How PIM and DAM Streamline Cross-Border Catalog Management
- Cross-Border Commerce and Catalog Management is complex and challenging, requiring a robust strategy.
- PIM and DAM solutions create a firm foundation for managing product information and digital assets for multiple regions.
- A unified PIM and DAM platform maximizes efficiency, accuracy, and compliance for successful business operations.
In this Article
2020 is a watershed moment in global e-commerce. According to a UNCTAD report, online sales rose to $26.7 trillion, establishing a trend that hasn’t subsided ever since. Although the report attributes the significant jump to COVID-19 as the key driver, other factors, such as global expansion, are prominent.
With the internet making cross-border commerce and catalog management easy, businesses sought to leverage the technology to expand operations to new markets. This shift to a global operations strategy has catalyzed a surge in demand for seamless cross-border shopping experiences, driving businesses to adapt and cater to a diverse, international customer base.
However, managing product information for a global audience presents a significant challenge. To prevent customer dissatisfaction, businesses must ensure that their product catalogs are accurately localized. However, this task can be complex and time-consuming.
PIM and DAM solutions have been developed to simplify cross-border catalog management. The tools automate much of what would require constant attention from countless humans. Unfortunately, not everyone can unlock the full potential of these tools, which is why this post is an essential read for anyone feeling stuck.
The Pain Points of Cross-Border Catalog Management
When you do business across borders, several factors influence how you operate. Here are three that you’re most likely to encounter.
1. Varying languages
Language is a fundamental aspect of effective communication. If you sell to different regions, your product descriptions must be in a language that customers understand best; they wouldn’t know what to think of the items you offer if they don’t understand what the text says.
This means each region’s product detail pages (PDPs) must be presented in the local language. However, this places a steep financial burden on the company, especially if the localization is done manually every time a new product is launched.
This challenge goes beyond mere translation. Businesses must also consider cultural nuances, idioms, and regional dialects to ensure product information resonates with local audiences. A direct word-for-word translation may not always convey the intended meaning or evoke the desired emotional response. Additionally, specific product names or descriptions might hold different connotations or face regulatory restrictions in particular regions, necessitating careful adaptation.
Businesses translate product descriptions to fit different regions. They can achieve this with an employee or a team of employees, each focused on a specific area. But this comes at a cost. Besides the financial expenses, it may be challenging to maintain consistency across multiple language versions of product catalogs.
2. Currencies and units of measure
Language is only one of the critical considerations when aligning product catalogs with local expectations. You must also ensure that product prices and measurements make sense to the local buyer. This includes displaying prices in the customer’s preferred currency and using familiar units of measurement.
To illustrate, consider a power tools manufacturer offering a drill for $100 in the United States. What should the equivalent price be in euros for European customers? The company must consider exchange rates, local taxes, and other fees to ensure the price is accurate and competitive. Moreover, the company must ensure that the measurements for the drill are provided in both metric and imperial units, depending on the market.
Without a streamlined process for managing pricing and measurements, businesses may struggle to provide a seamless customer experience, potentially leading to lost sales and reduced customer loyalty.
3. Regulatory compliance
The customer is not the only consumer of your product information. Regulatory agencies also check them to ensure you comply. Businesses must ensure that their products meet local labeling and safety standards.
However, managing regulatory compliance for multiple markets can be exacting. For example, a power tools manufacturer may need to comply with different safety standards and labeling requirements for several markets. This may involve providing warnings and instructions in multiple languages, using specific symbols and labels, and meeting local certification requirements.
If this company sells drills in the United States, Europe, and Asia, it must provide warnings and instructions in English (and Spanish for some parts of the country), English, French, and German in Europe, and relevant languages in Asia. Additionally, the company may need to comply with CE marking requirements.
How do cross-border commerce and catalog management pain points complicate business operations?
1. Increased workload and operational costs.
Managing product catalogs for a global audience across diverse regions is challenging. The challenge worsens if businesses rely on manual processes to localize product information and to ensure regulatory compliance.
If you do not have the means to automate processes like translating product descriptions and converting currencies, you might want to allocate considerable resources to get them done. Add to that the need for localization experts to research local regulations.
The result is an increased workload that necessitates:
- Hiring additional staff: Businesses may need to dedicate employees to managing localization and compliance, increasing overhead costs.
- Outsourcing: The cost of consistently engaging translators and regulatory experts can add pressure to operational budgets.
- Delays: The time-consuming nature of these tasks can significantly slow down time-to-market and hinder responsiveness to customer needs.
2. Inconsistent customer experience.
Again, this issue arises when you cannot automate critical processes for managing product catalogs for multiple regions. Without streamlined processes, inconsistencies can easily creep into product information across different markets.
Inaccurate translations, outdated pricing, or missing regulatory information can confuse and frustrate customers. This inconsistency leads to:
- Eroded trust: Customers may question the company’s credibility if they encounter conflicting or incomplete information.
- Poor brand image: A disjointed experience can negatively affect how customers perceive the brand as a whole.
- Lost sales: Ultimately, customers experiencing inconsistencies will likely abandon their purchases and potentially look for solutions from competitors.
3. Potential compliance issues and penalties.
Suppose the increased workload and operational costs become unbearable, and you decide to cut corners. This is an unfortunate decision because it will cost you dearly and potentially collapse the business.
There may be too many regulatory requirements, but failing to adhere to each is not an option. You do not want to encounter the consequences of non-compliance, some of which include:
- Product recalls and market withdrawals: Non-compliance with labeling or safety standards can result in product recalls and market withdrawals, causing significant financial losses and reputational damage.
- Fines and legal repercussions: Violating regulations can lead to hefty penalties and legal action, potentially impacting the company’s ability to operate in specific markets.
- Delays and operational disruptions: Addressing compliance issues after the fact can cause delays in product launches and disrupt overall business operations.
How PIM & DAM Simplify Cross-Border Operations
Reading about how the challenges of cross-border commerce complicate business operations almost feels like a watertight case against it. The challenges seem insurmountable. This is not true.
If cross-border business operations were impossible to surmount, the market value would be tanking. Investors would be moving out money by the billions to more profitable ventures. Instead, the latest estimates indicate the opposite trend.
According to the United States International Trade Administration, worldwide e-commerce sales for business-to-business (B2B) businesses have steadily risen yearly over the past few years. If this trend continues, the global B2B e-commerce market will attain a $36 trillion valuation by 2026. This is nearly $12 trillion more than the market’s value at the end of 2023. The point is that opportunities abound in cross-border business operations, which means there is a way around the pain points.
We identified catalog management as one of the critical factors underlying the challenges of cross-border commerce. Consistency and accuracy issues will incapacitate operations without a robust system for managing product content across multiple regions.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this challenge: Product information management (PIM) and digital asset management (DAM) systems. These offer a comprehensive approach to streamlining cross-border catalog management, enabling businesses to overcome the above-mentioned obstacles and deliver seamless customer experience across diverse markets.
How do they do this? Let’s pick each of these systems apart to learn how.
How PIM software facilitates cross-border catalog management
PIM software is a platform that consolidates product information from backend systems like inventory management and enriches it to make it legible to customers. You see, the details that describe the drill in your catalog are bare, and almost illegible when stored in an ERP system. So, PIM enriches this skeleton of data so that someone without internal knowledge can understand what it means.
The tool’s most crucial feature is creating a hub from which product information can be shared with other platforms; think of it as a single source of truth for everything related to your products – descriptions, specifications, images, certifications, and more.
Some features that make PIM software invaluable in cross-border catalog management include:
- Simplified product data creation: PIM solutions often provide user-friendly interfaces and templates for adding new products to your catalog. This streamlines the process, particularly when onboarding large volumes of products. Predefined fields for technical specifications, safety certifications, and other relevant data points ensure consistency and completeness.
- Data enrichment for a global audience: The tool allows you to include additional details to basic SKUs. This might consist of adding:
- Contextualized examples: Demonstrate how your products are used in industries prevalent in the target region.
- Region-specific benefits: Highlight features that comply with local safety standards or address common pain points in the particular market.
- Culturally sensitive descriptions: Adapt your marketing language and tone to align with cultural norms and expectations.
- Robust classification for easy navigation: PIM tools allow users to create complex hierarchies (taxonomies) that enable customers to find what they need quickly. For example, power tools can be classified based on the power source (electric, pneumatic), application (drilling, sanding, cutting), industry (construction, automotive), voltage compatibility, and more. This granularity helps customers discover relevant products across all your international storefronts.
- Localization support: Most robust PIM solutions like Catsy allow users to manage product information in multiple languages. With Catsy, you can open a split view of product details in different languages. This allows quick adaptation of content to suit regional preferences.
- Omnichannel distribution: A platform like Catsy has custom-built connectors with several distributor platforms, marketplaces, and e-commerce platforms. Even those brands with multiple e-commerce stores built with software like Shopify can use Catsy as the staging platform to orchestrate accurate, complete, and up-to-date product information to connected channels. This ensures consistent product information across all touchpoints.
From the discussion thus far, we can state that PIM software facilitates cross-border catalog management as follows: it simplifies data creation for multiple regions, allows users to contextualize core product data, allows brands to classify data in a way that customers from all over the world can navigate easily, enables users to translate product information more quickly and efficiently, and creates a centralized hub from which users can syndicate data to connected channels in different locations.
If this doesn’t explain PIM software’s significance well enough, the illustration below should clarify things.
An illustration of how PIM software facilitates cross-border catalog management.
Consider a manufacturer, let’s call it Company X, which acquired Catsy’s PIM to help create an effective expansion strategy.
The PIM solution provides several robust features, including making updates within the repository and syndicating them to multiple channels simultaneously.
Company X quickly discovers that Catsy PIM includes a feature that enhances the ability to manage different stores, each with a unique language. The platform allows users to manage multiple languages side-by-side within the same system. For instance, Company X can maintain product descriptions, specifications, and marketing materials in English and Spanish, allowing seamless updates and translations.
When updating product information, Company X can make the changes in the primary language, English, and then instantly toggle to the Spanish version for localization. This streamlines the translation process, ensuring updates are consistently applied across all language versions. This minimizes the risk of inconsistencies or inaccuracies.
While at it, Company X also discovers that they can manage different measurement systems. Catsy’s PIM can store product dimensions, weights, and other specifications in metric and imperial units within the same record. When publishing catalogs for specific markets, the team only needs to toggle between metric and imperial measurements based on the target region’s preferences.
Company X’s team can now have separate stores for customers in Canada and Spain. Catsy’s PIM makes this possible because it can connect up to five different Shopify stores. So, in a way, the platform allows Company X to operate multiple Shopify stores simultaneously. They store and manage core product information within the PIM solution and adapt to each store (using channel templates) when syndicating to channels.
So, when updates are made to the product data within the PIM software, these changes are automatically reflected across all connected Shopify stores. This ensures consistency and accuracy across global markets.
How about DAM?
PIM is only one element of the system for managing product content. The operational phrase is “product content.” Product content focuses on informing and is of higher quality than product information. In other words, product content comprises product information and rich media. PIM software only manages product information, and DAM deals with rich media.
So, what is DAM?
Digital asset management (DAM) software mirrors most of what PIM does, only that it focuses on digital assets and not core product information. The tool centralizes digital assets into a repository, enabling controlled and on-demand access.
Like PIM, DAM allows users to enrich the assets with alt-text, metadata, and tags. The additional details enhance the searchability of the assets and help to comply with regulatory requirements and IP laws.
Most DAM solutions are designed to help online merchants to store, manage, enrich, and share digital assets. They ensure consistent brand representation across touchpoints. As such, you’ll often hear these tools called e-commerce DAM.
How does DAM facilitate cross-border catalog management?
While PIM software tackles the textual aspects of your product catalog, DAM focuses on the visual elements. This means the tool can be invaluable for your localization strategies that involve PIM software.
For example, suppose Company X wants to use a product image for a drill in multiple regions. Without DAM software, the company would need to manage the product image separately for each region, which can be time-consuming and error prone. With DAM software, the company can manage the product image in one place and automatically propagate the image across all channels and regions.
Here comes the exciting part, although this feature is not typical. Some DAM systems integrate with PIM to create a composite product data management solution. For example, Catsy offers PIM and DAM as a single platform, which means you can work on textual product information and related rich media within one system.
How a unified PIM and DAM streamlines cross-border catalog management.
Catsy’s PIM and DAM platform is an excellent example of a unified system. But before we go any further, it helps to clarify that most vendors offer a PIM and DAM separately. It is up to you to connect these two to integrate the workflows.
A unified PIM and DAM solution envisions the two as an integrated system, but the vendor shoulders the burden of connecting them. Done this way, users get the best of both worlds without worrying about some pieces of code not working as intended.
An illustration of a unified PIM and DAM platform in action
Suppose you are a power tools manufacturer and want to launch a new industrial drill in the United States and Spain. Here is what happens when you create a catalog management system built on the merged functionalities of a PIM and DAM.
With the two systems under one roof, you will have the core product details and digital assets in repositories accessible within the platform. You don’t have to close PIM to access assets in the DAM.
Since each element of the unified system has templates for data entry, you don’t have to spend hours creating product information or adjusting assets to fit a specific standard. For example, you can create descriptions and fill out the required attributes on the PIM side, then map relevant images from the DAM side.
Regarding localization strategies, the unified platform is invaluable. Suppose you need to translate alt-text and metadata stored in DAM. The translation feature that is native in PIM will also work for details in DAM. All you need to do is toggle to the required language, in this case, Spanish.
A unified PIM and DAM platform like Catsy provides a completeness scoring feature, which evaluates all fields and determines if the information is ready for syndication. The feature does this once for the details in PIM and the assets (and metadata, tags, and alt-text) in DAM. You can see what field needs filling before the content is ready for propagation to channels.
Most crucially, Catsy integrates with several channels, including marketplaces like Amazon, distributors (Fastenal, Ferguson, etc.), and retailers (Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc.) to make syndication easy. With the product details and digital assets ready, the only thing remaining is synchronizing to channels.
Benefits of a unified PIM and DAM system for cross-border catalog management
- Enhanced efficiency: Eliminates the need to switch between separate PIM and DAM systems, streamlining workflows and saving valuable time.
- Improved accuracy: Reduces the risk of errors and inconsistencies often associated with managing data and assets in separate locations.
- Faster time to market: Enables quicker product launches in new markets by streamlining content localization and compliance processes.
- Reduced costs: Eliminates the need to maintain and manage separate software licenses for PIM and DAM systems.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that an effective cross-border catalog management strategy is nearly impossible without a robust backend. PIM and DAM are the right tools for this task. They automate workflows, ensure consistency and accuracy, and facilitate compliance checks.
However, you can only squeeze the maximum potential of these tools if you unify their functionality. The integrated platform provides the best of both worlds – accurate and up-to-date product details and high-quality digital assets. Together, the tools ensure product content is consistent across all touchpoints, regardless of region or language.
Even if your expansion is in its early stages, PIM and DAM can be incredibly beneficial. These solutions provide a scalable foundation from the start. As you expand into more markets, the complexity of product information management increases exponentially. Having a system in place from the beginning will save you significant time and frustration as you grow, allowing you to focus on your core business.
Managing product information for diverse markets presents several challenges:
- Language barriers: Ensuring accurate and localized product descriptions in different languages is crucial.
- Currency and unit variations: Prices and measurements must be displayed based on the target market’s currency and unit system (metric vs. imperial).
- Regulatory compliance: Each market has specific labeling and safety standards to which product information must adhere.
These complexities can lead to inconsistencies, customer confusion, and even legal repercussions if regulations are not followed.
Choosing the right PIM/DAM platform depends heavily on your specific business needs, the complexity of your product catalog, and the regions you’ll be targeting. It’s advisable to thoroughly research different vendors and assess their features with regard to the following critical factors:
- Ease of use
- Integrations (marketplaces, distributors, e-commerce platforms, etc.)
- Scalability
- Customer support
While minor tweaks to your existing website might seem like a quick solution, it’s often not sustainable for successful cross-border expansion. PIM and DAM systems work behind the scenes to enable more robust functionalities for global operations, including:
- Supporting multilingual content management
- Automating currency conversions and unit-of-measure changes
- Dynamically publishing information to different online storefronts
A pre-integrated PIM and DAM platform offers significant advantages over separate systems:
- Streamlined workflows: Automates tasks and eliminates the need for manual data entry across separate platforms.
- Simplified content localization: Enables easy creation and management of localized product information and marketing materials within a single platform.
- Automated compliance checks: Proactively identifies potential regulatory issues and ensures product information meets diverse market requirements.
This unified approach saves time, reduces errors, and ensures a smooth and compliant cross-border product launch experience.
