The trend of online shopping continues to grow at an unprecedented rate – and there’s no indication of it slowing down now or in the near future.
There are over 263 million online shoppers in the United States alone, and the average consumer completes almost 20 online transactions annually.
These numbers clearly indicate that online shopping is not just a passing trend, but a significant shift in how consumers behave.
That’s why it’s crucial to focus more on scaling your online operations – solely because more and more customers are choosing to research and make purchases online.
Picking the right e-commerce platform is a critical first step to boost your online business.
It’s a way of providing your customers with a smooth and seamless shopping experience from browsing your products to making purchases.
Because here’s the thing: Managing digital assets, files and information associated with your products can be overwhelming.
Digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM) systems can simplify this process for you.
Both DAM and PIM systems can help you organize and store large volumes of digital data, making it easier to manage your products and provide accurate information to your customers.
In this post, we’ll delve deeper into DAM and PIM systems and how they can help you streamline your e-commerce operations.
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Table of contents:
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Benefits of a PIM and DAM integration
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4 Ways PIM & DAM together streamline content operations
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Improved product information accuracy
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Faster time-to-market
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Scalability
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Omnichannel management
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4 Benefits of a PIM and DAM integration
First things first: What’s the difference between the two systems?
A PIM is a centralized system for collecting, refining, and distributing product information, improving customer experience and inventory management.
A DAM, on the other hand, is a central repository for digital assets, streamlining content operations, facilitating search, update, and sharing across channels for brand communication.
The integration of Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) can offer tons of advantages to businesses.
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Benefits like:
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Enhancing brand and product consistency through a centralized asset repository.
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Reducing costs associated with asset duplication across various domains.
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Streamlining the management of global assets for organizations operating in multiple regions.
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Saving time by eliminating manual uploads to individual platforms and channels, thus speeding up time-to-market.
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Ensuring effective collaboration, rights management, and approval processes.
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It should be emphasized that PIM and DAM are distinct solutions with their own advantages.
Opting for just one of them may not always be the optimal strategy.
That’s why combining both systems can offer enhanced functionalities and capabilities, resulting in increased value for your organization.
So when should you have both a PIM and DAM system together?
While there are many factors to consider, take into consideration your most crucial requirements.
4 ways PIM & DAM integrations can streamline ecommerce operations
So how can PIM and DAM together help businesses scale their e-commerce operations and meet their customers where they’re at – which is mostly online these days?
Improved data accuracy
As e-commerce businesses grow and expand what they do and sell online, managing product data and digital assets can quickly become a less fun thing to do.
This is where PIM and DAM systems come in – to streamline operations and ensure top-notch data accuracy.
PIM systems will act as a centralized repository for all product information, while DAM systems store all the digital assets your company owns in a “single source of truth”.
By integrating the two systems, businesses can ensure that both product data and digital assets are accurate, consistent, and up-to-date across all channels relevant.
The result?
The ability to reduce errors and inconsistencies that can be detrimental to customer trust.
One type of integration between PIM and DAM systems is Digizuite’s integration with Inriver. This specific integration marries Digizuite’s rich search and browse capabilities with Inriver’s enrichment application.
Using a pre-built single-page, intuitive web application, businesses can easily manage the relations from their product information to their digital assets.
Plus, the integration enables organizations to keep a single source for all important product information, ensuring accuracy and consistency across all channels.
Faster time-to-market
The quicker companies can launch new products, campaigns, and promotions, the better their chances of staying ahead of the competition.
By integrating PIM and DAM, businesses can centralize their content management and automate their workflows, making it easier to create and publish content across multiple channels.
Digizuite’s very own integration with the Inriver offers a range of features.
For example, uploaded assets in Digizuite will automatically be synchronized with Inriver. This means that any changes made in Digizuite will be reflected in inriver, and vice versa.
AKA, easier brand management and consistency.
Digizuite also allows businesses to enrich their assets with Inriver product information, such as SKU product name, product category, and more. This makes it easy to manage digital assets and products in one place, reducing the risk of errors and saving time.
The integration offers search and filter options in Inriver, similar to those in Digizuite. This streamlines the content creation process, making it easier to find and use digital assets.
So by streamlining content creation and distribution, businesses can reduce their time-to-market and improve their agility through PIM and DAM together.
Scalability
Integrating PIM and DAM systems can help e-commerce businesses both streamline operations and increase scalability.
Here’s how:
PIM provides a single source for all product information, enabling businesses to create and distribute images and catalogs across e-commerce platforms and sales channels from one central location.
Integrating PIM with DAM makes it easier to connect product information with digital assets, creating better experiences surrounding content, and having a direct effect on sales.
For example, Digizuite’s integration with Inriver offers smooth, automated workflows between Inriver PIM and Digizuite DAM software, making product data management and content management easy.
Omnichannel management
To thrive in today’s high-paced global e-commerce, companies must sell their products through various channels like their website, social media, and third-party marketplaces.
Keep in mind: Around 60% of consumers favor online shopping, and 70% of buyers use multiple channels.
Using both PIM and DAM can empower e-commerce businesses to thrive in a customer-centric landscape that requires meeting their needs across different platforms, channels, and time
To achieve this, businesses need to more efficiently manage their content across all channels, known as omnichannel management.
DAM integrated with tools like Inriver offers rich media delivery capabilities with content delivery networks from Digizuite and optimized system performance.
This integration allows businesses to create consistent and holistic product stories for omnichannel strategies, ensuring consistent branding and messaging, reducing errors – and ultimately increasing customer trust.
For example, multinational retail companies with teams all over the world and external stakeholders like resellers or investors can highly benefit from PIM and DAM integrations.
Why?
It’s a surefire way to ensure consistent branding and messaging – no matter how remote their teams are.
Overall, PIM and DAM integrations can help businesses provide a seamless and cohesive omnichannel customer experience at scale.
Conclusion
Combining PIM with DAM offers businesses a host of benefits like streamlined asset management, cost reduction, and improved collaboration.
All of which can enhance productivity, save time and improve the overall branding.
In this article, we outlined the 5 ways in which PIM and DAM integrations help companies scale ahead when it comes to their ecommerce operations:
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Improved product information accuracy
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Faster time-to-market
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Enhanced customer experiences
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Scalability
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Improved omnichannel management
Interested in learning more about how Digizuite DAM can seamlessly integrate with all the tools in your MarTech stack?
Book a demo with us today, and we’ll get in touch.
