Hooray, here we are in 2024. Do you plan to make this your biggest year yet? Are you increasing profits, moving into multiple sales channels, expanding your product offerings, analyzing important sales and marketing metrics, and keeping all your product information up-to-date and accurate at all times? You've still got time!
Fortunately, there’s one tool that can help your ecommerce web store do all of those things, and if you want to crush your 2024 business resolutions, you’re going to want it. It’s called Plytix product information management (PIM) software.
For PIM newbies, though, making the leap can be overwhelming.
There are a lot of PIM solutions out there, so figuring out which one is best for your store’s needs is a big job. Plus, a lot of PIM solutions cost an arm and a leg. So, if you’re going to make that kind of an investment in your business, you’d better be certain you’re going to get the return you need to make it worth the cost.
That’s where we come in. If a new PIM solution is one of your business goals for 2024, we have the new information you need for the new year. This guide is all you need to learn the pros, cons, features, and selling points of the five top product database solutions on the market in 2024. Read on, and know you’re going to choose the PIM software your business needs to make 2024 your best year yet.
If you’re still on the fence, allow us to convince you that PIM software is the most important investment you can make in 2024—because, really, it totally is.
More than 64% of adults say they prefer shopping online because there’s more product information available to them there than it is in-store. But if you’re an ecommerce retailer or brand that offers more than just a product or two, keeping track of all that product information, keeping it up to date, making sure it’s all accurate, optimized for search and discovery, and pushing it to all your different sales and marketing channels is more work than anyone can do manually.
PIM software is absolutely necessary if you…
Companies who already use PIM software have reported that they can get their products to market in 400% less time. They also see up to 50% more sales and up to 23% fewer product returns. These are huge savings!
On the other hand, global management consultants at A.T. Kearney found that companies that don’t do a good job of managing all that product information lose around 3.5 % of their sales each year. Is that what you want in 2024? No?
Then you need a PIM solution, and it’s likely that that solution is PIM software.
As mentioned, there are tons of PIM software solutions on the market, but we’re going to compare five: Salsify, Akeneo, Pimcore, inRiver PIM, and Plytix. For each software, we’ve compiled pros and cons, plus other important information that will help you decide which PIM tool is right for you and your ecommerce business.
Salsify is a cloud-based PIM software. It offers a pretty intuitive user experience that makes it simple to create a product and push it to marketing and sales channels. You can also get a 30-day free trial period with a guided demo, which allows you to try out this solution before you commit to its very hefty price tag.
Best for: Large enterprises with 500+ employees
Cost: Salsify doesn’t communicate prices online, but we interviewed some of their clients in 2019, and the lowest starting price we found was $24,000 per year.
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Akeneo, with a high price point and a core system that allows you to purchase add-ons as needed, is definitely created for larger enterprises, rather than SMBs. The system is open-source, which means less tech-savvy users won’t be able to harness its potential and may be overwhelmed by the lack of structure.
Best for: Large enterprises with 500+ employees
Cost: Akeneo doesn’t communicate prices online, but we interviewed some of their clients in 2019, and the lowest starting price we found was $38,000 per year.
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Pimcore offers a combined set of software for both product information management and customer experience management. It’s open-source software, which means it has the potential to be a powerful tool, but only in the hands of a company that has the tech experience to use it to its full potential. For the most part, the companies that will have the best experience with Pimcore are the ones that have the resources to employ a team of IT experts to assist with personalizing and running the software.
Best for: Large enterprises with 500+ employees
Cost: Pimcore is free to license whether you’re an individual or a large enterprise.
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InRiver PIM was created with small businesses in mind, but can now handle the needs of small to much larger enterprises. Users point to its flexibility as a feature that makes them love inRiver, but this PIM’s ability to grow with your business might not be there.
Best for: Small businesses
Cost: We couldn’t find any cost information online for inRiver, other than that users pay for the software on a subscription model.
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Plytix offers a PIM that’s powerful, yet easy to learn and simple to use. It was designed and initially priced for small-to-medium-sized businesses, but even large enterprises can take advantage of Plytix’s all-in-one, feature-packed software.
Best for: Enterprises of all sizes
Cost: Plytix offers fixed pricing plans, including a $450 Basic plan for businesses with up to 10,000 products. The plan includes unlimited users, files, and more. For businesses that need more than that, the Unlimited plan is $1650 per month. The beauty of Plytix is the module approach; you can also pick our Custom plan so you only pay for the outputs you use! Download our pricing and features document here.
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Still not sure which PIM software solution is right for your business?
For more on why you need a PIM solution and choosing the software that’s right for you, check out our Ultimate PIM Buyer’s Guide to learn more!