PIM: Improve the shopping experience for your customer

The Shopping experience is the array or emotions experienced by consumers throughout their shopping journey: product search, online payment, instore experience…

For a business this requires constant efforts to provide an agreeable and frictionless shopping journey.

PIM (product Information Management) solutions have become a vital means of getting this right. PIM helps you to provide the best possible shopping experience.

Read our tips for engineering a successful shopping experience and the benefits of using PIM to make this experience outstanding.

Simplify the product search

On an eCommerce site, the product search process is a key part of the shopping experience.

To make this experience great, you need to provide shoppers with the right tools (search bar, voice search, filters…) and ensure that they can find the right product quickly: 50% of shoppers¹ use the internal search engines of eCommerce sites to find the ideal product. You should also organize your products per type, organize the associated product information and sort it into categories to optimize the online search process.

PIM (Product Information Management) solutions allow you to determine a precise structure for your product information. The PIM models product information on various levels: attributes, categories, sub-categories… and makes it consistent along shared standards: norms, naming rules, format restrictions… Your product information has the same structure across all selling channels.

Optimize the payment process

Payment is one of the key stages of the shopping experience, it has to be crystal clear, quick and easy.

To simplify this stage instore, it is important to exploit the potential of new technologies: contactless, self-checkout, « guest mode »… Taking the example of contactless payment which facilitates the instore payment process and is becoming increasingly popular: 73% of shoppers² find contactless payment more practical than traditional methods and 54%² prefer them for their speediness.

On an eCommerce site, it is important to optimize each step of the online payment process: adding one or more products to a cart, creation of a customer account, choice of delivery options… and to communicate clear and precise price information to customers: staggered payment possibilities, shipping costs, discount codes.

One way of achieving this is to provide shoppers with as many different payment options as possible: mobile payment, debit/credit card, digital wallets (Paypal, Apple pay, Google pay…). You must also optimize the payment process to make it more efficient: automatic completion of fields in the payment form, possibility to pay in « guest mode³ », reduction of the number of steps… As well as this, using a PIM solution enables you to provide shoppers with the information they need to buy with peace of mind: « secured payment » indication, logos of payment methods, shipping fee conditions…

Create a compelling link with the product

Providing a unique shopping experience involves creating a strong link between shopper and product.

To create this link, you need to allow shoppers to smell, touch and handle the product. This is only possible in physical stores which is 85% of shoppers⁴ still appreciate this selling channel.

It is important to also create this connection for online purchases which is why you must provide shoppers with rich and complete product information: precise technical features, detailed sales pitch, explanation of product benefits, phots and videos… This information is key to them contemplating their future purchase.

Using a PIM with integrated DAM (Digital Asset Management) features is essential for creating true connections between the shopper and your product. By integrating these features, PIM solutions help you manage all product information and enrich it with digital media items: add photos taken from several angles, integrate a product demo video, include a tutorial… This gives the shopper a 360° view of a product to envisage it better before buying.

Improve the instore experience

One of the keys to creating a successful product experience is to optimize the instore experience.

Get on board with new technologies: interactive terminals, smart fitting rooms, QR code on product labels… 40% of retailers⁵ plan to invest in training programs to enable their sellers to use these technologies to their full potential.

You should also provide sales assistants with touch tablet containing the brand's product catalog with precise information about each reference: available stocks in real time, sizes, colors… This information enables them to provide detailed responses to shoppers' questions and to suggest a similar product if their chosen article is not available.

It is essential to use a PIM solution to ensure that the product information delivered to the customer is reliable and of high quality. PIM facilitates the product information control and validation process. A validation and workflow system allows each contributor to validate information and to monitor the completeness of each piece of content before distribution to the selling channels: physical store, social commerce, Marketplaces…

Provide a consistent shopping experience

It is important to create synergies between physical and digital selling channels (click and collect, online reservations, drive…) to provide a more harmonious shopping experience.

One example is the store locator⁶ that a business can provide on their eCommerce site to increase instore footfall. This feature lets the shopper locate all the brand's points of sale to find the nearest store and buy a product.

You must also eliminate any potential points of friction between each selling channel to guarantee consistent product information in both physical and digital points of sale: product offer, prices, discounts…

Product Information Solutions provide this consistency. Product and marketing teams can always count on reliable, complete, and up to date information. Whenever you need to make a change to product data, search features allow you to find the information quickly and to update the information on all selling channels.

Using a PIM is decisive in providing shoppers with a unique and consistent shopping experience. PIM's advanced features (structuring, workflow, calculated fields…) give them constant access to the right product information enabling them to provide positive emotions at each step of the shopping journey.

¹ Vendramini, S. V. (2020, September 18). Comment le search permet de doper ses ventes en ligne. journaldunet.com.
² Brophy, M., & Hodge, B. (2023, July 12). 19 Contactless Payment Statistics. Fit Small Business.
³ Ecommercemag.fr. Mode invité / visiteur.
⁴ Taylor, G. 85 % Of Consumers Prefer To Shop In Physical Stores. Retail TouchPoints.
⁵ 53 Data-Backed Retail Statistics Shaping Retail in 2022 and Beyond. (2022, January 14). Shopify.
⁶ Daumas, I. (2022, June 17). Qu'est-ce qu'un store locator et comment en créer un ? .hubspot.fr.