In-person shopping gives customers the opportunity to feel an item’s texture, gauge it’s weight and determine its overall suitability to their needs. Online shopping does not offer the same conveniences. Instead, it’s up to the e-commerce business to provide accurate specifications, descriptive copy, images, how-to videos and more.

If the information you provide doesn’t match the delivered product, the customer is likely to leave a bad review or return the product. In fact, half of the customers in a survey reported having returned a product because it did not match the info provided. To avoid poor outcomes and to stay competitive in today’s world, compelling and up-to-date product information is essential.

How can online retailers best represent their products? One solution quickly gaining traction is product information management, or PIM. Much like how it sounds, PIM is a method of product data collection, regulation and distribution. It takes in data from suppliers, enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications and other instructive sources to enable more consistent distribution. This cohesive product info can then be supplied to catalogs, mobile apps and additional points of sale.

What information is included? A PIM system can organize all the data going into the product description, from marketing descriptions, photos and videos to other revealing information.

Unfortunately, these product attributes rarely originate from a single source. This is where a PIM system helps simplify the process, as it can aggregate each piece of data and provide a single view from which it can be managed. PIM software can give e-commerce marketers and merchandisers the tools needed to share exact product data across all their various media, platforms and output channels.

Omnichannel consistency is imperative. Nowadays, 60% of consumers expect any alterations made to product info to be reflected across the company’s site, emails and other distribution channels on the same day. The need to meet these consumer expectations is one of the driving forces behind PIM’s explosive growth; the PIM market is forecasted to exceed $16 billion by 2025.

What’s more, robust PIM systems can handle the challenging task of maintaining accurate product records for those sizable and ever-growing catalogs. Managers agree that one of the top benefits of PIM is that it can help streamline an organization’s digital strategies, resulting in increased conversion rates and sales. Such an edge is considerable in the current landscape where consumer buying habits quickly change.

All these benefits and more can improve a company’s ability to create the best customer and omnichannel experience as possible. As a result, your reputation can be bolstered, conversions made and sales increased, ultimately driving more revenue.

For more information on the significance of PIM, please see the accompanying resource created by experts in retail cloud solutions.