In a world of doorstep deliveries and instant gratification, one thing has become abundantly clear:

Convenience often trumps sustainability.

But convenience often comes at a cost, typically to both our pockets and the planet. While it might be easy to overlook the consequences of tossing away an old smartphone or replacing a barely worn shirt, the cumulative effects of these choices are far-reaching and alarming; in fact, a recent study found that only one percent of products are still in use six months after their purchase. 

Landfills overflow with mountains of discarded items, oceans suffer from plastic pollution, and wildlife faces threats from toxic waste;  disposable, low-quality products contribute to a cycle of resource extraction, production, and disposal, generating unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gasses and depleting natural resources. 

“If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles.”  WWF International Director General, James Leape

It’s all too easy to place the blame on the consumer, but in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, the allure of cheaper products can often be too tempting. And although these items often come with a lower price tag initially, repeated purchases add up over time and perpetuate a cycle of wasteful spending.

What is Reckless Consumerism?

Reckless consumerism refers to the excessive and often irresponsible consumption of goods and services, typically characterized by:

• Overconsumption: Buying more products than necessary, leading to waste, unnecessary expenditure, or excessive returns
• Short product lifecycles: Preferring disposable or quickly outdated items rather than durable goods
• Impulsive buying; Making unplanned purchases based on emotional triggers or marketing influences rather than actual need

Reckless consumerism can manifest itself in many different ways within the market, but let’s take a look at a few of the most common examples.

1. Serial Returners

In recent years, there’s been an uptick in shoppers who have been dubbed “serial returners”, meaning customers who intentionally buy more products than they need with the intention of returning some or all of the products.

The main issue with serial returners is that returned items often cannot be resold as new, leading to increased waste and disposal issues. Additionally, the logistics of returning goods involve extra transportation, which increases carbon emissions and negatively affects the environment. 

The processing of returns also incurs expenses for retailers, which can result in higher prices for all consumers or more strict return policies,

2. Planned Obsolescence

If you’ve bought a smartphone in the past decade, you’ve likely heard of the term “planned obsolescence”, which describes the practice of intentionally designing products that will break or become unusable in the near future to encourage sales of upgrades or new products. This tactic forces consumers into frequent replacements, leading to increased consumption and waste as discarded products often end up in landfills, contributing significantly to pollution and environmental harm.

This practice also exploits consumers by compelling them to spend more money on replacements rather than investing in durable, long-lasting products. The constant need to produce new items to replace obsolete ones also leads to inefficient use of resources and energy, exacerbating the strain on our planet’s limited resources.

3. Fast Fashion/Microtrends

One of the biggest culprits of reckless consumerism is the fast fashion industry.

Through the rapid production and consumption of low-cost clothing items that follow fleeting trends, this industry encourages high turnover, prompting consumers to frequently update their wardrobes to stay in style, resulting in the quick disposal of old clothes. 

The fashion industry in general is a major contributor to pollution, including water pollution from dyeing processes and microplastic pollution from synthetic fibers, and the rapid pace of microtrends nowadays only exacerbates this. 

Additionally, fast fashion often relies on low-cost labor in developing countries, where workers may face poor working conditions and low wages, which is neither sustainable nor ethical.

The typical B2B purchase journey is filled with bureaucratic red tape, convoluted procurement processes, and protracted vendor negotiations; it can often feel like sailing a ship through a sea of molasses.

Compare this with the B2C experience, where the waters are smooth and the sailing is swift. Shoppers glide effortlessly through an omnichannel environment, hopping between online stores, physical shops, and mobile apps with ease. Personalized recommendations, one-click purchases, and rapid deliveries make the journey as delightful as a leisurely sail on a sunny day.

But why such a discrepancy between these two worlds? After all, a B2B transaction, though technically business-to-business, is ultimately still a human-to-human interaction. The people making these decisions are the same ones who enjoy the streamlined, user-centric experiences in their personal shopping lives. It stands to reason they would crave the same efficiency and innovation in their professional roles.

The B2B sector cannot afford to remain anchored in outdated practices. As digital natives—those savvy, tech-immersed consumers—begin to influence market trends, B2B companies must follow suit or risk getting left behind. 

The B2B Transformation

The good news is that the B2B sector is undergoing a significant transformation, spurred by the evolving expectations of digital-savvy customers. These customers, who are accustomed to the sophistication of B2C eCommerce platforms, now demand similar experiences in their professional procurement processes. 

According to IDC’s 2023 SaaSPath Survey, only 16.8% of all respondents sold exclusively as a B2B operation, and 52.8% stated that they were both B2B and B2C.

From streamlined procurement processes to advanced analytics that anticipate customer needs, the future of B2B commerce lies in its ability to mirror the agility and customer focus that define successful B2C platforms.

With potentially 74.4% of an organization’s total sales occurring through digital commerce applications, B2B organizations need a strategic recalibration focusing on user-friendly interfaces, personalized content, and streamlined transaction processes. 

Benefits of PXM for B2B: Flexibility and Business Agility 

Product experience management (PXM) enables businesses to gradually replace outdated systems with more flexible, modular solutions and create a solid foundation of reliable, updated product information. 

Once the catalog is well-structured and has clean data under the hood, the other elements of the commerce ecosystem can be gradually decoupled from monolithic systems and integrated with best-in class technologies without the need for time-consuming and expensive rip-and-replace projects. 

This flexibility is vital for swiftly adapting to market changes and customer needs, ensuring that B2B organizations are not just reactive but also proactive in their digital commerce strategies. 

Centralizing components of product catalog management, ensuring seamless integration, leveraging relevant data, and enabling measurement dramatically increase the value in B2B scenarios, especially when considering supply chains, wholesale-retail relationships, or CPG/brand-retail relationships.

Key benefits that PXM provides for B2B engagement include the following: 

• Rapid change enablement: PXM solutions empower B2B businesses to swiftly address and mitigate potential order issues, including rerouting packaged goods, transferring items to new way stations, defining and reducing inventory holding costs, and appropriately disposing of perishable items. These capabilities are facilitated by the rapid dissemination of product information across various boundaries through PXM.
• Efficient restoration of services and product availability: PXM enhances scenario planning and disaster recovery efforts, enabling businesses to develop contingency plans. This includes the ability to implement product substitutions, quickly update missing product information, and identify and designate variant options beyond the item level for specific product types.
• Price and contract efficiency: PXM supports the creation of fully omnichannel experiences, which translates into improved coordination of pricing, B2B contract negotiations, delivery automation, and replenishment for raw materials. Leveraging just-in-time concepts and managing transactions efficiently helps capture float and reduce days sales outstanding, thereby enhancing B2B efficiency.
• Increased profitability: PXM allows product metadata and historical data to accompany the product throughout its lifecycle, from sourcing to final destination or reclamation of used products. This access to comprehensive data enables businesses to identify, target, trace, measure, and optimize the product journey, ultimately improving profitability.

The Future of B2B

The days of cumbersome procurement processes and tedious vendor negotiations are numbered as B2B companies increasingly embrace the principles that have revolutionized the B2C landscape.

To bridge the gap between B2B and B2C experiences, businesses must prioritize flexibility, agility, and customer-centric strategies. Product experience management (PXM) is at the forefront of this evolution, offering a pathway to seamlessly integrate best-in-class technologies without the need for costly overhauls. By ensuring the accuracy and accessibility of product information, PXM facilitates rapid change enablement, efficient restoration of services, and enhanced price and contract efficiency.

The future of B2B lies in its ability to learn from and adopt the successful strategies of B2C. By focusing on user-friendly interfaces, personalized content, and streamlined transactions, B2B companies can ensure they remain competitive in an increasingly omnichannel marketplace.

To learn more about how the B2B buying landscape is changing and what your organization can do to prepare, make sure you check out “IDC Spotlight Report: The Power of a PX Strategy in Omnichannel Commerce”.

Retailers are asking new questions they haven’t asked before. What wasn’t possible is now in the realm of possibility. Which begs the question: where will your shopper be in just a few years, and how can you meet them there? 

Introducing: Generative AI (GenAI). 

This emerging technology has quickly become a necessity for modern business in today’s competitive market. So let’s take a look at the future of eCommerce retail with GenAI so you can start strategizing on how to stay ahead in a saturated landscape.

 

Moving Beyond GenAI-Powered Chatbots 

GenAI does a good job processing vast amounts of information to generate relevant responses, thanks to its advanced algorithms and learning capabilities. This presents massive opportunities — along with its fair share of limitations. Just because it can understand and answer unknown scenarios, is an all-encompassing tool such as this the best solution and subsequent interface for users?

The most effective approach for eCommerce is to tailor the AI’s capabilities and interfaces to specific user needs or goals; in other words, the right retail way to utilize GenAI isn’t always just a simple chatbot.

For example, a customer-facing interface could involve integrating GenAI into the search bar, transforming the shopping experience by offering personalized search suggestions and responding to complex queries more intuitively.

Beyond advancement in front-end interfaces, GenAI can revolutionize backend processes as well, via: 

• Attribute enrichment. By automatically enriching attributes, GenAI acts as your brand’s behind-the-scenes quality control specialist. It can identify and fix gaps in product data, from product descriptions and pricing details to specifications, categories, and more. This automation ensures your brand capitalizes on fast-moving trends (think: those common of fast fashion), maintains a strong image that builds customer trust, and reduces zero result searches for even the most obscure queries — all at instant speed.
• AI-generated collections. GenAI can also create personalized collections at scale, tailored on a user level. This allows merchandisers to not only take the guesswork out of creating landing pages that convert, but also leave tedious updates to the AI, which optimizes rules in real-time according to clickstream data, business KPIs, and other critical signals.
• Translated and localized product content. From regional spelling (“color” and “colour”) to different interpretations of the same word (“pants” in the USA vs UK), global eCommerce retailers need to connect with customers on an individualized cultural level. GenAI-driven localization algorithms adeptly catch errors and discrepancies, helping to tailor product content to align with cultural contexts, regional preferences, and linguistic nuances.

All of these automations not only reduce manual work for merchandising teams, allowing them to dedicate more time to strategic, needle-moving initiatives, but they also enhance the accuracy and efficiency of merchandising efforts.

Imagine you’re a sporting goods manufacturer selling high-quality sports equipment in 2024. You’re not just selling through a single channel; odds are, you’ve got a B2B website, partnerships with small B2B organizations like golf pro shops, and relationships with larger vendors and web dealers, like Dick’s Sporting Goods or Intersport. Now picture that your Head of Sales recently noted in a meeting that the team is facing challenges around efficiency. They are struggling to create quotes and close orders quickly enough to stay competitive, as the market demands rapid fulfillment and quick quote generation. She also mentioned that her reps struggle to answer questions quickly about the 1M SKUs that you offer.  You decide to try to better understand her pain and see if there’s a solution to get the sales team back on track.  

The Pain Points

After speaking with your sales team, you uncover a common thread: even though your sales team often finds themselves on the phone negotiating orders with distributors, they frequently lack visibility into accurate, up-to-date product information. They have to navigate multiple systems, rely on outdated product sheets, or reference old product catalogs, leading to delays, errors, and, eventually, a less cohesive customer experience.  

The Role of High-Quality Product Information

Integrating a modern Product Information Management (PIM) tool with a CPQ solution can transform this scenario. 

Product Information Management (PIM) Solutions

PIM software is designed to centralize and manage product data across an organization, ensuring that accurate, consistent, and up-to-date product information is available to all relevant stakeholders, including sales teams, marketing departments, and customer service representatives.  PIM systems help streamline the process of collecting, managing, and enriching product data, as well as distributing it to various sales channels, such as eCommerce websites, catalogs, and marketplaces, and CPQs.

Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) Software

CPQ software is often used by sales teams to generate accurate quotes for products or services quickly. It enables representatives to configure products to meet customer specifications, determine pricing based on set rules and discount structures, and produce professional quotes, helping to automate complex sales processes, reduce errors, and increase efficiency.  High-quality product information within the CPQ contributes to a consistent and cohesive customer experience across various sales channels. With accurate and comprehensive product information readily available, sales representatives can:

1. Provide consistent information: Ensure that customers receive the same high-quality information, no matter the channel, building trust and reinforcing brand reliability.
2. Increase order values: Leverage product associations to suggest compatible products. For example, if a sales rep is discussing a golf club cover of a specific color and pattern, they can recommend a matching golf club bag, increasing the average order value.
3. Facilitate swift quoting: Quickly search and add the right products to quotes. The ability to determine which fields (like product name and short description) are included in the quote improves visibility for the buyer, beyond just quantity and price.

Salesforce CPQ 

Built on the Salesforce platform, Salesforce CPQ is one of the most popular solutions on the market. Salesforce CPQ offers features such as guided selling, automated approvals, and real-time analytics, making it a powerful tool for sales teams. Its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options allow businesses to tailor the software to their specific needs.

Benefits of Integrating PIM with Salesforce CPQ

Now, let’s return to our sporting goods manufacturing example. Integrating a PIM system with Salesforce CPQ would offer numerous benefits and alleviate some of the pain points that were discovered within the sales team by enabling:

• A centralized record of consistent, accurate product information: With this integration, sales teams would have access to accurate and up-to-date product data directly within Salesforce CPQ.
• Improved quoting speed: Sales representatives can quickly search for and add products to quotes, leveraging comprehensive product data from the PIM system. This reduces the time needed to generate quotes, enabling faster response times and increasing customer satisfaction.
• Increased order values: By utilizing product associations and cross-sell opportunities, sales teams can recommend complementary products during the quoting process. For example, suggesting a matching golf club bag when discussing a golf club cover can boost the average order value.
• Enhanced customer experiences: Access to detailed product information allows sales reps to provide more informed recommendations and answer customer questions accurately, creating a more personalized and satisfying customer experience.
• Streamlined operations: Centralized product data management eliminates the need to navigate multiple systems or rely on outdated resources, streamlining operations and reducing the risk of errors.

The Symbiosis of PIM and CPQ

The sporting goods manufacturing example we’ve walked through is not exactly a unique one; brands and manufacturers across the globe struggle with these issues of inefficiency, data silos, and unreliable product information. But integrating a PIM system with a CPQ solution, such as Salesforce CPQ, ensures that accurate, up-to-date product information is readily accessible,  enabling your sales team to provide superior service, drive higher sales, and ultimately contribute to the sustained growth and success of your business. Have you heard the news? Akeneo PIM now offers out-of-the-box functionality for Salesforce CRM and CPQ! This powerful integration ensures that sales teams have access to accurate, up-to-date product information, enabling them to generate precise quotes quickly and meet customer expectations effectively. By doing so, B2B manufacturers can streamline their sales processes, enhance customer satisfaction, and ultimately drive higher order values.

Everyone loves a surprise, but one thing that shouldn’t be a surprise is your go-live implementation process for any new technology, but especially a PIM.  As you build out your PIM and create a foundation of product information, you should be able to build a proper rollout strategy, create a release plan that would cover the different steps involved before, during, and after go-live, and plan a dry-run of the implementation when possible.  Go-live is not only a technical process, but you also need to account for other aspects (governance, business, user, …) to make sure that you have a smooth integration.   But before your go-live process kicks off, it’s important to ensure that you complete these first two steps:  

• Functional and Technical Health Check  
• UAT – User Acceptance Testing 

 

Functional and Technical Health Check

Before implementing any new technology, but especially a PIM, it’s important to run an audit on the current environment of your technology stack and your product data. Luckily, Akeneo can help you with this; once you get into a project with your Partner integrator, you might sign up for Project Success Assistance (PSA). This program will then walk you through a comprehensive health check during the project to ensure everything is in order ahead of your go-live.     Akeneo, along with the partner, conducts a Functional and Technical system review at the end of each project, before a client’s go-live, to validate the solution and identify opportunities for improvement.   

User Acceptance Training (UAT)

As you finish your go-live preparation, you should make sure to complete user acceptance criteria. This is critical to make sure your project is completed and fulfills your requirements with the people who will actually be using the technology day in and day out.   This can be seen as the last step to ensure the adoption process goes smoothly as doing different user tests will help your team identify any misunderstandings or inefficiencies through feedback provided from these UAT sessions.    

Prepping the Release Plan  

One of the most important aspects of your PIM release plan is that you should have only one for the PIM and it should cover the different dependencies in the document. For example, a common use case would be to have some steps outlined around the ERP or eCommerce integration in the PIM release plan.  Additionally, you’ll need to make sure that all participants are aware of this documentation and understand it in its entirety.  Ideally, the release plan can be split into three main sections: Pre Go-live, Go-live, and Post go-live. In each section, you should cover the different milestones, steps, or actions required, and how you’ll measure success through certain metrics or gates. It’s also important to cover governance, business, and technical aspects in the document.  If you focus only on the technical part of the release, you will miss steps like governance signoff, communication to users to stop using an existing tool, and even more which could derail your go live.  Another important aspect of the release plan should be the rollout strategy. Within the rollout plan, you should have a critical milestone (final data import, platform integration, …) and a potential rollback plan, if needed. Sometimes, moving forward is the best scenario but it is often worth it to have some options on the table if things go south.   

Dry Run, or Don’t Run  

Dry run: a rehearsal of a performance or procedure before the real one. We do it for many other aspects of our work: presentations, certification, demo; and you should do it for your go-live.   It might not always be possible to do a practice run, but it’s worth it to at least give it a shot and go through the full plan. A dry run will help to complete the release plan and gain confidence around the Go-live. It often helps to identify missing steps, to reorder some steps, and to calculate (approximately) how much time implementation will realistically take.    

Final Advice

Now, you should be ready to start your go-live. Again, make sure to follow the release plan that you built, tested, and validated during your project and communicate throughout the Go-live.  For additional support and confidence, create a dedicated support team for the launch, typically made up of the people who have been working with the project implementation this whole time.  

After the go-live, the job is not finished! 

Once you have done the launch, it may feel like the bulk of the project is done, but it’s really only getting started. After the go-live, conduct a post-mortem review to assess and gather feedback from users and internal teams about what went well and what could be improved ahead of the next release. Adjustment, improvements, lessons learned… all of these are crucial to ensuring that future projects run even smoother.  Do you think once the PIM is implemented, your job as a partner will stop?  Do you think your client wishes to be on his own after all this time?   Well, let me tell you that some won’t ask for support, some will build the support internally, and some will ask for support from Valtech. So, to answer this need, the team here at Valtech have built an entire support system which covers: 

• Support & Maintenance 
• Strategic Support & Change Management 
• Evolutions 
• Project & Account Management 

Looking for more PIM implementation support? Check out some of our other Valtech featured articles diving into how to design your PXM program for success, the people-first approach to product experiences, how to maximize the ROI of your PXM organization, or the steps to perfecting your PIM selection process. This article is a guest post by Akeneo partner, Valtech.

The human eye can distinguish as many as 10 million different colors. From fashion and beauty to furniture retail and tile manufacturing, the impact of color is immense. Businesses often hinge their identity and product appeal on precise shades and tones, ranging from standard colors like Azure and Ruby Red to unique hues like Fern, Charcoal, Byzantium, Celadon, and Smaragdine (yes, that’s a real color). Some companies even venture into creating proprietary colors (the term ‘Tiffany Blue’ will always evoke imagery of that robin eggshell hue), underscoring how essential and influential color is to consumer preferences across diverse sectors. The lesson is clear: getting color right is crucial and something businesses cannot afford to overlook. Just as colors can be complex, the struggle for companies to manage them can be complex too. Across an entire enterprise, there could be multiple teams involved in managing color, from design and engineering to eCommerce and procurement. With multiple teams and users comes competing business objectives, a higher risk of human error, and lots of room for interpretation. For 100 instances of ‘Burgundy’ in a product line, you could expect to get some variation of the following: As you can see there are a lot of ways of interpreting (and spelling) the same thing. These types of discrepancies are a lot more common than many people realize. They certainly detract from the product experience your customers have, but they also cause problems with Site Search and SEO, and can wreak havoc with attempts at applying analytics to products and buying trends. Fortunately, these types of issues with colors are what Product Information Management (PIM) systems were designed to eliminate.  

Benefits of Streamlining Color Variations

Streamlining the color naming process for a business when listing their products across different marketplaces and geographic locations offers several benefits: Consistent branding: Standardizing color names ensures that a brand is represented consistently no matter where its products are sold, aiding in maintaining a uniform brand identity and reinforcing brand recognition among consumers regardless of where they’re shopping. Improved customer experience: Consistent and clear color naming reduces confusion for customers, making it easier for them to find and select products, which can enhance customer satisfaction and potentially increase the likelihood of repeat purchases. Enhanced searchability and SEO: Using standardized color names improves searchability across platforms. Customers often search for products by color, and consistent naming helps in aligning with common search terms, which can boost SEO and visibility. Easier inventory and catalog management: When colors are named consistently, managing inventory across multiple channels becomes more straightforward. It simplifies tracking and reduces errors in stocking and distribution, leading to better inventory accuracy. Streamlined communications: A standardized color naming system simplifies communication within the company and with external partners, such as manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, and retailers, reducing the risk of errors and miscommunications. Cross-market appeal: Having a uniform color naming system helps in adapting and translating products for multiple markets without needing to customize the descriptions for each region too extensively, leading to more efficient expansions and launches in new markets. Reduced costs: Streamlining the color naming process can lead to lower marketing and operational costs, and simplified product descriptions and catalogs mean less time and resources are spent on creating and managing product listings across various platforms. Improved data analytics and reporting: Standardized color names make it easier to collect and analyze data on color trends and preferences across different markets. This can inform future product development and marketing strategies, allowing businesses to be more responsive to consumer needs. By adopting a streamlined approach to color naming, businesses can enhance their operational efficiency and market adaptability, leading to better customer engagement and potentially higher sales.  

Akeneo PIM & The Color Conundrum

In Akeneo PIM, this headache would be solved by creating a field (attribute) of the simple or multi-select type. These fields allow the business to decide on exactly how they want to present each color (is it ‘Burgundy’ or is it ‘Maroon’?) and then enforce governance for all of their users so that they are applied consistently. Just as important in today’s global markets, the translation of these colors can also be standardized. Here’s what this approach looks like in Akeneo PIM: Another common problem with managing color is that an individual color may need several different iterations depending on what system or team is working with it. For example, it’s not uncommon for a new SKU to be onboarded by a purchasing manager who inputs it as a generic “Blue” to fit the basic (and boring) requirements of the ERP system. Next, this same color is recreated as “Sapphire” by a content specialist looking to provide a proper marketing name. And on yet another path along the color carousel could involve an eCommerce Manager accounting for a website filter or search engine and going with ‘Navy Blue’. In Akeneo PIM, users could account for this by making separate attributes like ERP Color, Color, SEO Tags, or Site Color. This allows you to manage the unique requirements of each component of color with data governance in the same product record. Or, you could utilize Reference Entities, which help you to maintain all of colors and color variations in a single centralized entity as shown below: Reference Entities also allow you to store and manage additional color information like Hex Codes and Swatches. All of this information can also be adapted and translated to different Sales Channels and Locales. Finally, (and arguably this is where the real power lies!) if I want to change a color’s name or description information, Reference Entities allow me to update ALL of the products referenced to that record in a few clicks without having to update each record individually.  Managing colors is a complex and important part of product information management that is a struggle for companies of all sizes. High quality images may present what a product looks like to consumers, but it’s not enough. To optimize website filters, SEO, internal operations, and the tastes of discerning consumers who expect an exceptional product experience, color must be correct and contextualized across languages and business applications. Don’t whitewash color as I used to by treating it as just another data point to be managed in a back-end system. Instead, treat color like Picasso or Van Gogh did: as a powerful tool of great depth and intricacy that can attract attention and help curate the customer’s experience.

The history of invention is scattered with accidental magic; creations that undergo a transformation in how we use and apply them. Bubble wrap was originally invented and sold as a type of wallpaper. That failed. Yet it eventually found success as an excellent packing material – and who can resist popping those bubbles?  Play-Doh was first marketed as a wallpaper cleaner before realizing its creative potential as a modeling compound for children’s arts and crafts. The rapid rise and proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has us all scrambling to look for the best ways of integrating it into everything, from business products and services to workflows and personal self-development. As it evolves, so will our use of it. Product Information Management (PIM) is also evolving. And as the technology advances, the role of PIM in shaping engaging customer experiences will continue to grow. PIM is already helping brands and retailers centralize their product data to better manage and update product information across channels (physical stores, apps, websites, email marketing).  Some of the core benefits of PIM for businesses include:

• Reach markets faster by streamlining processes of updating existing products as well as adding new ones. With this added agility, businesses can respond much faster to meet new customer demands and market trends.
• Uphold consistency and accuracy by ensuring product information is the same across all touchpoints. By centralizing data into a single source of truth, customers receive a seamless experience regardless of where they interact with a brand.
• Improve personalization by using data management to better understand customer behaviors, preferences, and needs. This can then be used to recommend products and create more tailored shopping experiences.

 

What’s Next for PIM?

When Tryzens analyzes PIM solutions, we have an eye for how the platforms are evolving and integrating other technologies to future-proof business needs. There are many areas to explore, but let’s zero in on five key areas that PIM is helping to shape.

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

PIM platforms are already using artificial intelligence to improve the product experience. For example, last year Akeneo acquired the AI platform Unifai, which is helping to improve data collection, cleansing, categorization, and enrichment. It has also created a dedicated Center of Excellence to optimize AI for the product experience. AI-powered PIM systems will be able to automate data categorization to further refine navigation and search for customers. They could also automate enrichment tasks to provide customers with richer product details, helping them make more informed purchasing decisions, as well as enhancing product discoverability.

2. Real-Time Personalization

Through AI enablement and automation, PIM platforms will be a key enabler for deeper personalization in real time. For example, recommendation engines will leverage rich semantic product information data that has been created by artificial intelligence. With more effective ways of centralizing customer data, segmenting it, and automating certain efforts, personalization is becoming more sophisticated. PIM platforms may deliver hyper-personalized experiences that consider individual preferences, intent, and context, involving tailored pricing, bundling, and specific product promotions. This could also include customers receiving different product media being showcased to them on a PLP or PDP – like how Netflix curates personalized thumbnail images to each viewer.

3.  Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Brands and retailers are already experimenting with AR and VR. From virtual fitting rooms for clothing to virtual try-ons for jewelry, customers are getting a more immersive shopping experience. And it’s just the start. Sales of VR headsets have accelerated in recent years. Around 5.5 million were sold globally in 2019; 7.9 million in 2020; 14.3 million in 2021; 19.1 million in 2022; and 21.8 million last year.  What does that mean for retailers and brands? Businesses will be able to integrate PIM data with AR and VR platforms, allowing customers to explore and interact with products in a lifelike environment. This not only improves customer engagement and satisfaction but also reduces product returns by enabling customers to make more informed purchasing decisions based on realistic product representations.

4.  Voice and Livestream Commerce

Voice assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa increasingly sit on kitchen counters, living room coffee tables, and bedroom drawers. PIM platforms can help businesses adapt their products for voice-driven product searches, purchases, and recommendations, giving customers a convenient and intuitive way to shop online. With the growth of eCommerce, social media, and influencers, livestream commerce is a rising global trend. It involves a host showcasing products in a real-time broadcast and interacting with viewers, who can make a purchase during or after a show.  And the biggest benefit is that livestream sales have impressive conversion rates: they’re 10 times higher than traditional eCommerce rates, with 60% of livestream viewers making a purchase during or after an event. Connecting PIM data with livestreaming platforms presents exciting opportunities for brands to engage customers with more interactive and immersive shopping experiences, such as analyzing viewer interactions in real time to optimize content based on their preferences and behavior.  

5.  Sustainability

As environmental sustainability becomes an increasingly important consideration for both businesses and customers, there is a growing emphasis on tracking and managing the environmental impact of products. Future PIM will likely focus on further integrating sustainability metrics and environmental data that underscore responsible product management. By showing the carbon footprint, recyclability, and sourcing practices, it allows brands to communicate their level of eco-friendliness in a more transparent and user-friendly way.  

The Future of Customer Experiences

If the history of innovation has taught us anything, it’s that the most unexpected transformations often yield the most innovative uses, and PIM and AI are no different. The future of PIM is not only about enhancing product information management and customer experience but also about advancing sustainability and driving substantial business growth.  As businesses continue to leverage these innovations, PIM will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in meeting the dynamic demands and setting new benchmarks for customer engagement and operational efficiency. This article was provided by Akeneo, Tryzens.

Managing product data is critical for selling any type of product in the 21st century. The importance of high-quality content and data has gone from only being needed for eCommerce, to a minimum requirement for competing in an omnichannel world.  The data standards required to compete today, especially in the automotive industry, require a unique approach that leverages many different types of data. This article will cover an overview of the data required for automotive products, the importance of a microservices approach to managing this data within your commerce system, and the importance of leveraging enriched product data for a compelling experience.

Automotive Industry Standards

The Autocare Association represents the automotive industry and sets the standards. These standards are commonly referred to as ACES and PIES, but there are several layers of database provided as part of the Autocare VIP service.  ACES stands for Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard, and PIES stands for Product Information Exchange Standard. The below chart details the relationship between the various databases and the higher level standards, but most industry professionals use ACES and PIES to discuss the requirements for automotive data.    

PIES

PIES data covers the core attribution, assets, product makeup, and classification. From a product experience perspective, this data is no different in structure from other products in other industries.  All products need a title, brand, description, price, and some sort of hierarchy. While the specifics of PIES data structures are highly specific and tailored to the automotive industry, they very closely align with what we recognize as core PIM functionality. Completeness, data quality analysis, data validation, and assets are critical pieces of the enrichment of this data. According to the 2023 NRF report on Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry, 17.6% of online sales were returned in 2023, significantly higher than the 10.02% return rate for brick-and-mortar store purchases. This discrepancy is often due to improper fit, which is a leading cause of high return rates. In the US, returns across the retail sector totaled $743 billion for the year.  Anything short of a best-of-breed PIM to empower teams to enrich this data will result in a subpar experience for any shopper and result in lower sales and increased returns.   

ACES

ACES data covers application data, qualifier data, and other structures that power fitment. Fitment isn’t a unique challenge to automotive, but the Year Make Model (YMM) standard found in the VCDb is critical to automotive parts sales.  Take for example a common use case: A customer needs new windshield wipers for their 2016(year) Subaru (Make) Crosstrek (Model). There are millions of unique combinations of YMM, but this customer doesn’t care about the other vehicles on the road, they only need to answer 1 question: Does it fit?  Managing YMM is simplified by subscribing to the Autocare VCdb updates, but the assignment of valid fitment configuration (also known as application) is essential to converting sales in the market. Microservices Architecture has dominated the eCommerce space over recent years for good reason. Leveraging the ‘Best of Breed’ solutions for specific problems results in a more flexible system that can be improved in specific areas without needing to replace the entire system all at once. In addition, these targeted systems allow for companies to leverage the best tools for specific problems without compromising on other critical areas.  Akeneo excels at Product data including attributes, quality, attribute validation, and assets. All that was needed was a targeted add-on to manage the Fitment component, which we developed and released as the Sitation Automotive Fitment App.  Similar to the ACES and PIES standards created and championed by the Autocare Association, the separation of Fitment and PIM enrichment, validation, and distribution is the ideal solution for a company following a microservices architecture for their commerce solutions.  Competition in the automotive industry is forcing companies to evolve or be left behind when it comes to competing in this space. Traditional powerhouses in space such as Advanced Auto and AutoZone now compete with Amazon and Ebay for the aforementioned Subaru driver looking to replace their windshield wipers, and those shoppers expect high-quality product data combined with confidence the product will fit their vehicle.