PIM Features.


Product Attributes

PIM system stores the data about products or SKU's in what are called attributes. Attributes are "fields" that contain information about specific product properties like product description, product class, product specifications, price, product length, width, depth, weight and more. Attributes can be defined from PIM settings, as needed. These attributes contain the information that will be sent to your channels or used on your websites, brand portals or e-commerce sites. Attributes can also contain structured "lookup" data, even be assigned data masks for data validation. The PIM even has unique collections of attributes for media that can contain product "images" "documents," and "videos" allowing you to store and serve all of your digital assets directly from your PIM; this eliminates the need for a separate "DAM" (digital asset management) solution.

PIM Views

PIM Views are predefined formats for displaying PIM data, used to limit access and define data mapping to attributes or fields. They can provide either read-only or full control over the data and are typically assigned to user groups or specific outputs like Brand Portals, eCommerce Sites, Channels, or exports. These outputs often require data restrictions or mapping, and assigning a view controls the data access for each channel or output.

Views in PIM are created visually in the management interface, allowing selection of attributes and products either manually or through rules. They regulate access to product data, including attributes and product collections, ensuring controlled and restricted information flow. Applicable to various entities, views manage both the editing and consumption of product information by users, channels, and external processes interacting with the PIM.

Channels

PIM Output Channels are external systems that receive data from the PIM, while PIM Input Channels are those that send data to it. PIM Views enable control over what data a Channel can read or write. Channels facilitate both data retrieval from and submission to the PIM. The most robust method for this data exchange is through the PIM API. Alternatively, data can be transferred via imports and exports, either as files or structured data through custom endpoints tailored for specific data segments. Structured data imports and exports support a full scripting language that allows the evaluation and assignment of values to the attribute values being imported or exported. Complex conditions and data manipulation can defined allowing for the import or export data to be conditionally modified based on the import or export data and business rules.

Product Categories

When attempting to manage products using spreadsheets and online document collaboration, these product spreadsheets usually become a mess and difficult to manage properly. Items in different product categories usually require different item attributes. Shoes do not have the same product attributes as pants and both are entirely different than power tools. A correctly configured PIM may have hundreds of product attributes. When searching for shoes, users will expect to be able to filter for attributes that are meaningful to them. For example, color, size, style, and material. when searching for a power saw or drill, the attributes that the user wants to filter on would be completely different. In addition to being able to assign products to hierarchical categories to keep similar products grouped together, The PIM allows the definition of filterable attributes by category. The filterable attribute data is even provided to connected channels using the API. This makes it easier for an exceptional buying experience.

Product Variants

Products come in all different colors, sizes, and shapes with varying inter-relationships. With the PIM, defining product variants is as easy as selecting the variant attributes. Properly defined variant data provides channels with the product information and options that customers will need for an enriched product experience. Product Variants can be defined in the PIM based on multiple product attributes allowing the consumer to perform one or more selections related to a product to identify the product variation they desire. An example of this would be "shirt size" and "shirt color". Each variant attribute and corresponding variant value creates a product variation matrix This matrix corresponds with specific product SKUs. These individual SKUs define the products in the matrix.

Product Relationships

Product relationships are important. They represent the opportunity for additional product exposure, cross-sell, upselling, and supersession. Properly defining your product relationships in your PIM maximizes cross-sell and upsell opportunities. The PIM allows you to define unlimited relationship types, and then easily populate and maintain the underlying product relationship data. Examples of product relationship data would be OEM cross-reference information or a list of products that customers also buy after looking at a specific product. A List of common replacement parts or compatible add-on products. Another type of product relationship data may be a list of the competitor's SKU numbers that should trigger a display of your product.

Product Data Transform

Data transformation is the process of converting data from one format to another, typically from the PIM system's standard format into the required format of a destination system or external channel. With PIMinto, data transformations are defined using the administration interface and applied to a channel. There are two methods to achieve this. The first is Views and the second is import and export script language. Data can be formatted for Shopify, Google Shopping, Magento, Amazon, and more. Custom transformations can be easily created and applied as they are needed. Data can be sent in almost any format including TXT, CSV, EXCEL, JSON, XML, and more.

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