Magento PIM Integration – Tips and Best Practices

For Magento, PIM software can supercharge your potential to scale your business. Magento is abundant with resources, for both the small and the large enterprise businesses. But your success depends on how you utilize Magento and what tools you exploit. For example, using PIM (product information management) software could make a world of difference. In this list, we’ll discuss some major tips for using Magento, with which PIM can help immensely.

If you spearhead a large business or you plan to grow in international markets, this is for you. Stay tuned to learn why and how a PIM-Magento integration can help you manage a thriving enterprise. 

Introduction to Magento

Before we get to the nitty-gritty, let’s start with the basics. You may already know what Magento is if you clicked on this blog post. But let’s take a brief moment to acknowledge its humble beginnings. What is Magento as the ecommerce software it is today? How has it evolved to its current state?

“We’ve been very frustrated with the state of open-source ecommerce. We knew it could be done better.”

Roy Rubin, Co-Founder & CEO of Magento (Source)

Made by UCLA students in 2007, Magento’s popularity didn’t skyrocket until 2009. Adobe has since acquired it in 2018 for a grand $1.68 billion.

Today, Magento is one of the top ecommerce platforms. It’s right up there with WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce. More people type “Magento” into google than most other ecommerce sites. With its open-source platform, many businesses enjoy the immense power they have over their ecommerce processes. As the second-best online commerce platform in the world, it’s a hub in which at least $155 billion in sales occur. Magento has stolen nearly 8000 consumers away from other ecommerce sites.

Is Magento for you?

Magento prides itself on several distinct features.

Firstly, let’s talk about its flexibility. Due to being open-source, its software melds to users’ whims, allowing for personal modifications. It’s available to all, nurturing creative freedom. Businesses, sellers, and merchants enjoy this aspect because it sets them up for faster development. They don’t need to wait for support from the ecommerce platform. Everything is in their hands.

That being said, it also means Magento isn’t for anyone.

No one is barred from using it, of course. However, to really take advantage of Meganto’s capabilities requires someone with high-level knowledge in developing code.

To clarify, Magento is most suitable for medium to large businesses. In other words, large enterprises with a plethora of product SKUs can heap massive rewards from Magento. More specifically, this may pertain to business-to-business (B2B) companies. Such companies prefer Magento because it opens up their consumer-base.

Why use Magento for ecommerce?

This is only an overview of Magento’s most attractive features. We will discuss them more in-depth throughout the guide. Then, we’ll learn how a Magento PIM integration can further enhance Magento’s benefits.

• B2B companies usually need different price lists, depending on the buyer. Magento has a custom pricing feature exactly for this reason.
• Magento helps manage an expansive inventory, with complete control over the store.
• Its cloud-based software delivers high performance, supporting at least 100,000 to 200,000 products.
• Magento unifies all different parts and operations of a large enterprise: content, marketing, supply chains, delivery, fulfillment. It’s totally fit for integrating with other management systems, like PIM, CRM, ERP, and so on.
• Many B2B businesses transition from print to Magento to sell direct-to-consumer (D2C).
• Finally, Magento is completely scalable. It’s for any business that plans to move up in the global ecommerce world.

Tip 1. Centralize Multiple Storefronts on Product Information Management (PIM System)

Today, ecommerce is becoming a conduit to the multi-store establishment. Brick-and-mortar stores are limited by location. But online stores have a wealth of opportunity in how far you can go.

What are multiple storefronts?

To sell on multiple storefronts meaning pushing your products across many different touchpoints. The internet makes this more possible for ecommerce.

Let’s not confuse multiple storefronts with having many different ecommerce business ventures. Rather, multi storefront management means your one brand is spread across various platforms. What sets each storefront apart is the target audience or consumer.

More storefronts, more customers

The primary advantage of multiple storefronts is the ability to reach a wider range of consumers.

With the high competition on the web and search engine optimization practices becoming more dynamic and complex by the day, it’s hard to stay focused. By focus, we mean sticking to a niche. The business world warns against targeting a broad audience. This makes sense. You are just wasting your time if you market to just about anyone, who may or may not have a tangible interest in your product. Hence why ecommerce sellers must think specifically about who their audience could be.

On the other hand, your main target audience could be a smaller population. For example, if you sell reading glasses, your market consists of middle-aged to older adults (40-60 years of age) who enjoy reading.

Multiple storefronts are a way to access multiple audiences – also known as the buyer persona. A buyer persona is an in-depth generalization of a specific population you want to market to. Opening multiple storefronts allow you to adapt your content to a buyer persona.

“You can’t wait for customers to come to you. You have to figure out where they are, go there and drag them back to your store.”

Paul Graham, Y COMBINATOR

Magento is a one-stop-shop for multi storefront enterprise

By having multiple storefronts, you essentially have more than one niche. That way, your marketing strategy remains specific, focused, and optimized while still reaching a greater number of prospective customers. This results in revenue boost and

With its multiple storefront feature, Magento allows you to open as many store website domains. For each store, you can personalize the pricing, catalogs, content, language, currencies and payments, and other factors. As such, it becomes easier to attend to various buyer personas, no matter where they are in the world.

Keep track of multiple Magento stores on PIM

Running a multiple storefront enterprise is a lot of work, no matter what platform you’re on. Although Magento is created for this purpose, it’s undeniable that product management software enhances the process of import and export, custom attributes, and centralizes product data across multiple sales and marketing channels. Storing all your product data and digital assets on PIM lessens the labor required to handle multiple stores. After cloud-based PIM integrates with your Magento account, everything you need is centralized on one platform. Then, the floor is open to focusing on buyer persona-driven content.

Tip 2. Manage your Enterprise-level Footprint with the best PIM Software

What exactly is an enterprise? An enterprise is a large-scale business organization that manages hundreds of people and employees. Usually, they may have hundreds of SKUs. As such, they require a larger platform. Large-scale merchants refer to either enterprises or business-to-business (B2B) organizations.

Why is Magento great for enterprise-level management?

Magento has many enrichment tools, integrations, and a highly customizable landscape. Thus, many enterprise-level merchants are attracted to the software.

Merchants obtain much success on Magento

New sellers have the opportunity to grow three times faster than any other site. As such, Magento holds more than 250,000 merchants from all over the world. Magento is made for global transactions, predicted to rise to $224 billion by 2028. It powers 12% of all ecommerce sites and has grabbed a good portion of the content management system (CMS) market share. 

B2B companies are turning to Magento for Growth

Many B2B companies have been around for a while. They are responsible for a substantial portion of the market, earning 3 times more than B2C businesses in 2017. 

They also tend to be large, not just in name and company size, but also in complexity. That means these businesses may be accustomed to more traditional means of managing, processing, and marketing their products.

Now, don’t discount traditional modes of commerce. The idea that ecommerce is eclipsing in-store retail is a myth. Certainly, it’s rapidly growing, but 49% of shoppers still prefer the immediate buys of in-store shopping. Even further, 18% still enjoy the social and physical aspects of shopping. Retail therapy remains to be a common way to de-stress.

Growing a global enterprise

Growing one’s business globally may seem like a huge task – and it is. But the lasting impact is greater. The more rapidly you can grow to reach various parts of the world market, the more potential revenue you can extract. 

What are the benefits of selling globally?

• Expand your potential customer base
• Increase your sales from reaching a great population
• Open your brand up to global visibility

Scalability is great, but it can become tough to organize product content.

If you are struggling with siloing information, on Magento or not, you’re in luck. First of all, Magento is incredibly integrative. Its API supports connections with a laundry list of management software. Second of all, product information management software is key to ending the siloing system. 

For example, your ERP with Magento can connect to a PIM. A Magento CRM can also integrate a PIM. Literally any other software services you use, you can minimize data transferring efforts by centralizing vital information on a PIM.

Connect everything you need on PIM:

• Inventory
• Suppliers
• Customers
• Teams
• Marketing
• Customer Service
• Pricing

After the PIM system with Magento integration is successful, you have all your product information in one place, which easily sends out content to Magento, along with all the other third-party integrations.

Tip 3. Global Deployment with PIM Localization

Ecommerce connects the world’s economic processes. Now more than ever before, you can have multiple customer bases in different locations. But what does it mean to grow in the ecommerce world? How can you utilize tools like Magento and PIM for your advantage? 

Let’s start by understanding what it means to manage ecommerce at scale.

What is ecommerce scalability?

Over the past decade, there’s been a shift in commerce. More people are buying from online stores than ever before. Perhaps even more than brick-and-mortar stores.

Global ecommerce sales in 2019 reached a high of $3.5 trillion – and it won’t stop there. In fact, the number is expected to double by 2022. In the United States alone, 80% of consumers make their purchases online. 

More sellers have realized the impact of ecommerce. It can reach a wider population, with less of the work involved in opening a physical store. The gradual slope from local ecommerce, to national, and now to global is monumental. In other words, ecommerce has opened many doors of opportunity world-wide. 

As such, the goal of many businesses is to expand. Particularly into new, global markets. Scalability is something that every merchant considers and plans for when embarking on an ecommerce business.

Scalability is the ability of any business or organization to be built to expand when necessary.

“The ability of a system with multiple available processors to call as many of those processors into service as necessary when system load increases, as well as the ability of that system to be expanded.”

Peter Loshin, Electronic Commerce

To clarify, businesses must gauge their potential to keep up with growth as it comes. Growth, expansion, success – whatever you want to call – is everyone’s aim. You’d be hard-pressed to find a company that wants to stay at the same level forever. Without efforts to keep up with the ever-changing economy, businesses can become irrelevant fast.

That’s why it’s important to strategize how you will deal to adapt in the optimistic case of growth. Should your business gain traction, how will you meet growing demand? 

How ready is your ecommerce business to expand?

The Importance of Scalability in 2020

Ecommerce makes it easier to scale – but it still remains complex. On the one hand, everything is digital, so you can do all your work online. On the other hand, there’s a whole set of technological hardships involved.

Scalability is why new software-as-a-service (SaaS) popped up. Not only shopping carts like Magento but also integrations like PIM are built to handle growth globally. Such services recognize the difficulty in handling products and processes at scale. 

The global market is an open horizon of possibility.

With the right tools, your Magento shop can take advantage of the global market. You’d be surprised what opportunities you can find on another corner of the Earth.

Ecommerce has allowed for a connection between different countries. What countries are most prominent in the global eCommerce landscape? Of all ecommerce sales, the U.S. and China hold the two biggest shares. Interestingly, China is number one, with double America’s $586 billion in sales. Out of the top ten, six are from Asia. To name a few, it includes China (of course), India, Philippines, and South Korea. These countries are the fastest-growing ecommerce economies. 

By implementing a strategy built for expansion, merchants can sell internationally. With features like localization of language and units on Magento, PIM optimizes for this. The task of global scalability can be as big as the world itself, but Magento 2 PIM integration can give you a leg up.

Tip 4. Take Advantage of Magento’s Customizability

What do we mean when we say Magento is customizable? Magento is famous for leaving many of the developmental and programming aspects up to the user. Magento’s features to give merchants more control over their store design, seamless integrations, and other aspects. Combining Magento with PIM, you can further improve this process.

Compared to other shopping cart platforms, Magento is a driver of uniqueness. In other words, Magento has a huge capacity for modifications. After all, the Magento platform is open-source. As such, it’s available for businesses to employ creative control.

Stand out from the crowd

In the broad landscape of Magento e-commerce integration, it’s more and more vital to set your store apart. Almost 90% of B2B marketing experts aim for brand awareness first and foremost. Distinguishing yourself from other merchants selling similar items highlights your store in shoppers’ minds.

There’s a lot of stimulation out there, in shopping or otherwise. According to the Harvard Business Review, attentional saturation allows the mind to let go of the things we constantly see because it’s deemed insignificant. So if you think placing your logo or other brand identifiers everywhere will make you memorable, think again. A UCLA study showed that only 47% of people could recall Apple’s well-known logo when asked to draw out or point it out in a lineup.

What this implies is that there’s a great need to think outside the box. To stand out in a potential customer’s mind, you must go beyond logos and commercials, creative ads or loud copy. Most success comes from the experience of shopping from a brand. For instance, 73% of shoppers prioritize a personalized experience. Almost all (98%) marketers would agree that personalization is the secret ingredient in boosting relations with customers.

In order to maintain brand visibility, It’s crucial to highlight what sets you apart from other stores.

Advantages of OpenSource Magento Platform

Customization on Magento can span from basic to as complex as you feel is fitting for you. Enterprises can definitely take on larger feats, like overhauling Magento’s default code, with their team of developers. Simpler customization by tailoring your store theme’s CSS only might be more suitable for your size and budget. Regardless, Magento’s adaptable interface is chock-full of benefits.

• Distinguish brand image
• Tailor to business goals
• Increased overall sales
• Flexibility in development
• Global deployment and scalability
• Personalized to customer

What can you customize on Magento?

Magento is made for absolute customizability. With one of the more complex web framework architecture written in PHP, it offers the opportunity to build your store from the ground up. As per its enterprise-grade functionality, mid- to large-sized businesses can set up their store to match their strong, long-term scaling goals.

• Themes
• User permissions
• UI Design
• Third-party integrations
• Localization
• Merchandising
• Segmentation

Themes

Magento’s extensive list of store themes is critical in customizability. With that comes its extensions, available on Magento Marketplace.

What can you customize on Magento?

At least 45% of shoppers expect brands to present beautiful designs throughout their channels. Customizability isn’t limited to store web-design. Many other features exist for further tailoring to match merchants’ aims.

Security permission

Security on Magento is also a merchant-custom aspect. The PCI Attestation of Compliance can be tailored regardless of your unique certification process.

Integrations

Magento’s rich API network is the underlying foundation for its customizability. By being able to choose your own integrations, widgets, or system management options, This makes the Magento interface work in tandem with your preferences.

UI Design

Cater to the backend and client-side aspects of your store. With Magento’s full caching. By choosing your favorite integrations, you can control the loading speed of your pages. Certain extensions provide full caching to further optimize page speed. For every one second delay in your store’s loading time, slashes conversion rate by 7%.

PIM pairs well with Magento’s customizability

PIM has nothing to do with customizing Magento’s store’s web design. Despite that, PIM does contribute something else.

By further enriching and deepening the quality of content, PIM works side-by-side with Magento. Developing and designing is a lot of work. However, it’s all for naught without PIM’s organizational features. Content must match the interface for exquisite customer experience. Providing product content is the icing on top of the cake – but in this case, necessary and not detrimental to your store’s health.

Collaborate with Developers in PIM

“Communications is at the heart of ecommerce and community.”

Meg Whitman, President, and CEO of Hewlett-Packard

Because of Magento’s custom integration capability, you can so choose PIM as one of your management systems. Doing so grants major relief to your complex store processes.

For one, PIM’s workflow feature is a great addition to a large Magento enterprise. Workflow is an incredible operator of productivity and efficiency. It allows for two things: 1) Automate tedious tasks to focus on quality front-end, and 2) Communicate with your team of developers to properly customize your Magento store to your needs.

Integrating PIM with Magento reduces costs. It easily transmits data to your store (or many stores). By taking boring tasks out of the equation, the focus can go into customizing Magento for a full-bodied experience. You can dedicate more time for creativity. While Magento offers a custom product catalog feature, PIM does this for you automatically. Especially one like Catsy with its In-Design functionality.

Think of Magento’s customizability as critical in the back-end. Meanwhile, PIM platform reflects this back-end foundation on the customer’s side. There’s no point in the flexible potential of Magento without PIM’s product-page enhancing qualities. Clean data is critical to standing out as a reputable brand.

Tip 5. Maximize Magento’s Robust Ecosystem

“A software ecosystem is the interaction of a set of actors on top of a common technological platform that results in a number of software solutions or services.“

The definition of Software Ecosystem (Source)

Much like an environmental ecosystem, the ecosystem of software is the interaction of all its parts working together to solve a problem. To be truly effective, an ecosystem must be exhaustive, functional, and address every potential issue.

Magento’s ecosystem is abundant with features. All of them are instrumental in the success of a large-scale ecommerce enterprise. What many people forget is that any business is an ecosystem in itself. You chose how the various parts, departments, and components interact.

Selling online is what you make of it.

It can be simple or difficult depending on what tools you decide to use.

Fortunately, various ecommerce platforms offer a variety of solutions for businesses, small or big. These ecommerce sites are basically hosting platforms, the equivalent of WordPress or Bluehost for websites. Knowing full-well that online selling isn’t intuitively simple, ecommerce platforms provide merchants everything they need, from user-friendliness to optimal payment systems. Each platform differs based on the extensiveness of its tools.

Magento is deemed the “best ecommerce software for enterprises and fast-growing online business,“ according to Business News Daily. So why is Magento fitting for large-scale merchants, B2B or otherwise?

To put it simply, Magento is a robust platform.

What does it mean to have a robust ecosystem?

A robust software must be effective in its implementation. To fully encapsulate this, Magento provides multiple features critical for ecommerce success. As cloud-based, open-source software, Magento offers a lot. With the capacity to hold up to half a million products SKUs, Magento is built for scale.

Other ecommerce platforms may be more suited to smaller merchants, Usually, this means sellers who prefer more support, along with premade store layout, settings, and design. Magento’s ecosystem is a stronghold rich in an endless supply of customizations. For the more experienced merchants, this is key to moving on to the next step.

That being said, Magento is a grand investment. Its do-it-yourself hosting models nurtures the creativity of developers. While not optimal for the less experienced, Magento holds a vast expanse of plug-in options. The near limitless amount of its resources make it a robust platform.

Magento caters to larger eCommerce businesses.

If you’re a small merchant, Magento remains an option. However, other platforms exist for smaller ecommerce merchants. Such platforms tend to have all the back-end work done for you. Shopify is a good example. Sellers can avoid the stress of juggling interface development and storefront design, while still managing product information, products, payments, and shipping. Instead, the focus can shift to optimizing content, brand message, and marketing.

Generally, Magento makes more sense for large businesses requirements. For instance, if you’re a merchant selling to other businesses, Magento provides customer segmentation. Custom pricing is also an option, which isn’t present on many other stores hosting sites.

Due to Magento’s robust interface, you can achieve the following:

• Manage a large-scale enterprise
• Open multiple storefronts
• Choose from hundreds of possible interactions to save your specific aims
• Unlock the potential to grow on a global scale
• Maintain security and automation in payments

No matter what type of seller you are, Magento puts a ton on the table. With its rich Infrastructure, Magento has a strong interface designed for selling anywhere.

How Magento supports a strong global infrastructure:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) for selling globally
• Full-page cache for faster loading
• Multiple app integrations
• Software management integrations
• Customer support
• Multiple pricing and shipping options
• Localization
• Optimization
• Secure environment
• Easy checkout system

The plentiful amount of features streamline the actual product deployment process. All of these things make up Magento’s strong ecosystem.

Using PIM for ecommerce

As full-bodied as Magento is, there are a few drawbacks.

Software is like a shopping bag filled to the brim with all the necessary groceries you need – all in one bag. These groceries can supply you with food for a while. The more packed the bag is, the heavier the load, and the bulkier it becomes. Carrying the bag may become too heavy. Transporting it takes longer than usual because you’re straining from exertion.

Magento, while able to possess a high number of products, plug-ins, features, sales channels, can slow down due to the weight. This leads to a slow-loading system, for you on the server-side, as well as for visitors on the storefront site.

This is where PIM comes in.

A Magento PIM integration is a marriage made in profitability.

As a tool for organizing and optimizing products, you can hold all your product details on PIM. From there, you can propagate it to Magento and automatically update it from PIM’s “master file” interface. This lifts a huge load off Magento’s usability. Not only is it lighter, but there are no longer long wait times for loading or workflow.

Don’t skimp out on Magento’s gains with a slow, overcluttered system.

The Magento and the PIM capabilities are boundless. Connect to all other integrations on Magento through PIM as well, from sales channels or other product data management software (like CRM, ERP, and POS). PIM helps manage Magento’s ecosystem. It centralizes data and distributes across various parts of Magento, including external sales channels. Thus, you save vital time and maintain data quality.

Tip 6. Maintain a Seamless Customer Experience

For any large Magento enterprise, it’s valuable to have a consistent customer experience throughout.

With more online storefronts popping up, the landscape has changed dramatically. There are many apparent distinctions between a physical store and an online store. Most obviously, the literal mode of shopping is completely different. But there’s another distinction that might not come to mind easily – how customers view, use, and feel about your storefront.

What exactly is customer experience?

Before we go into the necessity of customer experience, let’s elaborate on what it truly is.

Simply, customer experience (also known as CX) is a judgment that any visitor feels upon visiting your store site. In a brick-and-mortar store, the experience is physical. Customers enter a shop with a distinct visual impression, with a store layout consistent with the store’s values. Every shop as a part of that chain will remain the same experience-wise. In other words, no matter what location any person visits, the store’s brand story remains the same generally. This is a coherent customer experience.

More online businesses today are paying attention to customer experience.

Based on consumer responses, 96% of customers prioritize experience when deciding brand loyalty. In response, the competition between companies regarding customer experience ramped up. About 84% of organizations find that providing excellent customer experience may result in 5.7 times the revenue. Do you see how much of an impact CX has?

Why is customer experience important?

Other than the revenue implications, businesses must value the experience of their customers today for a critical reason. This reason stems from how different it is to sell online compared to traditional retail stores.

With the shift from offline to online commerce, the opportunities for selling are vast. Anyone can decide to open up a store online. There’s no longer any need to find a location, prepare a physical store, invest in setting up products, and so on. It’s convenient.

So what’s the catch?

Most sellers struggle with providing a consistently outstanding experience.

The convenience of ecommerce doesn’t take away from the effort necessary to provide a good experience. In fact, it’s more vital than ever. Because consumers who visit your store cannot physically interact with your products, you need to construct robust product pages. A good, adequate product page requires as much detail as possible. It includes enhanced content with beautiful product images and engaging marketing copy.

Even more than product pages, your store must be held together by the glue of your brand image. What do customers see and feel upon stopping by your online store? What is the impression with which they leave? Can they get an accurate sense of your brand values? If so, are those values imbued throughout your entire store?

All these questions are important to think about – especially when it comes to selling on Magento. Certainly, it’s not uncommon for merchants to struggle with their customer experience, especially if they have many stores.

If you think about it, it’s a lot like a theatre production. As an actor, the goal is to provide consistent performance of the story during every show. Otherwise, an audience from one show will leave with a different impression than those from another.

Across all different channels and sites on Magento, you need to ensure a similar, quality experience. From user-friendliness to findability, aesthetic feel to the brand message – all of these must remain constant on every platform.

What are the top benefits of a seamless customer experience?

These are the main indicators of successful customer experience.

1. Drives revenue
2. Preserves customer loyalty
3. Generates positive reviews
4. Reduces the risk of returns

There’s also a hidden benefit.

Remember when we touched on how easy it is to be an online seller? Well, that has its advantages and its downfalls. For one, widespread accessibility leads to competition. What happens when multiple sellers have many variations of the same product on the market?

First of all, there are too many choices for customers to choose from. Second of all, you now have to distinguish yourself from many competitors. Hence why it’s so important to provide a quality, distinct experience.

If your store is easier to navigate, looks better, and exudes a more compelling brand message, people are more likely to choose your products over others. The aim here is to rise above all other lackluster presentations of the same product. In other words, great CX propels your competitive value.

People today clearly value the shopping experience. Offline or online. The experience is what they remember most.

How to Maintain CX on Magento

A variety of factors go into an elevated customer experience. This includes a consistent brand story, robust product experience, and warm customer service. Though don’t take this as a comprehensive list. Depending on your specific goals and the channels you use, you might have to take many things into account to manage your customer experience. 

Luckily, there’s a way to manage your customer experience on all Magento stores. And that’s by utilizing product information or product experience management software.

What is product experience management (PXM) software?

We know what PIM is, but what about PXM? How can software that organizes product data help with experience in any way, you ask?

Think of PIM as the source of all your Magento product details. In other words, it’s essentially the foundation of your store(s). A PIM holds the most basic layer of good customer experience on Magento PIM Solution. A PIM Solution like Catsy also stands as a PXM or a product experience management system. Such a two-in-one solution has accurate data as well as features that allow for the beautiful enrichment of product pages.

Create robust product descriptions

What happens when you ensure visitors have everything they need to make a buying decision? They will leave your product pages holding your brand in high regard. With PIM’s data governance, you can be certain all your stores have the same information down to the minuscule unit. Consistency thrives on PIM.

The antithesis of information siloing

As a result of restricting communication and access to necessary data, information siloing hinders your work processes. To fully manage a seamless experience, all departments need the same catalogs, data, and marketing tools.

You’ll find that PIM for ecommerce can vastly enhance your business. Working doubly as a PXM, it facilitates wonderful customer experience across your Magento enterprise.

Tip 7. Integrate ERP with PIM for Faster Market Time

For optimal Magento functioning, consider connecting your existing ERP with PIM.

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is rapidly growing in usage. The boost in ecommerce has created a great need in ERP systems. As such, the ERP market had one of the highest revenues in overall SaaS (software-as-a-service) systems in 2018, with a value of $35.8 billion. The expectation is that ERP’s revenue will only continue to grow up to over $78 billion by 2026.

Clearly, an ERP is critical for sustainable business functioning and long-term success. With ecommerce opening the doors to widespread global commerce, many large businesses rely on ERP.

If you’re a large enterprise seller on Magento, chances are you already know what an ERP is. But we’re just going to brush up on the purpose of an ERP to fully acknowledge its necessity. What exactly does it mean to plan resources for an enterprise, to put it literally?

What is ERP software?

The goal of ERP software is to centralize all the administrative parts of a business process. If you sell products, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes planning and organizing that occurs. ERP is a place to store and manage such tasks. These processes include things like ordering product parts, implementing shipping, managing inventory. Such things are all necessary before a product is ready for selling. Another caveat of an ERP is that it holds the connections with critical third-party-logistics. For example, it allows collaboration with the supply chain and manufacturers. Also, it facilitates the automation of repetitive tasks.

All possible things that an ERP may do:

• Financial processes
• Manufacturing processes
• Oversee order fulfillment
• Human Resources
• Keep stock of inventory
• Track customer relationships
• Analyze trends in business processes

The ultimate advantage of using ERP is to systematically unite the many aspects behind an enterprise. To be on top of things, it’s necessary to have all operations concentrated onto one hub. This way, you save time with automation. You can keep track of your business’ financial status. Plus, you are able to keep up with a growing enterprise.

No matter how you see it, ERP is inevitable, especially with Magento and the PIM system.   

Why is ERP necessary for Magento?

Magento itself recommends integrating ERP with your stores.

The more your enterprise grows on the Magento platform, the more elaborate it becomes. There’s more demand for products, the inventory will drain faster, and there are more orders to satisfy.

You could be risking a few things. The more obvious of which is human error. Without an ERP, you’re left to manually enter data to process orders. The more orders you get, the higher the likelihood of making mistakes with ordered products, shipping address, and delaying order fulfillment. Eventually, this amounts to dissatisfied customers. No one enjoys waiting longer than promised for their order or receiving something they didn’t buy.

Without ERP’s automation, there might be a slight, but vital time delay in processing orders.

An ERP includes customer service. Without it, your reps cannot access the essential order information to provide customers with the answers they need. At least, not immediately.

You can see how lacking ERP can cause a chain of unfortunate effects, right?

Who needs an ERP?

Are you a Magento merchant who falls under the following categories and subcategories? If so, an ERP may vastly improve your business.

• Handling spreadsheets is becoming more challenging
• High SKUs with multiple channels
• It’s harder to keep track of data
• Systems remain chaotic and disparate
• Communication is lacking and inconsistent
• There are mistakes in order fulfillment
• You manage a large, quickly growing enterprise
• You work with multiple external departments

Utilizing an ERP helps unload a huge strain on your Magento enterprise. No longer must you waste time and energy with tedious tasks. No need to risk losing important customers over a small error. Cut unnecessary costs, boost productivity, and have a better vision for your financial status. ERP allows for scalability without your business becoming a monstrous mess.

But that’s not all.

The best part is that an ERP can fully integrate with an effective PIM. By connecting your Magento ERP with PIM, you take further advantage of the Magento platform.

The Case for Magento ERP-PIM Integration

There are many benefits to extract from implementing an ERP with a PIM. PIM and ERP software can sometimes sound like they do the same thing. Let’s try to understand where the two systems differ.

To properly conceptualize their relationships, think about it this way.

An ERP is like the origin of the product information on PIM. The raw information about a product’s parts, dimensions, specs, and other basic data is compiled into the PIM, almost like a master file. From there, ERP handles the logistics of the store, like sales, pricing, order, supply, and financial analytics.

Meanwhile, the PIM handles the more client-side aspect of the store. In other words, you augment the master product data with digital assets, copy, categorizations, usage, and so on. PIM is where you handle how the products will display on your store, as well as the marketing component. These aspects factor into the product launch.

Now, the perk of integrating PIM with ERP is this. As the back-end product data updates, inbound feeds travel the changes directly to PIM. It’s all automated, so you don’t have to worry about missing detail on any of your various applications.

PIM and ERP contribute to Magento success

The golden question: How can integrating PIM and ERP maximize the potential of Magento?

With a multichannel marketing platform like Magento, it is necessary to stay as consolidated as possible. If you already have an ERP for Magento, you may have already felt the software take the heavy load off your shoulders.

However, ERP can only oversee the administrative functions of Magento. What about the front-end enrichment? What about your customer service representatives, your product page content, and the marketing? PIM is key on this end.

Combining the two – ERP and PIM – can make for a smooth organization of systems. A Magento-PIM integration can directly impact the visitors you’re receiving and converting. In turn, ERP can fulfill customer experience. It does this by managing orders on a timely basis, making sure all items are in stock, and maintain customer experience.

Tip 8. Tap Into Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel is the way to go into today’s online landscape. Magento merchants need to pay more attention to their omnichannel customer experience. PIM can help you unlock the plethora of omnichannel marketing benefits for Magento.

Today, it’s critical to open your doors to multiple channels. Retailers can expect up to a 30% increase in profitability by going omnichannel.

What is omnichannel marketing?

“Omnichannel commerce is the coordination of traditional channels (marketing, selling, and fulfilment) and supporting systems to create a seamless and consistent customer experience.”

– Brendan Witcher, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research (Source)

Selling across differentento is combined with PIM, you ensure that your channels or platforms is the new model of ecommerce. In a nutshell, omnichannel refers to the accessibility of customers to buy from multiple touchpoints. To do so successfully, the touchpoints must be held together by seamless brand experience.

It’s not uncommon to see the words “omnichannel” and “multichannel” thrown around interchangeably. However, they are not the same thing. Multichannel marketing or multichannel distribution refers to reaching consumers on different online stations – be it a website, marketplace, or social media. Each one, however, is kept separate.

Marketing should be customer-driven.

Omnichannel marketing is more about the consistent experience provided through many devices and channels. It’s about connecting each channel together. Even more importantly, it’s customer-driven. Using customer data and patterns, omnichannel marketing delivers a personalized experience.

Consumers don’t interact with a store through only one entry-point. In act, at least 80% of people use their phones even when in a physical store. For what? For looking up products, reviews, and price comparisons. So it’s more crucial now than ever to reach these customers first.

Advantages of the omnichannel experience

The true impact of omnichannel is more influential than you might think. Not convinced? According to Forrester research, omnichannel marketing increases the likelihood of creating long-term customers.

Remember the Starbucks example? Initially, Starbucks struggled with its customer lifetime value. Upon adopting an omnichannel approach with the incentivized rewards card system, they achieved success right away. Being able to use rewards through any device made customers more likely to get through the sales funnel. In other words, Starbucks took out the inconvenience of paying from only one mode. Forgot your rewards card at home? Use your phone app. Don’t have an internet connection? All Starbucks stores offer free wifi.

An omnichannel strategy also meets channel-switchers where they are. About 2/3 of customers begin their buying journey on one channel before switching to another. Think of someone searching for products on the go before buying it on their laptop at home or at the store.

Magento is made for omnichannel marketing

Now, why is Magento prominent for its omnichannel opportunity?

Magento offers a ton of features that glue together the multiple channels into a smooth experience. In other words, it makes it simpler for merchants to offer a consistent experience. Be it online, on an app, on the phone, or in-store, customers receive the same thing.

Centralized inventory

Magento offers a center to organize all inventory items. These items can then be pushed onto any device favored by the customer. To succeed in omnichannel commerce, more brands are opting for both in-store and online shopping options. By establishing inventory in one place, PIM Magento makes this possible.

Multiple device functionality

Making your store responsive across digital platforms and technologies is vital. Mobile-friendliness and web responsiveness makes this possible with Magento.

Global shipping

Built for global ecommerce, Magento’s order management feature is key to omnichannel success. Customers prefer and remain loyal to brands with worldwide shipping. Omnichannel shipping means providing customers multiple places to order and receive products.

More order fulfillment options

Magento offers a mixed bag of ways to deliver orders. From ship to-from store to buying online-pick up, it has it all. By doing so, you can prevent alienating any customers. Now, anyone can have a variety of options from which to choose their preferred mode of delivery. No longer will borders limit one’s ability to receive their desired product.

B2B Companies adopt an omnichannel approach to selling on Magento.

Both online and offline commerce are ripe in potential. The key is in how you utilize them for optimal return-on-investment.

When faced with possible irrelevancy, B2B companies want to take a more direct marketing approach. D2C is flush with opportunity, necessary for any omnichannel strategy. For this, moving to ecommerce is perfect. Forrester expects B2B ecommerce to dominate 17% of overall B2B sales.

Most ecommerce sites aren’t built for large-scale enterprises. That’s why many B2B companies are jumping on Magento.

For example, Bauhaus got on Magento in 2015. The resulting impact was a 296% increase in revenue. Sales conversion rates also notably increased by 376%. Other Magento-based B2B companies include Ford Motor Co., Procter, and Gamble, 3M Co., and Medline Industries Inc.

Global businesses have found much success in Magento. Take gaming ecommerce company g2a and Acer, for example. They’ve received millions of monthly visitors. If you go to many of these store sites, you’ll find their content available in multiple languages. Optimizing for localization has been a fundamental component. With PIM’s localization, you can leverage web traffic internationally.

Final Words

Managing product data can become complicated. Especially on Magento’s complex web of channels.

Fortunately, when Magento is combined with PIM, you ensure that your brand is consistent across multiple sales channels. Doing so establishes long-term customer loyalty. With its automatic product content sharing, you can easily update across all stores on Magento. As a result, rest assured that your product data remains consistent, correct, and ready to convert.

About Catsy

Catsy has been providing unique value to the product information industry since 2003, allowing businesses a way to achieve high-quality product content. Our product information management (PIM) software centralizes all product data, so you can manage and share data with internal teams, retailers, and multiple platforms. Revolutionize your business with Catsy’s accuracy, automation, and optimization. To learn more, visit us at https://catsy.com.