Product Information Management (PIM) reviews by real, verified users. Find unbiased ratings on user satisfaction, features, and price based on the most reviews available anywhere.
Best Product Information Management (PIM) Software for Medium-Sized Businesses
Top 9 Product Information Management (PIM) Software for Medium-Sized Businesses
- Akeneo PIM
- Salsify
- Sales Layer PIM
- Catsy
- Syndigo Content Experience Hub
- Plytix
- Pimcore
- inRiver PIM
- Propel
Akeneo is a global leader in Product Experience Management (PXM) solutions that help merchants and brands deliver a compelling customer experience across all sales channels, including eCommerce, mobile, print, and retail points of sale. Akeneo’s open source enterprise PIM, and product data intelligence solutions, dramatically improve product data quality and accuracy while simplifying and accelerating product catalog management.
Salsify empowers brand manufacturers to deliver the product experience consumers demand anywhere they choose to shop online. Our product experience management platform (PXM) combines the power of PIM and DAM capabilities, the industry’s broadest commerce ecosystem, and actionable insights to orchestrate compelling product experiences through every digital touchpoint. The world’s biggest brands including Coca-Cola, Bosch, GSK, Rawlings, and Fruit of the Loom use Salsify every day to stand out on
Sales Layer is the most agile Product Information Manager (PIM) to create customized product experiences on the market. The SaaS based platform adopts an intuitive user interface to generate catalogs of up to millions of SKUs, fully connected to marketplaces, distributors and manufacturers, both upstream and downstream. For marketers and business owners, Sales Layer provides a single source of product information. With this PIM your brand will be more consistent, hosting all your product inform
Catsy allows you to combine the power of centralizing all product information & images in one place with actionable insights for the content you are storing - Empowering brands to better manage their content while being able to tailor it for each distributor and retailer to maximize online sales growth.
Syndigo's Content Experience Hub Platform allows retailers, distributors and manufacturers to access all of their product data and digital assets from one single location. With this product suppliers and manufacturers can now be sure all their sales channels have the same rich product information. Through the standardized content, retailers can now consume far more data than ever before. Allowing for a faster speed to market and an expansion of product lines in-store and online.
Plytix gives your team a single source of truth to easily manage product information and get it to market faster and smarter! Plytix is designed to manage product content at scale. No more clunky spreadsheets with incomprehensible titles and outdated information. Companies can access up-to-date information on their full range of products and share that data with a few clicks of a button. What's more, you can get the same modules and features that big enterprise PIMs offer, at a lower cost.
Pimcore is an open-source software platform used by more than 100 000 companies worldwide. It offers state-of-the-art digital asset management (DAM), product information management (PIM), master data management (MDM), digital experience management (DXP/CMS), multi-channel publishing, and digital commerce. Acclaimed by analysts at Gartner and Forrester, its customers include Fortune 100 companies such as Pepsi, Sony, and Audi. The company's headquarters are in Salzburg, Austria. Pimcore’s consol
Founded in 2007, inRiver redefines the way ecommerce product marketers and merchandisers work. By providing product information management (PIM) products and services that help create, update, refresh, maintain and distribute content about products globally, inRiver helps businesses to drive increased revenue, customer satisfaction and brand equity. More than 1000 brands and 400 customers across 19 countries rely on inRiver to efficiently control the product flow for their globally recognized br
Propel's enterprise cloud software is the innovation platform for future brands. We offer the world's only integrated Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Product Information Management (PIM) and Quality Management Systems (QMS) solutions that help all your employees, partners and customers deliver your best ideas to market. Propel has developed the only integrated PLM, PIM and QMS solutions built on the Salesforce platform — the world’s most secure, trusted and flexible cloud platform. Our SaaS
Learn More About Product Information Management (PIM) Software
What is Product Information Management Software?
The importance of PIM software may not be so evident since other solutions can be used to manage products (such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), product lifecycle management (PLM), or inventory management solutions). It is therefore crucial for buyers to understand when they need PIM software and why.
The main reasons why a company should use PIM software are:
- The number of product or combinations of items is so high that it cannot be managed efficiently using other systems (such as an ERP)
- The business model of the company focuses on regularly launching new products or iterations of existing products
- The company distributes products from many providers in different markets
- The industry of the company experiences significant fluctuations in demand based on seasonality
Buyers also need to understand where PIM fits into their software ecosystem and how it may overlaps with other solutions. In a nutshell, product data is initially created using PLM or other design solutions. The data is then transferred to ERP to create bills of materials for production and determine the cost and the price of each product. When product information is imported into PIM solutions, most product details are already defined and will only change when the company decides to adapt its offering to changes in demand.
From a business perspective, it is essential to understand the role PIM plays in the lifecycle of a product and its stages: design, production, sales, after sales, and end of life. While this type of software can provide companies with valuable information at any stage of a product lifecycle, it is most beneficial after the product launch and during the sales and after-sales stages.
Finally, PIM software should not be confused with:
- Product data management, which is usually part of PLM solutions and helps designers and engineers manage product metadata
- Inventory management, which is never part of PIM; buyers need separate solutions to manage their stock
- Master data management (MDM), which can be used to manage product information, but this type of software is not specifically designed for this need and does not offer all the features included in a typical PIM solution
Why Use PIM Software?
Companies that sell a large number of products benefit most from using PIM software. PIM can also be handy for companies that sell many variations of the same products, such as multiple colors and sizes for the apparel industry
When companies need to manage hundreds or thousands of products, it is vital for them to have a central repository that contains all product details such as name, description, price, and physical characteristics such as volume, weight, or color.
Who Uses PIM Software?
Product managers use PIM to define and track products and categories of products. PIM also helps with managing the relationships between products. For instance, some products may be sold together as kits, while similar items may replace other products.
A company’s marketing department can use PIM software to create printed or online catalogs. Marketing departments also need product information and images to create promotional campaigns or brochures.
E-commerce managers need PIM to ensure they make the right products, with the correct characteristics, available online. PIM also helps companies update their e-commerce stores with any changes they make to their products.
Manufacturing companies use PIM to sell their products on multiple channels, such as websites, e-commerce, or online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. Manufacturers may also use PIM to transfer product information to other systems such as ERP or PLM.
Kinds of PIM Software
While most PIM providers offer proprietary software, some vendors choose to build their solutions on an open-source model. Open-source vendors usually provide a community edition which is free to use and can be a good starting point for companies that may not want to make a significant investment in this type of software. The drawbacks of community editions of PIM are that buyers need to manage the implementation and maintenance on their own and the solution is sometimes delivered on-premises, which means that it needs to be downloaded and installed on a server managed by the customer.
From a functional perspective, some vendors focus on PIM only, while others offer related modules or solutions such as digital asset management. There are also business intelligence (BI) and data management vendors who adapt their solutions to compete with PIM providers.
PIM Software Features
The following features are must-haves for an effective PIM:
- The ability to consolidate product information from multiple sources, including all types of databases, software such as ERP or e-commerce, and files such as spreadsheets
- Customizable workflows and processes that define which users can publish or update product information and users who can approve changes
- Filters and search options that allow users to quickly find products using criteria such as the physical characteristics of the product (size, color, or weight), price, name, or description
- The ability to make mass updates to product information, which can be beneficial when users need to make changes to large numbers of products. For instance, changing the description for all products in a category should be performed in one operation, instead of having to modify each individual product
- The management of different types of content about products such as PDFs, images, or videos
Additional Product Information Management Features
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For buyers with more complex needs, the following features may be hugely beneficial when used in conjunction with the features described above:
- The ability to allow partners such as dealers and distributors to access the PIM solution and use the product information on their websites or e-commerce stores
- Provide syndication of product information to make it easier to publish on platforms such as Amazon or eBay
- Data governance and master data management (MDM), which can help large companies better manage large volumes of product information and content
Potential Issues with PIM Software
PIM software can be complicated and difficult to maintain, especially when the system is installed on-premises and the buyer is responsible for the IT infrastructure needed to run the solution. Even cloud-hosted PIM software may be challenging when it is delivered as a mix of separate solutions that are not tightly integrated.
Integration with other solutions, such as ERP or e-commerce software, is critical for companies using PIM software. The way product information is transferred between PIM systems and other software can have a significant impact on sales and revenue. The ideal data migration should be completely automated; this is not always the case, which can cause errors. For instance, if pricing information is inaccurate, companies may lose money.
