Your Crash Course in Product Content Management

Product Content Management (PCM) might sound like any other acronym in the alphabet soup of ecommerce—but it’s actually one of the most important ingredients in your ecommerce strategy. Not only can it help you create, publish, and distribute product content more effectively, but it can help create a better shopping experience for your customers. 

Knowing exactly how PCM works can help you design the best possible digital strategy for your business. It’s also an important factor when building a solid tech stack so you can make the most of your digital shelf.

So whether you’re brand new to PCM or just dipping your toes into the ecommerce world, this guide will break down the basics in simple, straightforward terms.

Let’s dive in.

First: what is product content management?

Product content management (or PCM) is the process of creating, organizing, publishing, and distributing product content across sales channels. This could be managing content for your website or external platforms such as Amazon, Shopify, and Google Shopping. The goal is to maintain consistent product information and rich media assets wherever products are sold. 

Most PCM software appeared after PIM did, but the best PIM tools leveled up to include PCM capabilities. The best tools now offer Digital Asset Management (DAM) so you can manage rich content alongside your other product data in a single system. 

Okay, so what counts as product content?

Great question! And probably more intuitive than you’d think.

Product content refers to all digital information and media created to showcase and describe a product. This includes images, text descriptions, and technical specifications that help customers understand what you’re selling online. 

As Paul Graham, co-founder of startup accelerator Y Combinator, wisely points out: "Overall, the web is pretty sloppy, but an online store can't afford to be.” This highlights why strong product content matters—it helps customers find the information they need to make informed buying decisions.

Let’s run through a few product content examples on the list:

• High-quality images
• Sell sheets (if you’re embedding them on websites)
• Product descriptions
• Rich media content (GIFs or videos)
• Technical components
• Sustainability documents (like Digital Product Passports)
• User-generated content (like customer reviews)

Is PCM the same as PIM?

Nope! But close—PCM is very similar to PIM. In fact, most ecommerce companies use PIM software to serve the needs of PCM (which we’ll get to later on).

For now, here’s a closer look at the nitpicky differences:

Product Information Management (PIM) is all about collecting, improving, and sharing product data across your sales channels. It keeps your information accurate, consistent, and ready for customers. It entails everything (and not just your product content). 

Suppose you're adding a new line of hiking boots. The PIM process would involve gathering product details like sizes, materials, weight, and technical specifications. Next, you'd format that information for each channel (like your website, Amazon, and retail partners) so everything is clear, accurate, and consistent. If you need to update the waterproof rating or swap out a size chart, PIM covers those changes everywhere.

While Product Content Management (PCM) is the process of creating, organizing, and enriching product content—like descriptions, images, and marketing materials. It can also include managing image rights or coordinating photography projects.

For your hiking boots, the PCM process might start with brainstorming creative product descriptions that highlight key features. It could also involve planning a photo shoot, choosing which lifestyle images to feature, and writing SEO-optimized blog content that showcases the boots in action. If you're launching a winter campaign with fresh visuals and marketing copy, PCM helps keep all that content organized and ready to go.

Can you use these terms interchangeably? Not really. But they go hand in hand when it comes to managing your product information the right way.

With this in mind, let’s look at how to build a product content management strategy so you can deliver best-in-class experiences to customers. 😉

Why ecommerce brands need a product content management strategy

Even if you don’t purchase software to manage your product content, you will have to think about building a product content strategy.

Here’s why:

Stay consistent on every channel

Customers don’t just expect consistent experiences—they absolutely demand them. A whopping 90% of them expect consistency across all your sales channels, and if that’s not something you offer, expect two-thirds of them to go elsewhere. 

A great product content management strategy keeps your digital content organized and keeps key data consistent across multiple channels. That way, customers always have access to the same product descriptions, rich media assets, and technical specs. There’s never any question about what you’re selling (or whether or not your brand can be trusted).

Keep customers happy with high-quality content

Not that you need a reminder as a digital denizen, but you should know high-quality data leads to happier customers overall. Rich images, detailed descriptions, and engaging product video improves your customer’s shopping experience and boosts conversions for your brand.

Don’t believe us? Then believe Wendy Wang, owner of F&J Outdoors (an outdoor patio furniture cover company). By updating the photo quality of a single new product, Wendy reported a 30% increase in sales.

And speaking of new products. . .

Launch new products even faster

Launching a new product? That’s complicated enough. But launching it across multiple sales channels? Absolutely stress-inducing. 

Thankfully, a good product content management strategy can help to improve this process by storing your content in a central repository. This makes it easier to publish content across channels so you can get new products on the market both quickly and efficiently.

How to design an effective product content management system

So now you’re familiar with what a product content management strategy is. The question is, how do you set one up?

Let’s take a look at some best practices and tips, as well as common pitfalls to avoid while getting started.

What you should do 

Here’s how to roll out an airtight PCM strategy:

1. Keep customer experience front and center

In the world of ecommerce, content is king—but customer experience makes a very close second. A whopping 73% of consumers say experience is key to purchasing decisions, and if you don’t give them a seamless shopping experience, they’ll have several million competitors to choose from. 

Some suggestions for keeping your customer experience high:

• Aim for quality over quantity. Don’t have many pictures or videos to show? No problem—just make them good.
• Offer personalization across multiple platforms. For example, customers should have access to the same items in their cart from any device or browser they choose to use.
• Consistency, consistency, consistency. Put up guardrails in your system that will reduce errors, save time, and prevent you from publishing incorrect product content (like the wrong shoe size or an incorrect clothing color) 

2. Make collaboration a key piece of the puzzle

This is self-explanatory, but just as a reminder: product content cannot be managed in a vacuum. You should look for ways to get your team involved so everyone in your company can give a helping hand when needed.

This could also include your external partners, including brand manufacturers and third-party vendors, who need access to your catalog to double-check product information. This could also mean faster access to the latest product details, and therefore fewer bottlenecks when launching new products or updating existing ones.

While we’re on the subject of sharing your data:

3. Set quality standards right from the get-go

If everyone in your business has access to product data, they’re going to need guidelines around how they should (and shouldn’t) change it. 

For example, you might want to:

• Write a guide to content creation. How should new product content look, sound, and feel to maintain your brand and company standards?
• Set permissions for team roles. That way, only certain people with certain levels of access can manipulate content data directly in your system.
• Regularly clean your data. The goal should be removing inaccurate, incomplete, duplicate, or outdated content so you’re always giving customers the best data you’ve got.

What you shouldn’t do

Now that you’ve learned some solid best practices, let’s take a look at what you should avoid. 

1. Don’t overcomplicate the process

It can be pretty difficult not to overcomplicate your product content strategy. It’s a pretty important part of ecommerce success, after all. But the more complex your system is, the more difficult it will be to manage it effectively. This is especially true if you’re selling across multiple channels and don’t have integrations with third-party tools.

Some pointers:

• Be picky about the platform you use. Before purchasing a tool for product content management, ask yourself just how useful it will be in real life. Is it easy to use? Is the interface intuitive? If the system itself is overcomplicated, your strategy probably won’t fare much better. 
• Decide on a central source of truth. Maybe this is a PCM system, or maybe this is a PIM platform. Either way, you should choose one platform to store mission-critical content for easy retrieval. 
• Set up automations as often as possible. Maybe you can push specific data to your ERP system, or automate distribution to specific sales channels. The goal should be to cut as much manual effort as you can—because the last thing you need is a time-consuming PCM strategy.

2. Don’t set it and forget it

Look, we get it: product content management is hard. But if you leave your data to its own devices, it won’t be long until things get out of hand. 

What happens when an intern on your team accidentally changes some pricing information? Or when you need to update certain sustainability information to maintain compliance? This is why data audits are absolutely necessary: to make sure your data is accurately listed so shoppers can enjoy the best possible experiences.

Some PIM platforms make this easier with tools like audit logs and completeness attributes. That way, you never have to worry about incomplete data falling through the cracks and can keep a close eye on who’s editing what. 

3. Don’t stop enriching your content

Product content management isn’t just about managing existing data—it’s also about looking for gaps and opportunities. The goal should be to create high-quality customer experiences that push the envelope as far as possible. 

You might want to go the extra mile to add:

• New product videos (if you haven’t published any before)
• Detailed infographics explaining features and benefits
• An updated set of FAQs (depending on your sales channels)

Eldho Kuriakose, Product Manager at PROS, summarizes this well:

“Product Management is a delicate balance between the obvious and the obscure. It's not just about what you know or the information you have; it's about acknowledging the gaps. If you fail to question the unstated, the underlying assumptions, and the workflow's premises, you risk creating a generic product or experience.” 

How a PIM helps with product content management strategy

If you want to effectively launch a product content management strategy, a PIM solution is the most efficient approach.

Here’s how using a PIM system can transform your content management strategy:

• Get rid of data silos before they start. No more storing details in disparate systems or tabbing between apps to access different product data.
• Keep your favorite tools in communication. Everywhere your team works should have the same updated product data. Whether that’s your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tool or a specific ecommerce platform, a PIM will make it so much easier to keep all your information current and connected.
• Scale up without slowing down. The bigger your product catalog grows, the tougher it will be to manage details on your own. But with a PIM tool, you can easily handle thousands of products without sacrificing data quality or content consistency. 
• Eliminate manual processes. Manual entry takes an enormous amount of time, effort, and money to do well—and all it takes is one ‘off’ day to create stress for product teams. All this melts away with automated workflows: you can instantly push content from one platform to the next and cut down on the number of painful human errors.
• Say ‘bye to errors and inconsistencies. Speaking of human errors, a PIM system can help you better manage content by getting rid of mismatched product info that could lead to customer confusion (and therefore returns). The best PIM systems offer simpler ways to keep an eye on problems before they start, like completeness attributes, computed attributes, automated distribution, and more. 

As you can see, PIM systems offer what you need to manage your product content—plus a sprinkling of extra functionality like a DAM depending on your provider. Just make sure the PIM provider you’re considering has all the PCM features you need (a good PIM will have them). 

We’ll let Andrew Lomas, Co-founder and CEO of Creative Folks, add the finishing touches:

“PIM is a core tool for managing and maintaining product specification data. PCM is essential for managing the creation, storage, and distribution of product content, such as images, videos, descriptions, manuals and how-to guides. If you need to streamline content operations and deliver personalised customer and company experiences, it is essential to understand how [these two] differ and complement each other. Enriching core product information for specific channels and leveraging first-person data can only be done if you integrate the two and leverage their combined strengths.”

Making the most of your product content

You can think of product content management as a subset of product information management—it’s something you need to master, but not necessarily something you need to buy. With a good PIM system, you already have everything you need to keep tabs on your content, edit important attributes in bulk, and distribute your data at scale.

No need to take our word for it, though. As Alan Edmondson, Global Strategist at Delaware United Kingdom and Ireland, says: 

“PIM can empower brands to manage complex data more efficiently, streamline workflows and enhance customer experience.”

Curious to learn more about how PIM can help with product content management?

Learn more about our PIM system and how it can act as your PCM tool.