How to implement PIM in E-commerce? Monogo E-commerce News, 61
For whom PIM is?
As always, you need to pragmatically assess whether a PIM in your company is needed at all. In our experience, PIM helps when:
- you offer a large number of products to your customers - several hundred or more,
- you trade in multiple markets,
- the products you offer, or in other words your product information, needs to be translated into multiple languages,
- you send information about your products to various channels (e.g. comparison sites, many shops, your business partners use the prouct data, you sell on marketplaces outside your own shop),
- more people who create/enhance your product data.
A list of these few simple points is a good litmus test for making decisions about PIM implementation. Of course, based on these alone, we don't recommend that you make this decision, but a definite yes to any of the points is a good indication that PIM could be of use to you.
Product Information Management (PIM), is such a versatile system that there is no restriction to industry or company size. As a rule, the implementation itself should be less demanding on the budget side than e-commerce. Therefore, it is a good idea to start organising product information as early as possible. With your company's rapidly expanding range of products, or a growing appetite for overseas expansion, it may prove salutary to have a PIM. A tool that systematises and organises information architecture, enables collaboration and allows you to integrate with consumers of this data.
Do I need a special e-commerce engine to implement a PIM?
As PIM is a separate system, runs on a separate database and probably has an API or plug-ins for the most popular e-commerce systems, the answer to this question is no. In principle, any e-commerce system can be integrated with PIM and draw the most up-to-date product information.
So far I have not mentioned anything about the possible options of PIMs. Hence, a small point, when choosing, it is worth going towards a platform that has the ability to consume data via API. I'm assuming there is currently no system that doesn't enable this, but it's always good to mention. If you decide to build your own system (which I honestly advise against), it's worth including an API in the requirements.
Don't build just buy a PIM
There are some really strong products on the market that are relatively easy to implement. Relatively, because it all depends on your ecosystem. I've made no secret of the fact that we've had projects that seemed easy, but in reality were anything but easy.
With a PIM project, the most important thing is to initially analyse and well define the following aspects of the project and your organisation:
- Content architecture - this is what will ensure that the designed data structures will realistically meet your needs,
- integrations - data from the PIM should be sent somewhere, hence a good and complete definition of the integrations and their level of complexity will avoid fluctuations in the implementation budget,
- Entitlement model (the so-called Governance Model) - i.e. correctly identifying who and how is to work or otherwise collaborate on the platform. Thanks to this, it may turn out already at the analysis stage that some PIM cannot be implemented because it does not offer a rich model of permissions for collaboration.
Of the sensible options, we can suggest an RFI of two systems: Akeneo and PimCore. Comparing the two, pragmatically Pimcore beats Akeneo already in the run-up if we talk about the number of features and configuration possibilities. Akeneo, on the other hand, wins in terms of the learning curve, or, in other words, the level of complexity or implementation complexity.
In short: it is simpler to implement Akeneo, but Pimcore will give more options for the future.
PIM implementation project stages
In a nutshell what is important is the pre-implementation analysis. There is really nothing to save at this stage. Especially if we are talking about time. A well-executed analysis allows the supplier to learn your processes and prepare the system in such a way that it meets the expectations of the business.
