What is PIM (product information management)?

A PIM (product information management) system centralizes, organizes, and distributes product information, like product descriptions, marketing assets, and shipping details or materials. A PIM system is the single source of truth for accurate product information across your sales, marketing, and e-commerce channels.

In effect, PIM systems streamline the management of your entire product inventory.

How does PIM work?

PIM systems centralize product information into a single platform, allowing businesses to gather and enrich attributes from various sources. PIM systems also ensure information accuracy and consistency through missing data field alerts, team member accessibility, and integrations with digital asset management (DAM) platforms. Once attributes are fully prepared, PIM systems distribute them across sales and marketing channels, such as Shopify and Amazon, while automatically tailoring attributes to align with each channel’s unique requirements.

What are the benefits of PIM systems?

Depending on your business, there are multiple benefits of PIM systems:

Centralized product data

A PIM system centralizes product data, making it easier to manage, update, and maintain. Managing product data from one source of truth reduces the risk of errors and inconsistencies across channels.

Enhanced customer experience

PIM systems ensure your product data is consistent and complete across all channels, which leads to a better customer experience.

Accelerated time-to-market

A PIM solution streamlines workflows and automates repetitive tasks, accelerating products to market.

Improved omnichannel marketing

With a PIM system, accurate and formatted product information can be easily distributed to e-commerce sites, social media, print catalogs, and more.

Assisted industry compliance and regulation

PIM systems manage accurate product information that is required for labeling, safety, or technical specifications, helping maintain necessary compliance and regulation needs.

Top PIM system features

PIM systems transform how you manage product information from the ground up. Check out the top PIM solution features.

Product attribute fields

Customizable attribute fields let you organize your data clearly using organization-specific terms. You can customize the key data fields to reflect any information that is important to sell your products, whether it be the product description or shipping information.

Channel mapping

Channel mapping ensures that your product attributes align with retailer terms, eliminating the need for tedious backend adjustments. Product attribute names tend to vary between businesses and retailers, even within the same industry. With a PIM system in place, you can “set and forget” these header correlations.

Digital catalogs

Catalogs are a way to curate product subsets from your line, whether that be your newest drops or old favorites. Any comprehensive PIM solution will offer a digital catalog feature designed to make it easy to share products in a simple, on-brand way.

How does a PIM system help with e-commerce?

PIM systems help distribute accurate product attributes in the right formats to e-commerce platforms, removing the need for tracking product data with spreadsheets and manually updating each storefront’s product information.

Let’s look at a few examples of PIM for e-commerce.

Clothing manufacturer

If you manufacture a line of women’s sportswear, you could use a PIM system to catalog your products.

You could organize your entire line with item descriptions, sizes, colors, materials, care instructions, labeling, marketing and promotional materials, supply chain management, distribution information, and more — for every single item. From there, you could distribute this information to all your various sales, marketing, and distributor channels, which likely includes e-commerce storefronts.

Since you used a PIM system to centralize and distribute your product information, your distributors will receive accurate product attributes in the correct storefront formats.

Chocolate retailer

Let’s say you’re a chocolate retailer with an e-commerce website and a retail presence in brick-and-mortar stores. You could use a PIM system to:

List your entire line of products

Manage ingredient information

Store packaging details

List accurate nutritional information

Manage compliance with different certifications, e.g., Fair Trade, organic, or non-GMO

Finally, you could use a PIM system to share accurate product information with all sales, marketing, and other e-commerce channels.

Comparing PIM vs. other systems

Listed below are some comparisons between PIM vs. other systems:

What is the difference between PIM vs. DAM?

PIM: For organizing and distributing product information across multiple teams and channels

DAM: For centralizing your digital asset library, brand management, version control, and content distribution

Want to know more? Read our full article on PIM vs. DAM.

What is the difference between PIM vs. CMS?

PIM: For managing product attributes across multiple teams and storefronts

CMS: For managing the creation and editing of websites and web pages in an easy-to-use interface

What is the difference between PIM, DAM, and CMS?

PIM, DAM, and CMS solutions all serve different purposes. PIM systems help teams centralize, organize, and distribute product attributes across channels and teams. DAM systems help teams manage digital content and brand assets across teams and channels. CMS platforms make it easy to create, manage, and publish website content.

What is the difference between DAM, PIM, and MRM?

While DAM and PIM system are for centralizing and organizing digital assets and product attributes respectively, MRM platforms help marketing teams manage resources such as budgets and content more effectively.

Want to learn more? Check out Canto’s marketing resource management guide.

What is the difference between PIM vs. ERP?

PIM: Designed specifically for managing, organizing, and distributing product information across various channels

ERP: Manages a company’s overall business processes, but product information is limited to basic details such as inventory levels and pricing

What is the difference between PIM vs. CRM?

PIM: Offers tools to enrich product information, manage a variety of attributes, and maintain data quality standards

CRM: Designed to manage customer data, sales activity, and communications records with little to no product data management capabilities

How to choose the best PIM system

The best PIM system is the one that addresses your business needs. The top PIM system features to look for include:

Data management capabilities that support a variety of product data, including technical information, product data, marketing content, digital assets, and more

System integration with your existing marketing stack

Scalability to grow with your business

Multichannel and multilingual support to ensure smooth information distribution to all your channels

Security features to protect your sensitive information

Cost and licensing fees that meet your budget

PIM system frequently asked questions

What is a PIM system (PIMS)?

A PIM system (product information management system or PIMS) is a solution that organizations use to improve product processes. PIMS centralize, organize, and distribute accurate product attributes across teams and channels.

What is a PIM?

A PIM, also known as a product information management system, is a software solution used to centralize product attributes, improving product processes and product information accuracy.

What is PIM software?

PIM software is a platform used by organizations to centralize, organize, and distribute product information across marketing, sales, and channels. PIM software vastly improves product information accuracy, reliability, and accessibility.