How Plytix PIM Can Power Your Feed Management System

Any business owner following ecommerce trends each year can agree that multichannel ecommerce is no longer the future, it is the present. Customers aren’t only shopping from web stores, but they shop where they find most convenient. 

And while this is great for revenue and helps create brand awareness, it does come with its own challenges. When you’re selling on various sales channels, you need to meet each channel's requirements and with that comes more product data management. Most of the time, this drives businesses into investing in feed management systems. But as you may have noticed (since you’re reading this article) is that there is a missing piece. And that’s because you aren’t powering your feed management system with a product information management tool. 

Why do you need a PIM if you have a feed management system?

The answer is simple: garbage in, garbage out. A feed management system and a PIM system aren’t the same thing. A feed management system is meant to efficiently send data to multiple sources. However, if you aren’t properly managing the product content before it goes into a feed management system, you may be sending out data that is inaccurate, incomplete, duplicated, and of poor quality. 

This is the essence of what the term garbage in, and garbage out means. But, adding a tool like Plytix to your ecommerce tech stack can help you solve these problems. Here’s how: 

You’ll have a central source for all your information

If you haven’t realized it yet, let us be the first ones to tell you that spreadsheets are really bad for product data management. While they can store information, the more your product catalog grows, the harder it is to get a full view of your product information. You’ll end up with a number of different lagging spreadsheets that make sending product data to your feed management tool much less efficient. 

Source

With Plytix, you can have a central source of truth for all your product information. This means all of your product information and digital assets for Google, Facebook, Amazon, Walmart, your web store, and other sales channels live in a single location. You’ll no longer have to deal with the spreadsheet's mayhem. Instead, you’ll have software that will make product data easier to view, understand, and edit to ensure that you’re sending high-quality data to your feed management tool. 

You’ll have accurate, complete, and high-quality data

Working from an excel spreadsheet or other old storage methods will always result in poor data. Apart from being unable to see your data at first glance because it’s cluttered, human error is a common problem. You can end up with:

• Multiple versions of the same data
• Incorrect pricing
• Incomplete product descriptions 
• Duplicated product information for two different products 

Poor product data management doesn’t only result in inefficiency, it can also be a costly expense. Many businesses have suffered as product information affected their revenue. One of the main reasons for selling on multiple sales platforms is to increase sales, but how will you do that with poor data? 

According to this article, “87% of shoppers rate product content extremely or very important when deciding to buy, and 50% have returned an item they bought online because it didn’t match the product description.”

With a PIM database like Plytix, you can:

• Track data completeness to ensure it’s ready to be sent to your feed management system. 
• Bulk edit for data requirements and formatting for different channels. Once you’re done you can create feed templates to push through to your feed management system. 
• Use our advanced filtering function so you can find what you’re looking for quickly and efficiently push product content.

Our tool is also a collaboration tool, meaning you and your team can efficiently work together to edit, tweak, and optimize your product information. It will be updated immediately and you’ll always know when the last update was to ensure everyone involved knows exactly what is happening with your product information. 

You’ll manage complex product relationships and variations with ease

Offering product variations and relationships is a key benefit online. You want to replicate the experience a customer would have in-store. For instance, in a store, at a quick glance, a customer would be able to see the essentials that they may need because all the products are on display. They’d also have the option to choose colors and patterns that suit their preferences better. The same should be translated online if you wish to keep your customers happy. 

With a product information tool, you’re able to manage your product relationships easily as you can link products that complement each other either for up-selling, bundle packs, or cross-selling. You can also set up product variations as you’re able to see the complete picture of your product information so you can quickly identify them. 

You’ll be able to further optimize your product content

Optimizing your content to meet the needs of a sales channel is the only way to increase your visibility. Optimizing for Google Shopping, Esty, or eBay varies on the platform's requirements. And while you can optimize through your FMS to some extent, a PIM helps you reach a level of product optimization that you wouldn’t be able to do with your FMS alone. 

Plytix makes product listing optimization easier as you can tweak your content such as product titles, descriptions, features, image resizing, add keywords, and more to meet the requirements of your platform. That way, you ensure that even before your product syndication to your feed management tool happens, your product information is rich enough to bring you more sales, and makes you save more time so you can send your products to market faster. According to research, companies that adopt a PIM solution can send their products two times faster than businesses without a PIM system. 

Power up your feed management system today!

Multichannel management doesn’t need to be a time-consuming task, not when you can use PIM. A product information system helps you take control of your product information so that you can use it to improve product performance and increase sales. 

Plytix is one of the best PIMs for ecommerce. We’ve been recognized by software rating company, G2, for the quality of our platform. We also offer competitive prices that specifically cater to small to medium-sized businesses that want to flourish in the ecommerce space. If this is your goal, request a demo today. 

And, if you want to brush up on your knowledge of everything PIM before your product demo, download our free eBook, The Ultimate PIM Buyer’s Guide.