PXM software: quick and comprehensive guide

PXM software: quick and comprehensive guide

PXM software: quick and comprehensive guide

PXM Product Experience Management Blog Cover

Hey, there you are.
If you’re here you want to learn more about what PXM means, an acronym that stands for Product eXperience Management, a term also used to define a type of software.

Well, you’ve come to the right place!
At the end of this article you will find out everything (or almost everything) you need to know about PXM tools: what kind of software it is, what it is for, who uses it, what benefits it offers.

PXM: what does Product eXperience Management mean?

The acronym PXM stands for Product eXperience Management and is used to refer to the process by which a company manages the customer’s Web experience on the channels where it sells its products.

It is an aspect firmly connected to CX (customer experience) and, by extension, to business.

Data related to customer experience and its impacts on business in the context of PXM

The main objective of the PXM approach

The main task of the PXM approach is to provide customers and potential customers with consistent, engaging, and personalized product Web experiences.

If the previous sentence should seem ambitious and generic to you, it is normal.
Delivering a prestigious Customer Experience is a desire that is easy to hatch but not easy to materialize.

So what?

Where do you start to elevate the Product Experience?

There are really so many factors at stake: from the quality of the product (or service) to the responsiveness of the web pages, through the timeliness of logistics and the friendliness of customer service.

Without detracting from the aspects mentioned above, however, there is one that is particularly important because of its constant presence along the Customer Journey, the journey that leads a user to become a customer.

It is the wealth of data and assets that describe and represent the corporate assortment.

The key role of product information and media in PXM

The successful completion of a Google search, zooming in on an e-commerce product in detail, comparing an item with competing items in a marketplace, and playing guide tutorials for use or assembly.

Different activities, alternating along the online purchase path, united by the constant presence of information, shots and videos that promote, describe and narrate the products, which are essential for the customer to know and understand their value.

Not surprisingly, in 70 percent of cases, product content is considered crucial toe-shopping(Forbes).

Moreover, inaccurate data and assets, in addition to reducing the chances of selling a product, are the second most frequent cause of returns (30 percent), preceded only by returns from damaged items (39 percent).

Beyond the Excel sheets and silos of DAM and PIM software

However, the need for instantaneousness of various digital channels, especially in realities with sizable volume assortments, requires significant manual efforts that are often synonymous with errors and inconsistencies.

An alternative to Excel sheets and hours of copy-pasting is to rely on ad hoc software to manage product information (the PIMs, Product Information Management) and others to manage digital assets such as photos and videos (the DAMs, Digital Asset Management).

While good allies for product experience, choosing two separate tools elevates the risk of duplicate content, as well as inflating integration and licensing costs.

Why does PXM = DAM + PIM?

Product eXperience Management (or more simply PXM) software complements-and often exceeds-the functionality of DAM and PIM software, with the goal of governing product information and content from a single platform.

The convergence of information assets provided by PXM software ensures IT cost savings and elevates process agility because it centralizes end-to-end flows of creation, post-production, enrichment and approval of product card and catalog content.

Difference between PXM Product Experience Management, PIM Product Information Management e DAM Digital Asset Management

How PXM software works

Mainly, a PXM software supports three types of macro-flows:

 

  • centralizes.
    Integrating with systems such as ERPs, a PXM collects all product master data, eliminating the risk of information fragmentation and cutting down search time.
    Moreover, through ad hoc configurable rules, it can transform them automatically;
  • manages.
    A PXM software allows different teams to plan activities and collaborate from a single tool.
    It also fluidizes key processes such as data enrichment and translation as well as media review and approval;
  • delivers.
    A PXM software supports the product content supply chain up to the last mile, i.e., when all the components of a product sheet are ready, enabling-through APIs or integrations-the publishing of content to various enterprise channels.

Who needs PXM software

There are many business figures that benefit from the introduction of PXM software.

Primarily E-Commerce and Digital Managers, who can rely on a constant and consistent automated flow of data and product media to websites, e-commerce, marketplaces.

Moving up the content production chain, a PXM software is a valuable shared space for specialized figures such as copywriters, translators, photographers, and post-producers, who in the platform-as well as working-can request feedback and collaborate with colleagues.

In addition, Marketers and Sales also benefit from a PXM, which serves as a repository and center for sharing information, shots, product videos, but also brand and institutional videos.

What benefits does PXM software provide

Managing product data and media assets with a Product eXperience Management solution offers a variety of benefits.

From a customer experience point of view, a PXM feeds real-time catalogs and product sheets with up-to-date data and quality media distributed at peak performance, fostering a satisfying browsing and shopping experience.

Satisfaction also spreads among teams, who with PXM software can automate redundant manual tasks and always be in control of what and how the brand is communicating in any web channel, having the ability to make timely updates or changes.

Finally, automation and control also shorten Time to Market, averting delays in campaigns and launches, guaranteeing business performance, emphasized moreover by reduced IT costs.

Introducing the new Media Library 2.0

Introducing the new Media Library 2.0

Introducing the new Media Library 2.0


SeeCommerce PXM is evolving with exceptional news: p
erformance enhancements and advanced features that take content management to the next level. 🚀

SeeCommerce is a comprehensive platform that combines the functionality of PIM and DAM in perfect synergy, enabling optimal control of the entire content lifecycle. From the creation of catalogs, through product information to editorial content, whether text, media, technical information and documents, SeeCommerce PXM governs all this information by facilitating its management and contributing to the improvement of Brand reputation.

Today the bar is raised even higher with the new Media Library 2.0, an area where all of the Brand’s editorial files reside that can be archived, tagged, shared and distributed on external platforms, eliminating the problem of duplication.

But how does Media Library 2.0 change?

Performance: Improved performance enables everyday tasks to be carried out even faster, thanks to superior technical optimization and the introduction of new micro-functions that greatly facilitate daily operations.

Brand & Touchpoint: We have dedicated a section that allows direct management of portals (such as Press and Trade portals) and external corporate archives, offering the ability to create folders, subfolders, upload and move files securely, thanks to the associated permissions, without burdening the portal or generating duplicate files.

Corporate: Not just sharing between internal and external users on the platform, but an area completely dedicated to business content that can be used by everyone. Designed to contain material that can be consulted by the entire organization.


And much more:
There is no shortage of broader features such as metadata management that allow customization of assets with specific information.

Media Library 2.0 represents a key area that, together with the Product section, enables a complete 360-degree view and management of Brand content.

Contact us to discover all the benefits of SeeCommerce.
Our team of experts is at your complete disposal.

From PIM and DAM to centralized product eXperience management (PXM)

From PIM and DAM to centralized product eXperience management (PXM)

From PIM and DAM to centralized product eXperience management (PXM)

In recent years, data management has proven to be a crucial element in the success of companies in an increasingly competitive and digitization-driven market.

Let’s start with the fact that brands need to be increasingly present with their products in various sales platforms such as e-commerce and numerous marketplaces, and that the customer dictates that the information describing the product should be as comprehensive and consistent as possible both descriptively and visually through quality, high-resolution media. With these assumptions, there is a lot of information to manage, but above all, the Brand’s challenge is to make it consistent with all sales channels.

Often this information is managed by two separate platforms: the PIM, dedicated to product data management, and the DAM for enterprise digital asset management.

But in detail what is the difference between these two systems?

What is DAM? (Digital Asset Management)

DAM is a system that helps Brands organize, store, and manage their digital assets such as media, videos, and files in general so that they are easily accessible to users inside and outside the company, securely.

Notable among its features are:

  • Organization Of assets in folder tree and tags
  • Sharing of folders and files with specific users (internal or external) or with the entire business organization.
  • Security For managed resources, accessed only by authorized users

What is PIM? (Product Information Management)

The purpose of PIM is to centralize and manage product information, both master and editorial. Companies using a PIM are able to access, enrich, and distribute descriptive product information on each touchpoint.
The value of a PIM is to be able to manage so many SKUs and work contextually for multiple touchpoints while maintaining centralization of product data.

Its main functions can be summarized as follows:

  • Management of product information
  • Creation Of consistent product experiences from an omnichannel perspective
  • Distribution of product information

From PIM-DAM to PXM

Until recently, PIM and DAM platforms were considered separate and distinct solutions for managing product data and digital assets. However, to ensure a unified experience with the goal of efficiently managing not only product information, but also images, video, and other types of related assets, it is necessary for these technologies to work together.

In some cases we are faced with integrated PIM and DAM silo systems, but this approach is likely to have a major drawback related to the inherent costs of integrating and managing the two systems.
SeeCommerce solves the problem of separate PIM and DAM management and reduces integration overhead by offering a centralized solution called PXM (Product eXperience Management) that includes both PIM and DAM functions within it, enabling efficient and comprehensive, frictionless management.

A centralized PXM system offers numerous benefits, including greater consistency between product information and digital assets, improved collaboration between marketing and product teams, and faster and more consistent distribution of information and content to customers. Last but not least, significant savings on integration activities.

Beyond corporate boundaries

While PIM and DAM platforms have traditionally supported data management within companies, with SeeCommerce it is possible to expand the use of these combined capabilities beyond corporate boundaries, involving suppliers, partners and customers. This enables product information and digital content to be created and shared more efficiently with all stakeholders, improving collaboration and alignment among the different actors involved in the value chain.

The value of user experience in product data management

The value of user experience in product data management

The value of user experience in product data management

The implementation of a PIM/DAM certainly begins with technical aspects that are the basis for the operation of a good system, but that need not be complex for the user.

For those who have converted to centralized PIM/DAM platforms, this is already a big step toward governing the clutter and proliferation of tools that slow down Time to Market (this fragmented management we call Media Chaos). However, it is necessary that the platform’s efforts do not stop at the aggregation of product information but extend to the discipline that contributes to improving the performance of the users who use it, namely User Experience.

PIM/DAM, or better termed PXM (Product Experience Management), not only replaces several tools by centralizing operations but involves several users, internal or external to the organization, who use the interface on a daily basis to manage products, enrich them with media and copy, and keep data constantly updated. These users are responsible for the quality of information that reaches consumers via the e-commerce site, marketplace, etc. For this reason, it is important that their work is quick and easy to perform.

Fig.1 the copywriter can fill in all product specifications while keeping the visual reference of the garment in the most up-to-date version provided by the photographer.

At WARDA we are committed to excellent user experience and high performance of our SeeCommerce PXM platform. To achieve this goal, we invest heavily in research and development of new features that meet the needs of users and pay equal attention to the interface. This approach is one of the elements that sets us apart in the market. Especially, our philosophy is based on actively and constantly listening to our customers who, through their daily experience, enable us to retrieve important information to improve the product.

Fig.2 The iconography allows me to understand at a glance the product views that have been published, are under review, or contain an annotation that needs to be read. In addition, it is possible to easily identify to whom views are assigned, also thanks to the filters

Fig.3 Charts for monitoring processing status

Thus, we believe that User Experience is an issue that is strongly intertwined with functional aspects: just think how important it is to understand the meaning of an icon, to have a correct interpretation of colors, to speed up the consultation of data thanks to the organization of elements. The balance of all these factors, which are part of the interface sphere, clearly influence the functional aspect and, if not carefully defined, can be an obstacle to the user’s attempt to make the best use of the platform.

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

We talked about this topic during our event at the NETCOMM Forum in Milan on May 17. With this article we go over the points discussed.

The Market Environment and the Product Content Chaos

Before explaining what headless technology is and why it has become increasingly essential to new business models, it is critical to understand the context in which brands currently operate. Indeed, they are increasingly adopting omnichannel strategies, in which the shopping experience and customer interactions occur seamlessly across multiple touchpoints, such as the website, marketplace, app, social, customer service, etc. As a result, the challenge for brands is to provide a seamless and personalized experience that meets customers’ needs and keeps them loyal to the brand.

The increase in touchpoints inevitably leads to the management of large amounts of content. To handle this load and thus adapt quickly to new business models, many brands have adopted different methods and technologies such as PIM, DAM, excel sheets, or other solutions. However, this approach has made the scenario increasingly fragmented, as numerous platforms are employed simultaneously offering only marginal improvement in content management.
We call this scenario Product Content Chaos.

Solution: centralization and new opportunities

The first step in solving Product Content Chaos is to centralize and thus make the process of creating, managing, and distributing product information content optimal and smooth.

Centralization is not applicable through several platforms integrated with each other but rather through the use of a single platform in which all necessary functions are accessible and where product information (contextualized for each touchpoint) can be easily accessed and managed by anyone who is authorized. For this reason, one PIM is not enough, but Product eXperience Management that incorporates both PIM functions and DAM functions is required.

The benefits of a centralized PxM system are unparalleled:

  • Total control over the creation and distribution of all content (media and copy) for all touchpoints

  • Reduction of error cases and no loss of information

  • no duplication of data

  • always up-to-date data

  • smooth and fast workflow

  • better impact on time to market

  • better impact on customer experience

  • Saving money on integration activities with other platforms

  • greater safety and better performance

Effectively solving the Product Content Chaos and opening the brand to further omnichannel growth opportunities.

Headless Technology

We have looked at the advantages of a centralized platform, but how does it relate to the concept of “Headless” so much mentioned these days?
First, by “Headless” we mean a system in which the backend is completely separate from the frontend, as the term itself suggests. In fact, in this scenario, product information resides exclusively in the PxM system and not in the e-commerce site, marketplace or any other touchpoint. This approach makes it possible to maintain the centrality of information, with all the advantages mentioned earlier, simplifying the process of distributing content across different touchpoints and actually lightening the very structure of end-user contact platforms.

In addition, through a headless approach, the Brand can increase opportunities for product exposure across multiple platforms, which become more flexible, customizable, and performant since they will only have to deal with front-end graphic representation.

The advantages of headless architecture

SCALABILITY AND CUSTOMIZATION

The separate back-end allows any interface to be fed via API.

END-TO-END CONTROL OVER CONTENT

Complete monitoring of any content for any touchpoint.

OMNICHANNEL APPROACH

Flexible and continuous content distribution for any touchpoint.

HIGH PERFORMANCEAND SAFETY

Improved security and better performance on content fruition.

SPEED AND SAVINGS

Quick updates
and timely.
Savings on data entry and integration activities.

Composable Product content

While the headless architecture facilitates the distribution of content across different user interfaces, it should be considered that the PxM platform makes product content available through a modular architecture that allows individual product information to be distributed via API to each touchpoint without duplicating it. This system is called Composable Product Content where precisely each touchpoint takes from the centralized PxM system only the updated information it needs.

The sum of these technologies offers brands many significant benefits.
In addition to simplifying content management for sales touchpoints such as e-commerce and marketplaces, the brand can leverage the efficiency of modular information management and headless technology to create customized portals and platforms at extremely low cost. For example, dedicated print or trade portals can be created that are fully customized to meet specific needs while providing significant savings.

Read the VIBRAM success story

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

How to solve “Product Content Chaos” to easily and effectively deliver content in headless mode

We talked about this topic during our event at the NETCOMM Forum in Milan on May 17. With this article we go over the points discussed.

The Market Environment and the Product Content Chaos

Before explaining what headless technology is and why it has become increasingly essential to new business models, it is critical to understand the context in which brands currently operate. Indeed, they are increasingly adopting omnichannel strategies, in which the shopping experience and customer interactions occur seamlessly across multiple touchpoints, such as the website, marketplace, app, social, customer service, etc. As a result, the challenge for brands is to provide a seamless and personalized experience that meets customers’ needs and keeps them loyal to the brand.

The increase in touchpoints inevitably leads to the management of large amounts of content. To handle this load and thus adapt quickly to new business models, many brands have adopted different methods and technologies such as PIM, DAM, excel sheets, or other solutions. However, this approach has made the scenario increasingly fragmented, as numerous platforms are employed simultaneously offering only marginal improvement in content management.
We call this scenario Product Content Chaos.

Solution: centralization and new opportunities

The first step in solving Product Content Chaos is to centralize and thus make the process of creating, managing, and distributing product information content optimal and smooth.

Centralization is not applicable through several platforms integrated with each other but rather through the use of a single platform in which all necessary functions are accessible and where product information (contextualized for each touchpoint) can be easily accessed and managed by anyone who is authorized. For this reason, one PIM is not enough, but Product eXperience Management that incorporates both PIM functions and DAM functions is required.

The benefits of a centralized PxM system are unparalleled:

  • Total control over the creation and distribution of all content (media and copy) for all touchpoints

  • Reduction of error cases and no loss of information

  • no duplication of data

  • always up-to-date data

  • smooth and fast workflow

  • better impact on time to market

  • better impact on customer experience

  • Saving money on integration activities with other platforms

  • greater safety and better performance

Effectively solving the Product Content Chaos and opening the brand to further omnichannel growth opportunities.

Headless Technology

We have looked at the advantages of a centralized platform, but how does it relate to the concept of “Headless” so much mentioned these days?
First, by “Headless” we mean a system in which the backend is completely separate from the frontend, as the term itself suggests. In fact, in this scenario, product information resides exclusively in the PxM system and not in the e-commerce site, marketplace or any other touchpoint. This approach makes it possible to maintain the centrality of information, with all the advantages mentioned earlier, simplifying the process of distributing content across different touchpoints and actually lightening the very structure of end-user contact platforms.

In addition, through a headless approach, the Brand can increase opportunities for product exposure across multiple platforms, which become more flexible, customizable, and performant since they will only have to deal with front-end graphic representation.

The advantages of headless architecture

SCALABILITY AND CUSTOMIZATION

The separate back-end allows any interface to be fed via API.

END-TO-END CONTROL OVER CONTENT

Complete monitoring of any content for any touchpoint.

OMNICHANNEL APPROACH

Flexible and continuous content distribution for any touchpoint.

HIGH PERFORMANCEAND SAFETY

Improved security and better performance on content fruition.

SPEED AND SAVINGS

Quick updates
and timely.
Savings on data entry and integration activities.

Composable Product content

While the headless architecture facilitates the distribution of content across different user interfaces, it should be considered that the PxM platform makes product content available through a modular architecture that allows individual product information to be distributed via API to each touchpoint without duplicating it. This system is called Composable Product Content where precisely each touchpoint takes from the centralized PxM system only the updated information it needs.

The sum of these technologies offers brands many significant benefits.
In addition to simplifying content management for sales touchpoints such as e-commerce and marketplaces, the brand can leverage the efficiency of modular information management and headless technology to create customized portals and platforms at extremely low cost. For example, dedicated print or trade portals can be created that are fully customized to meet specific needs while providing significant savings.

Read the VIBRAM success story