By Samantha Broekert, PIM Specialist
Unstructured data and your PIM: your biggest challenge.
Product Information Management is a demanding (and often frustrating) part of e-commerce, involving daily struggles with unstructured data, legacy systems, and complex processes. In this blog, we show you how to gain control over your product data to grow your business and transition from data chaos to e-commerce success.
How do you become a PIM platform builder? For us, after 15 years in e-commerce, it was about finally creating the PIM system we wished we had ourselves. Because if you, like us, are an e-commerce professional who wants to scale and is always searching for the best product, the best new supplier, and that one technique to stay ahead of the competition, you know that PIM (understatement alert) is not always frustration-free.
The challenge of product information management in e-commerce.
One of the greatest frustrations is the efficient processing of unstructured data. This is especially true if you operate in a complex e-commerce environment where PIM still relies on Excel, or on software originally cobbled together by a 'Handy Harry' (or Henrietta) that worked fine initially but became impossible to maintain once they moved on.
When you arrive with the ambition to scale from 5,000 to 50,000 products to capture a larger market share, you already know how that news is received by IT. And for the people who have to manually fetch, clean, and enter all that data: enthusiasm is usually in short supply.
The complex reality of product data.
Product data does not arrive neatly packaged, in the correct format, on the first of the month. Instead, product data flows from various sources, at different frequencies, in dozens of formats and variations. It arrives with duplicates, errors, changes, conflicting fields, and discontinued products. It happens all day, 24 hours a day.
Much of the data you receive is unstructured and inherently difficult to process. Efficiently and automatically onboarding unstructured data to make it usable is the definitive way to increase its value, but it is a demanding process requiring expertise and specialist tooling. It is the first step toward the economies of scale offered by a well-structured data process. Particularly in wholesale and retail, where you handle massive volumes of product data, you can only remain efficient and scalable if you pass unstructured data through a governed process with minimal manual work and errors.
The pain e-commerce companies feel is something we see daily: unstructured data leads to poor data quality, data processes that fail to scale, and a data strategy that never quite takes off.
What is unstructured data in the context of PIM?
Unstructured data refers to product information that is not organised in a predefined format, such as free-text descriptions, PDFs, untagged images, or inconsistent specifications. This contrasts with structured data, which fits neatly into the fields and attributes of a PIM system.
Data quality directly affects customer experience and conversion.
This is why it matters: the quality of your product content has a decisive impact on customer experience and conversion rates. Gaining Control over product data is essential for your success. A robust PIM system, a smart data process, and a strategic view of product information ensure your customers get the experience they deserve while your business performs better and grows.
Not every PIM is the same.
Most PIM systems are designed with 'brand owners' in mind. This means they often assume a limited number of products, primarily in-house items. In the PIM industry, managing and exporting product data are often seen as the primary challenges. We see it differently.
In fact, managing and exporting product data is the easy part of PIM. Systems focusing solely on those aspects are far too basic for environments where large volumes of external product data arrive daily and must be processed immediately for apps and online stores.
The truly complex processes, essential for e-commerce success, lie in importing, combining, and making data from external sources usable. Many PIM systems fall short here, while general ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tools are often too generic and require excessive technical knowledge and configuration to deploy quickly. Tooling specifically designed for high-volume product data onboarding is rare.
And yet, you need it.
This is exactly why we developed our Import & Onboarding capabilities. It combines a data portal for easy integration with a data mapper that allows you to define how data should enter your systems once, so it happens automatically thereafter. You do not have time to struggle with systems not built for your specific needs.
Developing such a solution yourself? That costs far too much time and money. By choosing a PIM platform that actually matches your requirements, perhaps supplemented with a dedicated data loading solution, you can focus on what really matters: growing your business.
From data frustration to growth opportunity.
In short, Product Information Management in e-commerce is a complex field where dealing with unstructured data, legacy systems, and inefficient processes creates daily hurdles.
Managing large volumes of external product data requires specific solutions that go beyond what most of the market offers. The right tools and processes can make a world of difference to your e-commerce success. Investing in a PIM system that aligns with your unique requirements allows you to Launch products faster and achieve your growth targets.
More about unstructured product data
In practice, addressing unstructured product data ensures that information becomes available faster and more consistently. By centralising your approach, you reduce the risk of errors and accelerate your time-to-market. A considered strategy for unstructured data makes your organisation more scalable and future-proof. At ConnectingTheDots, we help you step-by-step, from strategy to implementation. If you want to know more, schedule a consultation. This way, managing unstructured data becomes more than a technical choice: it becomes a strategic accelerator.
How does unstructured data affect my e-commerce performance?
Unstructured data leads to inconsistencies in product information, slows down the time-to-market for new products, reduces search engine visibility (SEO) due to incomplete data, and causes customer confusion. This often results in higher return rates and lower conversion rates.