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By: Manish Shewaramani

How Pimcore PIM Tool Helps Managing Multi-channel Listing?

Product information management (PIM) system plays a very crucial role for the enterprises having the product-based business. For a product-oriented organization, it is important to keep their product details like description, technical specifications, digital assets, etc. updated and circulated to all the teams involved in the product supply chain management.

PIM software allows the organization to manage all these details efficiently over all the different channels used for the sales and marketing of the product. This allows in providing accurate and updated details to the customers for purchasing the product.

What is Multi-channel Listing?

For attracting more customers, the store owners prefer listing their products on multiple channels. This gives the opportunity in reaching out to new audiences that will lead to increased sales and business. If a store owner is listing their product on a single channel, it will allow him to reach out to only a handful of potential customers and may affect the growth of their business.

Having a multi-channel listing will allow the business owners to display their product in a larger crown thus attracting more customers. Using the multi-channel listing allows the business owner to use a variety of digital platforms and channels for making their product visible to a larger crowd.

Tip To Choose Right Multi-channel Listing Software

Several high-traffic platforms play a crucial role as sales channels for eCommerce. For being successful in this competitive market, the enterprise needs to follow certain tips for the selection of the right multi-channel software.

1. Understand the structure and efficiency of the software

There are several software and tools that provide the solutions for comprehensive solutions for the entry-level functions and make the multi-listing task easier. These tools allow in designing the product data and for the management of the channel clearly and simply.

The software allows for automatic controlling of the product range based on the specification required by the marketplace. This helps in enhancing the growth and visibility of the product. Different professional multi-channel eCommerce software and tools enable in creating the structure and overview essential for multi-channel trading.

2. Scalability

With the development and with time and growth, the data needs scalability and flexibility. As the demand grows, the number of orders increases with an increase in marketplaces and sales platforms. As the product gains importance, the number of channels increases.

During the selection of the multi-listing tool, it is important to check if the provider includes the interface for including the future market places of the choice. It is important to check if the provider can include or implement the future marketplace in interface planning. The different tools allow integrating the newer marketplaces into the multi-channel landscape.

3. Product data maintenance

Every marketplace required different details related to the product data and in a specific format. Every platform has its specific requirements that need to be fulfilled for adequate displaying of the product on the channel.

While selecting the multi-channel eCommerce tools, the enterprise needs to check that the modules provided allow in importing, creating, editing, and managing the data related to the product like pricing, marketing details, images, videos, technical data, etc. The tools should allow handling the multiple variants to maintain the product details.

4. Channel management

All the multi-channel listing software does not automate channel management. It is essential to define the range control for the automation process. Adequate growth-oriented software allows controlling the marketplaces and online shops centrally. It should include a facility for including the other sales channels as the long-term goal for the business growth.

5. Order management

One of the goals of the multi-channel eCommerce tool is to transfer the product data to the different sales channels. Along with this, it should also be able to get the orders back to the system. Make sure that the selected system has this feature. The software should be able to handle the order splitting.

6. Stock update

The software should provide the updated stock details as this will allow in avoiding overselling in this multi-channel trading. The software should have some smart features that can keep the virtual inventory management details for every channel.

7. Billing model

The enterprise should not compromise on cost-saving with the range and depth of the functions required. One can decide if they require a tool with or without revenue sharing. Considering the transaction-based revenue sharing, the cost increases linearly with the business growth.

It is better to have billing models that are based on the orders received. The billing models without revenue sharing include the fixed cost parameters.

Guide to Effective Multi-channel Listings Management

For the growth of the product and the eCommerce brand, the enterprises have to search for new opportunities for scaling their operations. For increasing sales and marketing, the enterprises try to reach maximum customers by displaying their products on multiple channels. This will help in improving brand awareness.

For effective management of all the product listings across the different channels, the enterprise can follow the steps to improve its success rates. The outline of the four-step guide includes:

1. Building an accurate listing

It is important to build accurate listings across all the different channels. This seems to be a straightforward process but as the number of channels increase, there are increased chances of losing control over the quality of the listing.

The different marketplaces and the eCommerce websites have different formats for building and monitoring the different listings. Maintaining a properly documented process is essential for adding new products to the online listing.

It is important to check that while listing across the different market places or channels, the product details should not have any deviations in product details like product pricing, UPC details, shipping dimensions, etc. Adding the pricing extension for listing accuracy can be tricky as the currency depends on the geological location.

2. Maintaining brand consistency

It is important to maintain brand consistency across the different marketplaces and multiple platforms as it allows in building reliability and brand trust. Brand consistency is important for building the blueprint for product marketing.

For scaling of the brand, it is important for using a successful multi-channel approach and the customer should be able to get identical details on the different channels if they decide to purchase the product directly from the website or the online marketplace.

Maintaining the product detail consistency across the different channels keeps the different teams like sales, marketing, and others in close alignment. Consistency in the product details helps in building customer trust.

3. Ensuring high standards during order fulfillment

It is important in setting the right standards in place for the order fulfillment process. This is a challenging task for any business as it involves multiple parties. Ensuring these high standards during the order fulfillment process will have a positive impression and will significantly impact the revenue.

This also ensures having minimum inaccuracies in the product listing and avoids the issues related to the long-term out-of-stock.

The high standards are essential for having a well-documented process for keeping a track of all the incoming orders from the different multiple sales outlets. This allows in managing all the fulfillment processes for streamlining the order-to-cash flow while implementing the multi-channel strategy. This is very helpful for the organization as well as for the customers.

4. Focusing on business automation

The different parameters that make up the foundation of the operative multi-channel listing management include accuracy, quality control, and consistency.

As the business grows, the organization needs to undergo scaling and during this, it is important to maintain these essential components. The organization should shift its focus from the manual repetitive process to the utilization of the right tools that allow the automation of these processes.

Automation is important in the multi-channel listing, or else it will make the task tedious and time-consuming. This automation allows the business to focus on more important tasks like improving the product quality and providing better service to the customers.

Don’t miss to visit A Complete Guide to Multi-channel Attribution for Marketers to understand how multi-channel listing helps marketers to attain their objectives.

Managing Multi-channel Listing Software With Pimcore’s Product Information Management (PIM) Tool

The PIM tool enables the organization in managing, storing and updating the data on the eCommerce platform which enables efficient management of multi-channel listings.

1. Importing product data in the desired format

Every online market and eCommerce channel has a different set of requirements for the data in particular formats. Vast data needs to be submitted for the product for the different channels involved in eCommerce.

The Product Information Management tools come in handy as they help in organizing the data efficiently and providing the data to all the different channels in their required format.

2. The PIM software allows centralized data in data storage

These stored data are tagged with the output labels for the different attributes that are used as identifiers. The PIM tools enable in providing the data to the channel based on their required format. The tools thus reduce the time and efforts involved in transforming the data into the desired format by doing data formatting automatically.

3. Adding the new channel based on the needs

Digitalization has changed how customers shop nowadays. The public looks for their desired product on the different channels, check for their details like specification and technical data, compare the details and costs with the other channels, and then make their decision for the purchase.

As the competition is increasing tremendously, the company should make efforts to reach out to more potential customers. For reaching a larger crowd, it is essential to display their product on multiple channels to get noticed, appreciated, and purchased. PIM tools make it easier for the enterprise to add new channels for reaching out to more people.

4. Checking product status

For a successful eCommerce, it is essential to keep the track of all the processes going on even if the product is listed on multiple channels. It is important to continuously monitor and maintain the quality of the product data shared across the various channels. This allows the enterprise to understand their customers and stay ahead in the competition for satisfying their customer demands.

It is important to check the product inventory, track the channel for its effective functioning, schedule the processing of the product feed, etc. If any channel is not functioning efficiently then understanding the reason behind this is also important. PIM tools help in creating and following efficient workflows that keep an accurate data check.

5. Tracking of channel information

PIM collects, organizes, and provides updated product information to the different teams within the enterprise for their efficient working. The PIM allows the different teams in the organization to be on the same page and makes them aware of the updates on the product. This includes the various teams like manufacturing, product managers, sales and marketing team, IT teams, etc.

Making use of the PIM tools provides an overview of the different channels involved in the multi-channel listing of the product. These details include the data line when the channel was created, last modified, processed, etc. This helps in reducing the efforts in updating the details across the different channels, the chances of duplication of work are also reduced tremendously.

6. Preview the feed before sharing

For a product-based company, numerous product-related details are essential. These include product characteristics, technical specifications, features, costing details, various parameters, digital asset data, etc. Different channels require this data in different formats, PIM tools allow in providing all the details in the desired format.

PIM also allows for previewing the details before sharing them to various channels. This allows in detecting errors or issues before making the data available to the users belonging to the different teams involved. This also allows the organization to have an overview of how the data appears once the data is ready to be shared across the different channels.

7. Easy navigation within channels

The main and important purpose of the PIM tool for multi-channel listing is to update the product content for multiple listings. It is important to navigate through the different channels to get a clear overview of the channels.

PIM tools allow in navigating through the channels with ease. It allows for the easy deletion of duplicate content. The tool also allows stopping the listing or even removing the duplicate template with ease while navigating.

If you want to build the right multi-channel listing strategy that empowers your sales and marketing efforts, read How to Succeed in Multi-channel Marketing Using the PIM System?

Bottom Line

Listing the product on several channels can help the organization in boosting its sales. It will allow them to engage more potential customers and prompt them to buy their product thus enhancing sales. It is observed that the customers prefer interacting with the companies having multi-channel listing as compared to the single-channel listing. With the multi-channel listing, the customers enjoy a unified and seamless experience for shopping.

The Pimcore PIM tool allows the company to adequate tracking of the inventory and organizes the data over the centralized platform during this multi-channel listing that making the data handling easier.

Say goodbye to data chaos and embrace the power of PIM/MDM to supercharge your business growth!