Research conducted by NeilsenIQ and Label Insight found that consumers are dedicated to their lifestyle and wellness.
Still, most leading retailers make it difficult for consumers to find products that match their needs. More surprisingly, the root cause of this poor experience is incomplete and inaccurate product data.
What Are PIM Tools?
Implementing a product information management (PIM) tool is the ultimate solution to ensure product data is accurate and consistent across channels. With a PIM tool, you can change how you work with importing, enriching, and distributing data.
Everyone in your company will have a single, united source of product information that they can access at any time.
In this article, we’ll take a look at five top brands leveraging PIM tools for digital shelf success so you can see for yourself exactly how PIM can take your business to the next level.
1. Energizer
Energizer is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of consumer batteries, lighting, and automotive. They’re leading the power and portable lighting categories with a robust portfolio of groundbreaking products and consumer-led innovation.
The Challenge
Energizer realized the importance of using a PIM tool to create an exceptional ecommerce experience across channels, so they adopted Salsify.
However, due to a massive catalog of products sold through a wide variety of retailers, the company had some challenges in taking full advantage of all Salsify offers.
How a PIM Helped
According to Jordan Rosenbaum, associate manager of ecommerce content and syndication at Energizer, the company solved those problems by defining the scope of the project and setting boundaries.
They identified retailers where there was most opportunity and determined what products were sold at those critical partners.
They also used Salsify’s syndication capabilities to quickly send content to different channels.
The End Result
“Today we have 25,000 product records in Salsify and are syndicating through 30 channels. We’ve gotten to the point where our production process and the lifecycle of our products are pretty strong and efficient,” says Jordan.
2. Samsonite
Samsonite is the worldwide leader in producing high-quality travel bags, luggage, and accessories.
For more than 100 years, Samsonite has leveraged their rich design heritage and the latest design technology to create unparalleled products that fulfill the on-the-go lifestyle needs of the business professional.
How a PIM Helped
Samsonite integrated Salsify into their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to reduce time-consuming administrative tasks and improve their sales team’s productivity.
According to Meghan O’Keefe, Samsonite wholesale digital marketing manager, the company started with Salsify’s templates and exports to fill out sales spreadsheets.
They created a single view of customers for customer service reps to quickly understand what customers need to provide better service.
The End Result
Apart from that, Salsify helped Samsonite create enhanced content and send it out to their retailers through a direct connection.
“With one click of a button, we can get a totally customized sell sheet with images, dimensions, product copy, and everything else. Our creative team can spend their time focusing on other things,” says Meghan.
3. SMNutrition
SMNutrition offers a broad range of dietary supplements, including hormone balance, immune health, digestion, cognition, performance, weight loss, and essential supplements.
The company is devoted to bringing the highest quality products to consumers at the most reasonable prices on the market.
The Challenge
Before using a PIM tool, SMNutrition had 35 products hosted on Amazon. They didn’t have well-defined processes, a centralized data source, and a way to track past content.
They understood that if they wanted to grow, they had to bring everything under one roof and optimize their workflows.
How a PIM Helped
“We asked ourselves if we could grow as quickly as we wanted to with a cheaper option — and the answer was no. So we decided to make the investment, and Salsify has paid extreme dividends for us,” says Drew Lewis, COO at SMNutrition.
The End Result
With Salsify, SMNutrition built efficient work processes that make scaling possible.
They quickly review and revise product content to ensure compliance with the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission.
Since implementing Salsify, SMNutrition more than doubled their gross revenue and increased their products to over 70.
4. WestPoint Home
WestPoint Home has been a pioneer in innovative home textiles for over 200 years and has become a part of American homes across generations.
The company has acquired 14 leaders in innovation, design, and construction for home fashion.
The Challenge
In 2014, WestPoint Home founded their ecommerce division — their goal was to create an effective digital shelf to serve modern consumers.
But the processes were too slow as the team had to input data into about 30 different forms and translate it into information that made sense for consumer platforms.
How a PIM Helped
“We were one of the earliest adopters of Salsify, and […] we were amazed at how easy Salsify made it to load data and have that data copied out to so many different forms,” says Jen Gulley, director of direct-to-consumer (D2C) ecommerce sales at WestPoint Home.
The company now expands Salsify across departments to help all teams get their work done faster.
The End Result
WestPoint Home also took advantage of Salsify to grow their ecommerce margins.
The company uses Salsify’s Shopify Application Programming Interface (API) to make syndicating product information to each site as easy as possible. “It [Salsify] has made it a super-easy way to manage our D2C efforts,” says Jen.
5. Intertape Polymer Group (IPG)
Intertape Polymer Group (IPG) is a recognized leader in developing and manufacturing paper and film-based pressure-sensitive and water-activated tapes, packaging solutions, and more.
IPG employs approximately 3,700 employees in 32 locations, including 21 manufacturing facilities in North America, five in Asia, and one in Europe.
The Challenge
Previously, IPG used spreadsheets to organize product data and send it to distributors.
When a distributor requested data on entire product lines right away, IPG didn’t have enough resources to do that.
Despite trying different platforms, the company couldn’t find an ultimate solution since each of those platforms stored data in its own way.
How a PIM Helped
Transitioning to Salsify was a game-changer for IPG. The company can now build product catalogs that allow their customers to self-serve for information in their own time.
They also started to train their product management team to review and update product data with Salsify.
This way, the team can make their workflows easier while getting accurate data to customers faster.
The End Result
“It’s been exhilarating to see our customers learn what we can do and grow their online presence. Some are only just starting to come online, and when they see what we can do for them with Salsify’s PIM system, it creates a very satisfying “aha” moment,” says Erica Medcraft, senior marketing manager at IPG.
What to Look for When Choosing PIM Tools
A PIM can change how you do business for the better. With a PIM, you’ll get:
- An agile and flexible system;
- Connections to top retailers and internal systems;
- Digital shelf insights and reports;
- Product content optimization tools; and
- A centralized platform purpose-built for modern commerce.
To have a successful digital transformation and create a better ecommerce customer experience, retailers need to update their classical IT functions with a modern technology approach.
Implementing PIM is the first step of this process.
If you’re ready to adopt Salsify for your business, contact us for a guided demo today.
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