PIM and eCommerce, a marriage that is often a valuable combination for achieving business goals while maintaining high levels of productivity. Here’s when!

PIM eCommerce: the role of product information management

We have talked about Product Information Management on several occasions in this blog, including comparing PIM, PXM and DAM software. In this article we will look at the main signs that indicate the need to adopt PIM software.

#1 Scattered product data

275. Although decreasing, the average number of software in companies’ digital ecosystems (Zylo) is very high and often generates high fragmentation of information.

From a PIM eCommerce perspective, this translates into a generalized entropy of spreadsheets, emails and notes of various types. Typical context in which – to populate product catalog, PDP and PLP – it takes a long time, you risk delays and you are never certain that the data is correct.

#2 Inconsistent product sheets

Another sign that a digital solution is needed to manage product data.

Especially in multi-channel contexts, manual management of information (via data-entry or import/export) can easily give rise to inconsistencies, resulting from the misalignment of content representing the same product in different touchpoints.

A phenomenon that as many as 3 out of 4 customers notice and that can fuel returns or penalize CX.

#3 Updating channels takes a lot of time

Another recurring bellyache solved by the PIM eCommerce pairing relates to updating product-related data, descriptions, and multimedia content, especially in contexts where items rotate often and are subject to seasonality, as in the case of Grünland.

#4 Incomplete product sheets

For 87% of online shoppers, the informative richness of a product sheet is crucial to making purchase decisions.

A requirement that often jarring in contexts where the assortment is large and time to generate, update, and publish descriptions and multimedia content is limited, pushing companies to a choice between launching late catalogs or partially populated PDPs.

#5 Managing translations is very costly

In cases where business is developed in multiple geographic markets, translating product information is also an issue that can prove to be perennial and crucial from a PIM eCommerce perspective.

Without centralized management of the process, translating data can be time-consuming and occur through hours of manual work on multiple worksheets, encouraging the proliferation of misalignments and requiring additional loading activities once the translation is complete.

#6 Scaling to new marketplaces is complex

An omnichannel approach, while essential for business, requires major operational adaptation efforts from companies’ marketing and e-commerce teams.

Each marketplace, for example, categorizes products differently, just as the specifications regarding media content (such as background color, size and proportions of images and videos) are different.

In the absence of a structured digital catalog management approach, landing on new touchpoints can become a very complex challenge.

#7 Absence of version and revision control

Another good reason to consider a PIM solution for eCommerce relates to the control. Indeed, in medium-sized companies, there are many people and teams enriching the product information base.

Without a tool to centralize and enrich products, tracking who did what and, if needed, accessing the previous version of a piece of content is at best … very difficult.

#8 Absence of version and revision control

For the same text content, web pages that contain multimedia content such as a video are 80 percent more likely to convert.

In these cases, without proper digital solutions (on all, PXM software, even more so than PIMs) approval and sharing of content is likely to slow down due to continuous unstructured exchanges via file sharing tools (WeTransfer, Dropbox, and so on).

PIM eCommerce or PXM software?

Did you find your company in these lines? We’re glad, because what you read are some of the challenges we at WARDA have helped our clients overcome.

How. With SeeCommerce, our PXM software that evolves the traditional PIM approach, shifting the focus from managing individual data to managing brand catalogs.

Want to schedule a no-obligation demo to find out live how it works? Click here!

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What does the acronym DAM (Digital Asset Management) stand for? What does it mean to manage digital assets? How can a DAM software platform make a difference?

Digital Asset Management: what the acronym DAM means

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is the umbrella term that encapsulates within it the set of business activities related to multimedia content.

Specifically, digital assets are defined as photos, video, audio and documents; their management includes creative, approval, organizational and delivery flows(to channels and stakeholders).

What digital asset management is for?

With positioning, promotion and sales strategies increasingly web-oriented, brands have long since established their online presence on multiple channels, such as social accounts, proprietary websites and e-commerce, B2C and B2B marketplaces, supplier portals or customer apps.

These touchpoints are united by the presence of digital assets.

Quality photographic shots, emotional videos but also user manuals or branded podcasts enable people to get information, interact with each other, and make informed purchases.

By managing digital assets, internal processes of creation, approval and sharing can be accelerated, as well as ensuring consistent and widespread dissemination of quality media to the outside world.

In a nutshell, governing digital assets elevates internal productivity and the quality of each user’s Customer eXperience.

Features of a DAM software, Digital Asset Management

Digital Asset Management (DAM), especially in medium-structured business settings, is entrusted to tools called DAM software.

These are typically cloud solutions delivered in Software as a Service (SaaS) mode, which among their main features enable:

• Accelerate content creation and approval: through timed assignment of creative and review tasks to designers, photographers, and marketers, building approval flows, and monitoring workflows.
• Organizing digital assets: storing the most up-to-date and previous versions within spaces (e.g., folders) that can be accessed in a controlled manner, through pre-configured roles and permissions (Digital Rights Management).
• Deliver updated online media: so that every web channel is aligned.

Teams and sectors that benefit from DAM software

It goes without saying: a multimedia content hub benefits all business departments.

Given, however, the scope of daily processes (branding and sales) in which it offers support, certainly the marketing area and sales team are usually the work groups that benefit most from a Digital Asset Management solution.

They are closely followed by the IT area-which is guaranteed greater security of the company’s information assets and the Product area, with a space in which to index and share sketches, prototypes and renderings.

In terms of industries, granted that a DAM software offers cross-sector benefits, it is highly valued by companies in the fashion & luxury, beauty, retail, furniture & design as well as manufacturing worlds.

Benefits provided by Digital Asset Management

A Digital Asset Management strategy (and software) provides many benefits:

• is a source of truth: a DAM tool centralizes scattered digital assets, cutting down the time it takes to search for content (thanks in part to metadata, which expands its informational reach) and always offering certainty of finding the most up-to-date version
• time to market: in a DAM, workflows converge and, many of them, are automated, shortening the content supply chain and, in turn, lowering the time needed to create and distribute product catalog, PDPs and PLPs
• brand consistency: a DAM software ensures that every stakeholder (PR, agencies, web users, social followers, B2B customers, business partners, …) is reached by the perfect (and consistent in terms of brand image) version of a file.

These are tangible benefits for businesses, as evidenced by the continued growth of the Digital Asset Management and DAM software industry.

Software DAM market data

The strategic role of Digital Asset Management is confirmed by the relentless annual growth of the global DAM software market.

Revenue generated by Digital Asset Management in 2024 exceeded $4.5 billion (it was $3.9 billion in 2023); according to forecasts, by 2032, it will be $16.1.

Numbers aside, the trend is more than understandable given-in addition to the data mentioned in the opening-a couple of factors closely related to Digital Asset Management.

First and foremost, the unstoppable digital transformation of companies in the hunt for greater productivity, a hot topic especially for Italian companies, as highlighted by Istat.

Indeed, in the ICT 2024 report, the share of companies with planned investments in cloud technologies in the 2025-26 biennium rises (29% vs. 26% those that have done so between 2021 and 2024); similar trend also for online sales support technologies (22% vs. 15%).

Also positively impacting the Digital Asset Management market is the increasingly widespread adoption of artificial intelligence technologies and, in particular, generative intelligence, of text but also of photos, video, and audio.

Trend that will mark an undeniable increase in digital assets in circulation, on the web and within organizations; particularly, as McKinsey confirms, in the very teams most involved in Digital Asset Management processes: Marketing, Sales, Product Development and IT.

Why go beyond DAM with a PXM

The most virtuous companies are even going beyond Digital Asset Management.

A software DAM, as mentioned, focuses on digital assets, thus adopting an internal point of view within the organization. Something similar to what Product Information Management tools do, where the focus is on product data.

This is an effective view, no doubt, but a partial one.

For some time now, not surprisingly, the focus has been shifting outward from organizations to the customer and, in particular, to the product experience.

How. With Product eXperience Management (PXM software) solutions, which combine DAM and PIM capabilities, multiplying benefits for the company and reducing IT costs by simplifying the company’s software stack.

Some key features of a PXM software

In addition to Digital Asset Management features of the Media Library section, SeeCommerce is a PXM software because it shifts the focus from individual content (or data) to catalogs and interaction with Web users (sites, e-shops, marketplaces).

In practical terms, a product’s data and all media content representing it converge into a single solution, zeroing out silos and costs to integrate DAM and PIM.

In particular, there are numerous features that enable you to go beyond a centralized media repository of classic Digital Asset Management software.

Here are a few:

• Product-Content Association and Product Content Syndication.
  Content is automatically correlated with the data of the products it represents, so publishing and updating of catalogs and product sheets are instantaneous (and very high-performance, thanks to the Content Delivery Network).

• Dynamic Asset Transformation.
  A PXM software dynamically adapts each piece of media content, based on e.g. format, size, background color required by individual web channels, cutting down manual optimization work and ensuring prestigious CX.

• Shares to partners.
  Not only B2C touchpoints benefit from a PXM approach, but also B2B partners and, in general, stakeholders inside and outside the organization. How? With various features, one among them is Brand Portal.

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Between now and 2030, the EU ESPR Regulation will come into force, which, among other measures, includes the Digital Product Passport (or DPP).

What is the Digital Product Passport? What sectors does it cover? What impacts will it bring with it? In this article we take stock of the situation.

Digital Product Passport: what is the DPP

Let’s get straight to the point.

The acronym DPP stands for Digital Product Passport is a digital register containing a variety of information related to the value chain of an item.

Soon, European companies will have to accompany each product with a detailed list of data on its lifecycle, from production to recycling, through repairability and disposal.

Digital Product Passport: how does it work?

The fruition of DPPs will be clearer from the moment they see their full implementation, but it is likely that standards already in the market such as QR codes will be exploited to access a product’s digital passport.

Once scanned, the code will return to the consumer a set of detailed data on materials, composition, production cycle, varying from sector to sector.

What are Digital Product Passports for?

To understand the purpose of the digital passport produced, it should be mentioned that it is part of the ESPR regulation, approved in spring 2024.

ESPR stands for Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulation, a regulation that is part of the Green Deal, a package of EU initiatives to reduce emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030.

ESPR’s focus is to extend eco-design to most products on the EU market in order to reduce the environmental impact of their lifecycle, as is already the case with household appliances.

In addition, ESPR introduces new requirements and standards regarding durability, reparability, energy efficiency and recycling of items in order to counter planned obsolescence and promote circularity.

In this context, the DPP will serve as an informational reference point:

• for companies, which will have a lever of objective and concrete transparency
• for consumers to make more informed and green choices
• for the authorities-who by receiving the data to display in their portals-will be facilitated in controls and increase consumer confidence.

… okay but what about the competition?

Indeed, in the free market, companies’ duties of transparency may collide with the protection of competition.

The broad informational scope of the DPP, could compromise the confidentiality of strategic data, such as those related to production and procurement flows.

For this reason, the Legislature clarified that of all the information included in the DPP, only some will be accessible to consumers, while others will be accessible only by parties witha “legitimate interest,” as determined by the Regulation itself or by the Commission.

When will the Digital Product Passport be mandatory?

At least two steps are planned before the DPPs come into effect:

• the European Commission will present a three-year work plan in 2025, establishing the types of products affected by the regulation
• defined the types of products, a delegated act will be made for each of them, which will enshrine what data each sector must adhere to.

In general, the Digital Product Passport will become mandatory from 2027 for most industries, although there are exceptions.

Digital product passport: starting with batteries

From an initial analysis by the European Commission, the product categories first affected by the new Digital Product Passport appeared to be batteries, textiles, electronics and construction.

As of today, for one of them, the obligation is already fixed.

From 1 February 2027, in fact, battery companies for electric vehicles will have to provide – for every item with a capacity greater than 2kWh – a DPP with information on durability, performance and CO2 impact.

The EU has set up a single electronic battery register, in which the various digital product passports will converge for surveillance purposes.

Which sectors will be obliged to the digital product passport next?

A new study of the European Commission carried out at the end of 2024 by the Joint Research Centre, has identified the next product categories for which the digital product passport obligation is likely to be triggered:

• among final products: clothing, textiles and footwear, furniture, tyres, personal and household care and hygiene products, cosmetics, toys, paints, mattresses;
• among semi-finished products: basic chemicals, iron, steel, plastics and polymers, glass, pulp and paper.

In general, it is likely that the Digital Product Passport – precisely because of its capillarity objectives – will be extended to any other product sector, with a few exclusions (which will apparently concern foodstuffs, animal feed, vehicles and medicines).

What technology will the Digital Product Passport be based on?

Rumors agree that the technology that will enable the emergence of DPP will be blockchain, which is known to offer a digital infrastructure that provides security, transparency and immutability of every record entered by the various actors in an information chain.

By the way, digital passport in luxury fashion already exists

Fashion, particularly that which occupies the highest end of the market, has always been a forerunner of major digital developments.

Not surprisingly, it has also moved ahead at this juncture, through a consortium and voluntary membership project called Aura Blockchain.

The platform, developed by such giants as LVMH, OTB, Cartier and the Prada Group, offers traceability that shields consumers from counterfeits.

Tod’s, for example, has embedded an NFC (Non-Fungible Token) tag in its Di Bag that leverages the Aura project’s blockchain to return data to the customer-who scans it with his or her smartphone-that attests to the authenticity and provenance of the bag’s materials.

Image Source: Temera.com

49% of consumers already know what the digital product passport is

It is precisely fashion that appears to be the sector whose consumers are most ready.

Research reported by Forbes shows that half of the industry’s customers are familiar with the Digital Product Passport, who consider it a useful tool to certify brand authenticity (56%).

DPP: will companies need ad hoc software?

The management of DPP is closely related to that of product information and, in particular, its centralization, enrichment and delivery.

In view of the new obligation, it is clear that companies that are unstructured from a Product Information Management point of view will be able to seize the opportunity to equip themselves with PIM software-or better yet, PXM software.

Conversely, companies that have already embarked on such digital paths will need to ensure that the tools in use support the management and propagation of DPP data.

Our platform, for example, is SaaS, offers a hyper-flexible data model, and, thanks to APIs, delivers product content (data and media) across any channel. Key features to comply with future DPP obligations.

From regulatory obligation to business opportunity

DPPs are much more than a regulatory requirement.

Digital Product Passports, in fact, can be a useful tool for sharing information and documents that enrich the product experience through certified attestations of a brand’s quality authenticity.

It is also a democratic tool for promoting sustainability actions because the data travels on a third-party-guaranteed circuit, making it easier to detect greenwashing phenomena.

Last but not least, it can facilitate the sale of additional services or products such as repair, disposal, maintenance and repair items.

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In the next few lines we will delve into the concept of Product eXperience Management; we will dissolve the PXM acronym, explaining what is meant by Product eXperience and what are the best software for product experience management.

What does Product eXperience mean?

The term Product eXperience (PX) is a niche of the broader concept of User eXperience (UX).

While the latter encompasses a user’s galaxy of relationships with the entire organization (products, processes, people, brand), Product eXperience focuses on customers’ product interactions along the Customer Journey.

What Product eXperience Management means

PXM, which stands for Product eXperience Management, refers to the set of activities designed to make the customer experience:

• comprehensive: that is, rich in details necessary for evaluation and purchase
• consistent: consistent across any touchpoint, omnichannel perspective
• engaging: dynamic, able to involve any user.

Talking about web experience, it should also be noted that 2025 will also be a hot year on the accessibility front, with the European Accessibility Act coming into force.

Product experience management in the omnichannel era

Until recently, when a potential customer might have been content to find a product online, software such as DAM and PIM might have sufficed.

Respectively Digital Asset Management and Product Information Management, these software centralize and deliver media and product information.

However, in an omnichannel context, where physical and digital are relentlessly intertwined, users do not just need brands present; they expect consistency, engagement and personalization.

Here, the more traditional retailer attentions to the in-store experience-such as visual merchandising strategies and in-store pathway designs-are joined by aspects such as the quality of PDP and PLP of e-commerce and marketplaces or the rapid sharing of B2B digital product catalogs.

In other words, tools such as DAM and PIM that store and publish data or photos are no longer enough.

PXM software: product eXperience management tool

PXM software provides omnichannel control of CX, going beyond DAM and PIM.

They, in fact, allow digital assets and product information to be governed from a single tool and, more importantly, shift the focus from the company’s processes (as DAM and PIM do with media and data creation and publishing) to the customer (focusing on quality of experience tout-court).

Concretely, a Product eXperience Management software acts on three fronts:

• data and media centralization: product (as well as brand) information and media content converge in a single platform, where they are automatically associated with each other;

• product content syndication: digital catalogs and product sheets are updated in real time in omnichannel mode;

• catalogs and PDP experience: in addition to publishing, product sheets are enriched with interactive formats (e.g., 3D), run at peak performance (even during traffic peaks), and each user’s experience is dynamically optimized based on the channel they are in.

Digital Shelf Optimization: benefits of PXM for B2C

From a B2C perspective, Product eXperience Management software operates what is known as Digital Shelf Optimization, or the optimization of brand storefronts and web shelves.

Among the business-to-consumer benefits that a PXM software provides to brands are:

• improved SEO ranking: due to rich information (including multi-language) and media optimization that make web pages more readable
• reduction in returns: more details minimize the chances of erroneous purchases
• time to market: all flows of creation, organization and delivery are boosted
• brand consistency: because a PXM updates every web channel instantly and extensively, without manual data entry and the possible errors that can result.

Store, dealer and sales: benefits of PXM for B2B

A Product eXperience Management solution also benefits the B2B customer experience.

First, by centralizing product-related content, sales agents have a single source of truth, updated in real time and constantly aligned with information shared by other teams, such as marketing and product.

In this way, the relationship between sales agent and B2B customer becomes faster and more effective.

In addition, especially if it can support the creation of customized Brand Portals, PXM software can make the experience of other partners, such as B2B distributors, even more agile and valuable.

With brand portals, in fact, you also provide secure and constant external access to product data and media assets, making each stakeholder’s promotional initiatives seamless.

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In this article we will shed light on the definition of Portal Brand, clarifying what it is, what it is for, how it works, what benefits it provides, and analyzing some practical examples of Portal Brand.

What is a Brand Portal?

A Brand Portal is a Web portal through which a company shares information and materials related to its brand(s) with stakeholders primarily external to the organization.

In most cases, a “brand portal” (or Brandportal) is a cloud hub populated with media content that which allows stakeholders to view and download photos, videos, manuals, templates, and brand guidelines made available by the company.

The benefits of a brand portal

Offering your partners a cloud space from which to enjoy branded materials has benefits both inside and outside the organization.

On the one hand, brand, marketing, and communications teams reduce the time spent and interruptions resulting from constant requests from sales (B2B agents) or retailers for updated materials.

The sales network is autonomous in accessing the content it needs to promote and sell, thus seeing its experience, sales performance and omnichannel brand consistency improved.

In general, moreover, the solution increases the control of the brand, which in an instant can check assets in circulation, update or revoke them, sharing files always safe from unwanted access.

What are the essential features of a Brand Portal?

Since it is a file repository, one of the most common features of a Brand Portal is the flexibility of organizing spaces, usually a digital tree of folders, which are assigned different access rights to users (e.g., read only, download, etc.).

Fundamental to an adequate user experience are search engines, filters and sorting, which allow one to instantly find what one needs.

The visual identity of a portal brand, moreover, is usually customizable with headers, colors and logos, which positively accentuate the Brand Experience of users browsing the portal.

The key role of integrability for a brand portal

As is often the case in IT, one of the crucial aspects of Brand Portals concerns integrability. From this point of view, we can distinguish three brand portals:

• Brand Portal not integrated
• Brand Portal integrated with a DAM software
• Brand Portal integrated with a Product eXperience Management (DAM+PIM) solution.

A non-integrated Brand Portal is a file repository that, while fulfilling the need for sharing digital assets, is detached from the IT stack and, as such, must be fed and updated by hand.

The situation is different, however, for a Brand Portal integrated with DAM software, which automatically feeds the portal with the most up-to-date version of content and related metadata that you want to share externally, preventing marketing teams from double manual uploads.

DAM stands for Digital Asset Management, software with which companies manage, share, approve and deliver digital assets such as photos and videos.

The benefits of a Brand Portal integrated with PXM software

A Brand Portal integrated with a Product eXperience Management system (PXM software) undoubtedly makes a difference, both from an internal point of view and from a point of view outside the organization.

A PXM, in fact, combines features of DAM software with those of PIM software (Product Information Management). This means that a Brand Portal integrated with a PXM automatically delivers multimedia content, metadata and any product data it represents.

In other words, the company zeroes out the time spent on sharing both brand and product catalog assets, multiplying the agility of multiple B2B business streams.

4 concrete examples of Brand Portal

We at WARDA have been flanking various global excellences for years.

SeeCommerce PXM, combines DAM and PIM capabilities and natively integrates one or more Brand Portal (Touchpoints) with which to deliver real-time brand assets, data and product catalogs.

A Brand Portal is a flexible tool, suitable for very different purposes. Here are four examples of how some of our clients employ it.

1. B2B Trade Portal

Campagnolo, among the most prestigious global brands of high-end bicycle wheels and assemblies, has implemented as many as two Brand Portals with SeeCommerce PXM.

The first is a Trade Portal, a system through which it provides its distributors with a constantly updated portal from which to view and download campaign images, posters, promotional videos, and information related to its products.

2. Press Portal

A second example of the application of brand portals is the Press Portal.

Returning to Campagnolo’s example, the brand uses it to share real-time with PR and journalists from each brand header up-to-date assets of any item in the catalog.

3. B2B Agent Portal

Several customers leverage Touchpoints (SeeCommerce’s Brand Portal features) to shape a portal from which agents access an actual product catalog on demand.

Perfect for supporting business operations with flexibility and speed, an Agent Portal zeroes in on delays and misalignments between brand and sales, enhancing Brand eXperience and performance sales.

4. Heritage Portal

Another example is the case of Vibram, a world leader in the development and production of high-performance rubber soles, and its Heritage Portal.

Leveraging SeeCommerce PXM, the brand built a heritage-type brand portal, in which it archived, categorized, and made searchable more than 5,000 of the company’s historical media content.

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