Imagine this scenario: Someone walks into your retail store to browse and notices a laptop that looks interesting. Not wanting to spend so much money on a whim, they decide to leave the store. On their way home, they look up the item on their phone to compare prices and see if it’s something they want to buy.
The problem? The information on your website's product page doesn’t match the details about the laptop on your in-store display. Feeling a bit confused, your customer closes the tab and either drops the purchase altogether or, worse, visits a competitor to complete it instead.
By the time a customer reaches checkout, they expect every detail—from specs to shipping options—to be consistent, accurate, and compelling. If it’s not? They’ll move on without a second thought.
Welcome to omnichannel commerce, where seamless experiences between retail and online aren’t just a “nice-to-have”—they’re the backbone of customer loyalty. However, managing product data across websites, marketplaces, social platforms, and in-store systems can get tricky without the right tool. That’s where a Product Information Management (PIM) system comes in, and choosing the right one is imperative if you want to succeed in omnichannel commerce.
In this article, we’ll help you make sense of the chaos that can come with omnichannel commerce and explain how your PIM can unify your sales channels and improve customer experience.
What is a PIM, and Why Does It Matter?
A PIM is an ecommerce product data management system that acts as a single source of truth for all your product-specific data and product details. As your business grows and you begin to branch out–be it through opening an ecommerce or retail store or selling online on your website in addition to other marketplaces like Tiktok Shop, Instagram, Amazon, etc.–the need for keeping all your product data and marketing materials consistent across multiple channels grows.
Simply put, PIMs allow for every department and software tool/marketplace your team uses to have the same accurate and easily accessible information to ensure that everything is always unified.
How Your PIM Directly Drives Omnichannel Success
When branching out to omnichannel commerce, a PIM becomes less of a nice-to-have tool and more of a necessary investment if you want to ensure accuracy across the board. Here’s how your ecommerce product data management software directly contributes to your business’s overall success.
A Single Source of Truth for Product Data
Once set up, your PIM becomes the central repository for all your product data. This reduces accidental duplication of records, mismatched data, and confusion across teams, as everything has one “home” that feeds data everywhere else. Less time spent on data gathering and validation means quicker launch time for new products or seasonal collections.
Real-time synchronization becomes extremely important when running an omnichannel business. By leveraging a PIM, every channel, from online stores to marketplaces, reflects the most current and accurate product information.
Real-time insights that live in your PIM also help managers make better data-driven decisions regarding pricing, promotions, and product assortments.
Enhanced Internal Collaboration
If you’re branching out to omnichannel, your business is likely growing, and with growth comes the need for better internal collaboration. When small, one or two-person teams turn into entire departments, the need for more structure increases to avoid gaps in communication and games of Broken Telephone.
PIMs make this possible. Marketing teams can easily access product specs for their campaigns, while sales teams get accurate details for presentations and customer queries. PIMs also come structured for approval workflows that help route content for review and approval, minimizing errors and speeding up the go-to-market process.
Elevated Customer Experience
As mentioned in our not-so-imaginary scenario above, customers expect consistency and are quick to jump ship if things don’t match up. A PIM ensures consistency in product titles, images, and descriptions. In addition, rich, accurate product data, such as videos and user guides, help customers make confident buying choices.
Running a retail/ecommerce store isn’t just about getting the products right. If you’re not nurturing trust and loyalty at every step and in every location, you won’t get enough repeat customers to sustain your business. With correct product data, marketers can also run personalized campaigns that resonate with customers’ preferences.
Scalability for Global and Channel Expansion
PIMs make it so much easier to grow and expand when all you need to do is add new downstream connections as you see fit. Localization is also a breeze when your PIM can manage translations, local currencies, and region-specific product variations.
You can also easily expand to new channels. Quickly add new online marketplaces (Amazon, Walmart, etc.) or social commerce channels without re-entering product data. These brand elements remain cohesive across websites, in-store kiosks, social channels, and marketplaces without additional tweaking. Now, all your product listings are the same everywhere, no matter the country and language!
Pitfalls of Poor PIM Management - The Cost of Ignoring a PIM (or Choosing Poorly)
PIMs aren’t for everyone. If your team is small and only a few people are managing the data enrichment aspects of your business, a PIM might be overkill. That said, if you should be using a PIM and aren’t–or if you’re not using your PIM to the best of its ability, you can encounter the following issues.
Data Silos and Inconsistencies
When your business begins to grow, not using a PIM solution can lead to disconnected systems, spreadsheets, and outdated legacy databases that cause errors in product descriptions and prices.
Inconsistent or incorrect data erodes trust, damages brand image, and frustrates customers. Conversely, accuracy in data significantly reduces return rates and customer service complaints.
Operational Inefficiencies and High Costs
PIMs act as a singular repository of all of your data, but they also help with other aspects of your business, mainly by improving efficiency and managing costs.
Repetitive data entry and syncing across different systems waste time, leading to higher labour costs and increased human errors. Automated data processes reduce repetitive tasks, freeing teams to focus on strategy and innovation.
In addition, not using a PIM can slow the time to market. Launching new products or promotions takes longer if all data must be manually collected, entered, and standardized.
Lost Sales and Missed Opportunities
A poorly managed PIM can lead to a bad customer experience: incorrect sizes, mismatched images, or missing product information, which can drive shoppers away. On top of that, brands ignoring a PIM end up with limited market reach.
Without a solid PIM, omnichannel brands will struggle to expand to emerging channels or quickly take advantage of global opportunities. When the ultimate goal is growth and expansion, a poorly configured PIM can make market expansion almost impossible.
Why Akeneo is the Best PIM Choice for Omnichannel Commerce
At Blue Badger, we always recommend Akeneo PIM to our clients looking to expand to omnichannel commerce or grow their ecommerce business with less friction.
As an Akeneo Certified Partner, we love this PIM for its user-friendly interface and flexibility. Designed for cross-functional collaboration, Akeneo’s dashboard minimizes the learning curve, empowering marketing, sales, and IT teams to onboard quickly.
Its drag-and-drop functionality and role-based access simplify workflows, while flexible data models adapt seamlessly to diverse industries, whether managing apparel variants, electronics specs, or home goods collections. This adaptability ensures businesses can tailor product data to meet unique needs without relying on developers, making it ideal for brands juggling complex catalogues.
When it comes to omnichannel efficiency, Akeneo’s integrations unify your tech stack. Native connectors for ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce ensure product data flows effortlessly to every sales channel, eliminating manual errors.
Beyond ecommerce sales, Akeneo syncs with ERP systems for real-time inventory updates and integrates with Digital Asset Management (DAM) platforms to directly link product content and rich media assets like videos and 3D models to product listings. Its API also future-proofs your ecosystem, enabling custom connections to emerging tools like TikTok Shop or new B2B marketplaces.
For medium to large enterprises, Akeneo delivers enterprise-grade scalability. Built-in localization tools manage multilingual content, regional pricing, and global compliance (e.g., GDPR), ensuring brands can expand into new markets confidently. Even with millions of SKUs, Akeneo maintains fast performance and enterprise-level security.
The ROI speaks for itself. Automated workflows slash manual tasks, reduce return rates, and cut operational costs. Simultaneous work capabilities offer team members real-time visibility on content changes in the PIM, facilitating collaboration with fewer conflicts.
Regular updates introduce cutting-edge features like AI-driven data enrichment, which auto-generates SEO-friendly descriptions, ensuring brands stay ahead of the competition.
Conclusion
Our story of the confused laptop shopper isn’t just a hypothetical; it’s a reality for brands that neglect the power of unified product data. Customers demand consistency, accuracy, and speed at every touchpoint in today's hyper-connected, omnichannel world. The lines between in-person and online are blurring, and a single mismatch in pricing, specs, or availability can break trust and send shoppers straight to your competitors.
At Blue Badger, we’ve seen how Akeneo turns fragmented data into a competitive advantage. As an Akeneo Certified Partner, we have the skills you need to ensure a smooth PIM implementation. Let us help you build and implement a PIM strategy that unifies your data, delights your customers, and drives growth, no matter where or how they shop. Contact us today to learn more about how Akeneo can help you build or improve your omnichannel commerce strategy.
