How to Choose a PIM System for Managing Product Data in a Mid-Sized Trading Company

PIM AI DXP Ebook

Olgierd Mrozik

30.11.2025

5 min. reading time

Managing product information becomes an increasingly serious challenge as a trading company grows.

In a mid-sized business handling hundreds or thousands of products across many sales channels (online store, marketplaces, catalogs, etc.), traditional methods like Excel spreadsheets sooner or later fail. Data scattered across different files and systems leads to errors, delays in launching new products, and inconsistent communication with customers.

The solution to these problems is PIM (Product Information Management) – a central system for managing product information. Companies that implement PIM achieve on average 30% faster time-to-market for new products and 25% fewer returns caused by incorrect data. That result shows how important the right PIM choice is for business growth and customer satisfaction.

Below we present the key criteria a mid-sized trading company should consider when choosing a PIM system. We’ll discuss technical aspects (important for IT), operational ones (for product data specialists), sales and marketing support (for e-commerce teams), and strategic issues (that matter for management).

Architecture and Integrations – the Technical Foundation of PIM

Why it matters:

For the IT team (CTO, system architect), it’s crucial that the new PIM system fits well into the company’s existing software ecosystem. Mid-sized trading companies usually already have an ERP system, an e-commerce platform, maybe a CRM, a data warehouse, etc. PIM must seamlessly integrate with all of these solutions and not create new data silos.

Experts emphasize that the system you choose must work with your current (and planned) information sources and target channels, including your internal ERP, supplier databases, online stores, mobile apps, and even catalog publishing systems. If a PIM doesn’t offer that kind of interoperability (e.g., via ready-made connectors or open APIs), its implementation misses the point.

Openness and avoiding vendor lock-in:

When choosing a PIM, pay close attention to the system’s architecture. Modern solutions are often described using the acronym MACH – they are Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless. In practice, this means modularity, strong focus on integration through APIs, and flexible deployment in the cloud or on-premises.

Such an open architecture makes future modifications and vendor changes much easier, protecting your company from being locked into one technology provider.

You should avoid closed systems that easily lead to vendor lock-in – a situation where migrating to another solution is difficult or very expensive. That’s why many companies choose open-source PIM solutions, which give you access to the source code and the freedom to extend and customize the system. Open source offers maximum flexibility thanks to full visibility of the code and the ability to modify it.

Of course, this requires some technical competency, but in return your company gains full control. If you don’t plan deep customizations, there are also many solid commercial PIM platforms – just make sure they provide easy data export/import and a well-documented API.

Integration with legacy and other systems:

A typical mid-sized business often carries a certain amount of “technical debt” – older systems that can’t be replaced overnight. A good PIM should bridge the world of old and new technologies. Check whether the PIM vendor offers ready-made integrations or at least well-documented REST APIs to connect with your ERP, data warehouse, e-commerce platform, etc. Many modern PIMs boast hundreds of ready-made integrations and open APIs, which minimizes the need for costly custom development.

If your company uses unusual or home-grown tools, PIM’s openness becomes even more critical. To sum up – flexibility and integrations are the foundation. PIM is supposed to be the central hub of your product data ecosystem, so it must communicate smoothly with every channel and application that uses those data.

Operational Efficiency and Data Quality – Ending the “Excel Hell”

Why it matters:

People responsible for product data (e.g., Master Data Manager, Product Data Specialist) know very well the pain of maintaining thousands of product records manually. If your staff spend long hours tweaking spreadsheets, copying descriptions between systems and checking whether all channels show current data, that’s a clear sign you need a PIM.

Distributed Excel files are prone to human errors and inconsistency. As a result, serious mistakes may appear – like incorrect product dimensions or descriptions – which lead to returns and customer complaints. It’s estimated that 18% of US consumers have returned online purchases because the product description was inaccurate – and returns are extremely costly for e-commerce.

What’s more, errors and inconsistencies in product data account for up to 40% of all returns, and 86% of consumers say they would not buy again from a retailer if they once received a product that didn’t match its description. These numbers clearly show how critical product data quality is for customer trust and financial performance.

Automating repetitive tasks:

One of the biggest benefits of PIM for operational teams is the automation of repetitive processes. Many tasks in creating and enriching product information are routine – e.g., bulk filling missing values, unit conversion, formatting descriptions, or translating texts into other languages.

The right PIM will take much of this repetitive work off your shoulders, doing a large portion of it automatically. Employees can then focus on development work instead of mind-numbing manual tasks.

For example, instead of manually hunting for missing data in spreadsheets, PIM can automatically detect empty fields or inconsistencies and show a list of products that need attention. A bulk edit feature lets you fix a given attribute across all selected products with a single action – something that in Excel might require complex macros or many hours of work.

Validation and data quality:

A good PIM becomes the guardian of your data quality. It has validation rules and quality controls that block publishing a product if critical information is missing or an error is detected.

In other words, it won’t let a product go live in your online store or catalog with missing images, descriptions, or wrong technical values. These validators act like an automatic proofreader – highlighting fields in red when they need attention (e.g. missing dimensions, incorrect data format) and preventing the product from being marked as ready for sale until the issue is fixed.

This ensures consistent and high-quality information, which translates into customer trust.

Some systems even offer product data quality indicators or scorecards – for example, Akeneo PIM includes a Product Score that rates completeness and consistency of each product, and Pimcore lets you define custom quality rules and KPIs.

This way, the person responsible for data immediately sees which products need work (e.g. a product has only 60% of required attributes filled in) and can prioritize fixes accordingly.

Eliminating the “Excel hell”:

In practice, PIM means saying goodbye to dozens of spreadsheets and file versions. Instead, your company gains one central source of truth for product data. All changes are made in one place and automatically propagated to all channels.

No more situation where different departments have their own product spreadsheets that never fully agree with each other. No more problems with file access (who has the latest version?) – everyone works on the same, always up-to-date PIM database.

As a result, employees stop wasting time “putting out data fires”, and the number of human errors drops dramatically. Standardized, complete product data reduce customer mistakes and complaints, which directly leads to fewer returns and claims (as mentioned, companies see on average a 25% drop in returns after implementing PIM). That’s a massive relief for customer service and logistics.

Faster Growth and More Sales – PIM as a Support Tool for E-commerce

Why it matters:

People responsible for category management and online sales (e.g., Category Manager, E-commerce Manager) expect that PIM will not only tidy up data, but also help boost sales and competitive advantage.

In trading, two factors are crucial:

Quality of product content (descriptions, images, attributes), affecting conversions and SEO.
Time-to-market – how fast you can launch new products.

Competitors don’t sleep – if your product onboarding process takes weeks and your descriptions are sparse or poorly optimized, they will outrank you in search results and attract more customers. When choosing a PIM, evaluate how it will impact the speed and attractiveness of your offer presentation.

Better SEO and online visibility:

In e-commerce, product visibility in Google and other search engines is a matter of survival. A PIM system can help a lot here. By giving full control over every element of product information, it enables you to craft unique, rich descriptions packed with the right keywords and proper structured data (e.g. schema.org markup) for every product.

This leads to better organic visibility of your products in search results. Search engines reward pages with extensive, consistent data – and PIM makes it much easier to maintain that quality.

Moreover, a good PIM helps you avoid duplicate content. Centralized management means you can create differentiated content for different channels (e.g., one version on your own site, another tailored to Amazon’s requirements).

Consistency of information across channels also supports SEO – when search engines see matching data in many places, they treat it as more trustworthy.

Real-world case studies show that implementing PIM and optimizing product data can increase organic traffic to product pages by up to 20% within six months. In other words, products become easier to find for people searching online, generating extra sales without raising the ad budget.

Faster product launches:

In commerce, it’s critical to react quickly to market trends and new assortment opportunities. When the marketing department wants to launch a new seasonal collection, a PIM system can cut that process from weeks down to days.

Thanks to centralized data and the ability to publish across all channels at once, time-to-market is significantly shortened. No more painstaking configuration of each channel separately – you enter the product into PIM, fill in all information once (description, images, technical attributes, translations), and then push those data to your online shop, marketplaces, mobile app, and even print catalogs.

What previously took weeks of cross-department coordination (IT, marketing, sales) can now happen in a single day – once the supplier has the product ready, its full description can appear across all your channels almost immediately.

Companies using PIM report around 30% faster time-to-market for new products. In practice, this means beating competitors to the punch and generating revenue from new items earlier. For an e-commerce manager, that agility is a huge advantage.

Omnichannel and consistent presentation:

PIM also makes it easy to expand into new channels. If your mid-sized company has only sold via its own online store so far, PIM makes adding Amazon, Allegro, or other marketplaces far easier. The data are already prepared and quality-checked – all you have to do is configure the integration.

The same goes for entering new foreign markets: PIM simplifies management of multiple language versions of your product content.

All this leads to broader reach and higher revenues without chaos in information management. Just as importantly, customers enjoy a consistent message: whether they see your product on your website, in a mobile app, or on a marketplace, the data will be current and equally complete.

This multi-channel consistency significantly improves the customer experience and conversion rates, because people are more likely to buy when they get complete, trustworthy information.

Using AI and intelligent features:

Modern PIM systems increasingly offer AI-powered modules. For marketing teams, this can be game-changing.

For example, some solutions can automatically generate product descriptions based on defined attributes and keywords. AI analyzes the specs and features, and then creates a unique, SEO-optimized description. This is a huge time-saver when adding hundreds of new products – marketers no longer have to write each description from scratch.

These generated texts can be adapted to various channels (shorter for product cards, longer for blog articles) and languages (AI can suggest translations tailored to industry terminology).

AI is also used for market analysis and recommendations – e.g., digital shelf analytics modules monitor competitor offers and suggest what information to add to make your products more competitive.

Another example: algorithms that flag inconsistencies or gaps in data (e.g., detecting that a product’s weight doesn’t match its dimensions) before the information goes live.

For the company, this means fewer errors and ongoing improvement of product content quality.

PIM can also help identify assortment gaps – thanks to central data analytics you may see, for instance, that you lack products in a category where your competitors are strong, or that certain product attributes strongly affect sales (PIM’s analytics modules can surface such insights).

All of this means that an e-commerce team equipped with a good PIM works faster and more effectively: launching collections in days, not weeks, with richer, more compelling product content than ever before.

Scalability, Compliance and ROI – the Strategic Perspective

Why it matters:

At the management level (e.g., E-commerce Director, CEO), PIM is evaluated in terms of long-term business benefits, security and regulatory compliance, and return on investment.

The decision to choose a PIM is often made in the context of the company’s growth strategy for years ahead. The key questions are: Will this system handle our growth (more products, markets, channels)? Will it help us meet current and future legal requirements for product information? Will it pay off in cost savings and additional revenue?

Scalability and cost efficiency:

A mid-sized trading company aims to become a large one – so the chosen PIM must grow with the business. Scalability applies both technically (can it handle 10x more products and users?) and in terms of cost structure.

Some PIM platforms (especially SaaS) link pricing to the number of SKUs or users – think in advance whether costs won’t become prohibitive once your assortment doubles. Here again, open-source solutions with an open-core model may have an edge – the core is free or cheaper, and you only pay for extra modules or support.

It’s also important that PIM supports on-premises deployment if your company policy requires storing sensitive data in-house – many mid-sized players in technical or B2B segments prefer that for security reasons.

In short, an elastic licensing and deployment model is a big plus.

From a business perspective, investment in PIM only makes sense if it delivers a return – fortunately, many real-world examples show that it does. Implementing PIM streamlines product information management processes, which translates into time and cost savings.

Automation reduces the need for manual work (fewer staff hours spent on data entry), better data quality minimizes losses (fewer returns, fewer marketplace penalties), and faster product launches generate revenue sooner.

Thus, a good PIM lets you scale operations without proportionally increasing operating costs – you can expand your catalog or enter new markets without hiring an army of new staff or buying dozens of extra tools.

As one analysis put it, you don’t need to raise your spending to grow revenue when you have a PIM capable of handling a larger business scale.

Regulatory compliance:

In recent years, regulations regarding product information have been multiplying – especially in the EU. One example is the Digital Product Passport (DPP) initiative under the EU Green Deal, which will require companies to provide detailed data on each product’s origin, materials, recycling, and safety. Mid-sized businesses will also be affected (e.g., in electronics, appliances, textiles, toys).

When choosing a PIM, you should ensure the system will make it easy to store and publish legally required information. Centralizing product data in PIM greatly simplifies compliance – all necessary data (certificates, material composition, safety instructions, etc.) are stored in one place and can be used to populate digital product passports.

PIM supports DPP compliance by ensuring that data are complete, current and available where needed.

Moreover, modern PIMs already offer features geared towards DPP – for example, integrations with blockchain-based technologies for generating unique product identifiers (QR codes) linked to digital passports.

Since updating information in all channels happens automatically with PIM, when regulations change you just update the data in one place. That’s crucial because EU rules are constantly evolving – a PIM system lets you quickly adapt product data to new requirements and thus avoid financial penalties for non-compliance.

From a director’s perspective, this peace of mind is priceless. Instead of risking fines (which can be huge) for missing information on labels or product pages, you have a system that guarantees your data meet standards and can easily generate the necessary reports or provide information to inspectors.

PIM also ensures full transparency and auditability – every change is logged, you know who modified what and when, which is often required by regulations.

Fast return on investment (ROI):

Ultimately, the board will ask: does this pay off?

All the points above – higher sales, lower labor costs, fewer returns, avoiding fines – add up to a very fast ROI on a PIM system. The more products and channels you manage, the faster you’ll see the payback.

If your organization handles a large volume of product data, operates in multiple channels and cares about consistent information, implementing PIM will be a high-ROI investment.

Many companies see tangible results within months: higher conversion rates (better descriptions increase purchase likelihood), lower operating costs (due to automation and higher team efficiency), and lower error costs (returns, corrections, penalties).

One summary of benefits notes that PIM reduces labor and time costs, boosts conversion and sales, cuts returns, accelerates product launches, and lets you scale without extra overhead.

It’s hard to argue with that, which is why more and more people say the question is not “can we afford PIM”, but rather “can we afford not to have PIM”.

Summary

Choosing a PIM system for a mid-sized trading company should be a carefully thought-out decision, considering all the aspects above. The ideal solution must combine strong technical foundations (flexible architecture, easy integrations, freedom from vendor constraints) with great usability (automation and convenience for data stewards) and real business impact (faster product onboarding, better content, higher sales), while also meeting strategic requirements (security, compliance, profitability).

Here is a checklist of the most important selection criteria for PIM in a mid-sized company:

Integration and interoperability:
Make sure PIM integrates smoothly with your ERP, e-commerce platform, data warehouse, and other systems. Open APIs and ready-made connectors for popular platforms are key. PIM must be the central hub of your product data – if it can’t connect to your ecosystem, it won’t fulfill that role.
Flexible architecture (MACH) & no vendor lock-in:
Choose a system with an open architecture, ideally aligned with microservices/API-first principles. This helps avoid vendor lock-in and gives you freedom to evolve at your own pace. Consider open-source or open-core solutions that give you access to the code and allow customization for specific needs.
Data quality features:
The system should provide validation rules, completeness checks (e.g. quality/completeness score), and easy bulk editing. Automatic detection of missing or incorrect data is a huge help – a good PIM won’t let a product go live without key attributes. Make sure the PIM can also automatically convert units, format data, and maintain consistency across languages/channels.
User-friendliness and work automation:
An intuitive UI is vital – PIM will be used by many departments (IT, marketing, sales, purchasing), so it must be easy to use and configurable for their needs. Look for features that automate repetitive tasks: imports, bulk actions, description generation, translations. AI in PIM is a big plus: AI modules that generate SEO descriptions, suggest keywords, or analyze trends will accelerate marketing work and give your company a competitive edge.
Omnichannel support and scalability:
Check whether PIM supports multiple channels (online store, marketplaces, mobile apps, PDF catalogs) and how easy it is to add new ones. The system should allow publishing/updating product information across all channels in one go – that’s the key to shortening time-to-market. Also verify that the solution can handle the expected growth in product numbers and users without performance issues or a dramatic cost increase.
Security and compliance:
Assess whether PIM meets your security requirements (e.g., on-premises option, advanced access control, change audit log). If your industry is regulated (e.g. EU information requirements like DPP), check how PIM supports compliance – can it store necessary data, generate reports, integrate with compliance platforms? PIM should help you avoid errors that could lead to penalties and keep up with legal changes.

Choosing a PIM system is a strategic decision that can shape the future of your e-commerce business. The right PIM will become the backbone of your product data management – streamlining workflows, eliminating informational chaos, and laying robust foundations for growth.

Guided by the criteria above, you’ll greatly increase your chances of a successful implementation. Remember to align the system with your company’s specifics: a different PIM will suit a technical B2B firm with complex specs than a fashion retailer needing fast, creative content.

The good news is that the market offers both open-source solutions (e.g. Pimcore, Akeneo Community, Ergonode), valued by IT teams for flexibility, and commercial SaaS platforms (e.g. Plytix, Salsify, Pimberly), praised by business users for user-friendly interfaces – plus many hybrid models in between.

Most importantly, define your needs and PIM goals clearly, then test the shortlisted options (many systems offer demo or Community Editions you can install yourself). Involve different stakeholders in the evaluation – both technical staff and future users from product and e-commerce teams. Their feedback will help select a tool everyone will happily adopt.

The effort you invest in choosing the right PIM will pay back many times. As examples show, PIM can be a powerful catalyst for order and growth in your business: it lowers costs and manual effort, increases sales, and prepares your company for the challenges of the future.

In today’s omnichannel world, a good PIM is no longer a luxury but a necessity if you want to stay competitive and provide customers with an excellent buying experience. Good luck with making the best choice!

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Olgierd Mrozik

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