the industry changed, we knew we had to adapt as well. At PIMworks, we pride ourselves as a customer-centric and agile company. Although we scrambled our brains and made those new features possible, we could bring in many more new product features thanks to the constant feedback from our customers.
The beginning of a year is not just an opportunity to say hello to all new things, but to say thank you to all the things achieved the previous year. Before we step into the new year, here’s how your favorite tool made the most of a tough year by adapting fast.
What happened in 2020: Major highlights
New integrations enabling greater reach for our customers
The one major thing that we worked on throughout the year was the integrations. We integrated with 5 new players like Houzz, Walmart, Amazon, etc., so that our customers could sell seamlessly on any platform.
Incorporating customer feedback through upgrades
Not just the integrations, we brought in some upgrades to them too. For Amazon, we had introduced a no-touch process to create a new product on Amazon. This means everything is automated, and users can focus on other kinds of stuff to improve their business and earn more profits.
New features for a new kind of customer
COVID 19 changed the way we work and the way our customers’ shop. With everyone working remotely, collaboration was of utmost importance. An important feature that we developed last year was the team collaboration feature. Nobody likes to work alone, and we know that teamwork makes the dream work. Through PIMworks’ product pages, customers can collaborate with their teams with social media like comment threads. This has helped lots of users improve their overall business efficiency, and we are glad to be part of that progress.
Agile mapping for more precision
Other vital features like having multiple taxonomy mapping levels for a comfortable inheritance of attributes, the ability to set up multiple templates for exporting data, the option to auto-sync attribute level data to the product were aimed at improving the overall efficiency of our users and also ultimately to satisfy them.
That’s not all. We brought in many more features last year. Click here to know the entire list of new things that we did last year.
Our year in Numbers
The Road ahead
The secret of success is to focus all our energy and efforts not on fighting the old but on building the new.
With all things said and done, we have a new year ahead of us, and we have so much lined up for you. With the world shaping up to adopt more towards an ecommerce landscape, we are very well prepared to adapt to all the changes and present you with the best possible product. Some of the things that you can expect from us in the coming year are:
- A new and updated variant dashboard for the Walmart channel.
- Exporting data from PIMworks has become even better with granular controls and FTP data push.
- Enhanced ‘IF,’ ‘Else if,’ and ‘Nested If’ conditions for better control over the product information.
- Increased number of endpoints to connect various channels.
Well, that’s not all that we will be working on. With the constant feedback that we receive from you, the customers, we are sure to make our product the best in the market and help you win over your competitors.
New year, new features, new integrations, but still the same dedication.
