Best Product Information Management (PIM) Systems
Product information management (PIM) systems centralize and manage an e-commerce business’ product information to ensure a single, accurate view of product data. PIM tools facilitate the maintenance of consistent and quality product data and information. This type of software is used by product managers and data teams to collect data from multiple data sources and to identify and fix problematic data. Marketing teams use PIM system to push product data out to all desired distribution channels.
Product experience management (PXM) is an advanced version of PIM that focuses on improving the buyer experience by using product data and digital assets. While PXM usually includes features for digital asset management (DAM), PIM solutions integrate with DAM tools to enhance product data. PIM software also integrates with e-commerce platforms to make product data available on online stores and with ERP systems or product data management (PDM) software to capture product technical specifications.
To qualify for inclusion in the Product Information Management (PIM) category, a product must:
Best Product Information Management (PIM) Systems At A Glance
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- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Plytix PIM is the world’s favorite Product Information Management (PIM) software for small and medium businesses due to its user-friendly interface, affordable pricing, easy and quick implementation,
- Marketing Manager
- Product Manager
- Retail
- Consumer Goods
- 65% Small-Business
- 32% Mid-Market
- Reviewers enjoy the ability of Plytix PIM to manage and share product data across multiple sales channels.
- Reviewers appreciate the customer service provided by the vendor which helps them quickly solve issues in a timely manner.
- Reviewers like the fact that Plytix PIM helps reduce data entry time while also maintaining product data integrity.
618 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Pimberly is a cloud-based Product Information Management (PIM) solution designed to streamline and enhance the management of product data across various channels. This platform is specifically tailore
- Retail
- Apparel & Fashion
- 51% Mid-Market
- 29% Small-Business
473 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Sales Layer is a global-leading PIM (Product Information Management) platform that helps companies to automate complex B2B processes and connect their products to any enterprise sales platform or tool
- Marketing
- Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing
- Retail
- 57% Mid-Market
- 37% Small-Business
- Reviewers appreciate how Sales Layer PIM manages product data and catalogs, which helps them track multiple types of information such as images or technical specifications.
- Reviewers like the ability to publish product information with internal and external users on multiple channels both online and offline.
- Reviewers enjoy the customer support provided by the vendor, which is fast and efficient.
824 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Akeneo is the product experience (PX) company and global leader in Product Information Management (PIM); creating a world where every product interaction is an experience that guides consumers and pro
- Retail
- Information Technology and Services
- 47% Mid-Market
- 31% Enterprise
- Reviewers like the functionality provided by Akeneo PIM to create product attributes, categories, and groups, which allows them to better organize the product information
- Reviewers enjoy the ability of Akeneo PIM to push and update product data across different channels, both online and offline.
- Reviewers appreciate that their customers can have accurate and relevant product information, which enhances the customer experience.
3,696 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Quable PIM is a cutting-edge SaaS software for brands, manufacturers and distributors seeking growth. Our PIM platform propels and harmonizes your products everywhere in record time. Quable PIM ena
- Consumer Goods
- Cosmetics
- 47% Mid-Market
- 41% Small-Business
2,166 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
1WorldSync® is the leader in Product Content Orchestration, enabling more than 14,000 companies in over 60 countries to simplify the creation and distribution of impactful content that’s accurate, con
- Food & Beverages
- Consumer Goods
- 46% Mid-Market
- 32% Small-Business
1,421 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Syndigo is the leading provider of MDM, PIM, and PXM, delivering data mastery and exceptional customer experiences across departments, organizations, and commerce platforms. With the largest integrate
- Consumer Goods
- Retail
- 38% Mid-Market
- 32% Enterprise
- Reviewers like Syndigo's features for business process management, which allow them to define and implement custom workflows and rules.
- Reviewers appreciate the responsive customer service provided by the vendor, which is efficient and reliable.
- Reviewers enjoy the ability of Syndigo to manage product master data easily and efficiently while maintaining data integrity and accuracy.
275 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Canto is the single source of truth for all your digital assets. With over 30 years of expertise, it centralizes and organizes content, ensuring teams have quick, consistent access to what they need.
- Graphic Designer
- Marketing Manager
- Marketing and Advertising
- Non-Profit Organization Management
- 50% Mid-Market
- 33% Small-Business
- Reviewers say that Canto is easy to use when organizing, storing, and sharing permissions, but there might be some learning curves for new users.
- Reviewers appreciate that the tool is compatible with a lot of file types and that you can store files for internal and external use, but the amount of file tagging options can be overwhelming.
- Reviewers value that images can be cropped, resized, and compressed before downloading, but sometimes searching for image titles is tough when multiple people are using the same account.
3,869 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Salsify helps thousands of brand manufacturers, distributors, and retailers in over 140 countries collaborate to win on the digital shelf. The company’s Product Experience Management (PXM) platform en
- Consumer Goods
- Retail
- 57% Mid-Market
- 30% Enterprise
- Reviewers appreciate Salsify’s ability to manage and syndicate content, as well as organize product information efficiently.
- Reviewers like how the product helped better work with customers by sharing product data with them through custom templates.
- Reviewers enjoy the vendor’s customer support which is efficient but some also mentioned that it could be faster.
2,047 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Catalog Syndication for Shopify, BigCommerce, Amazon, and major distributors. Welcome to Catsy’s Syndication Trifecta. We focus on three key components to keep your content on course: Content Acc
- Consumer Goods
- Wholesale
- 54% Mid-Market
- 34% Small-Business
- Reviewers enjoy how Catsy helps with digital asset management and product data, which makes it easier for them to manage multiple types of product information.
- Reviewers like the catalog management functionality of Catsy, which works well even for large catalogs and helps them maintain multiple catalogs.
- Reviewers appreciate the ability to manage multiple types of content for their websites or sales, in a centralized manner.
8,415 Twitter followers
- Overview
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- User Satisfaction
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SCAYLE is an enterprise commerce platform empowering B2C brands and retailers to easily create outstanding customer experiences. It provides an extensive feature set with an intuitive UI to configure
- Retail
- 91% Enterprise
- 9% Small-Business
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Flexible and easy to use, Acquia DAM (Widen) helps brands manage and distribute assets across teams, tools, and channels. A highly configurable metadata schema provides powerful, business-specific sea
- Graphic Designer
- Digital Asset Manager
- Marketing and Advertising
- Consumer Goods
- 48% Enterprise
- 38% Mid-Market
- Reviewers like Widen Collective’s capacity to hold images, but noted the need to convert to a specific format which was a time consuming process.
- Reviewers had success working with the company’s support team and said they can troubleshoot a variety of problems, but had issues when adding features to their initial agreements.
- Reviewers appreciate the ability to access files in a variety of formats, including downloads and email attachments. However, some experienced problems assigning a template to their files.
46,666 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Kontainer is the leading platform for design and user-friendly Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Product Information Management (PIM) systems. We supply customizable, elegant, plug-and-play solutions
- Marketing Coordinator
- Apparel & Fashion
- Marketing and Advertising
- 52% Small-Business
- 42% Mid-Market
- Reviewers like how Kontainer helps them manage product content and digital assets, but some mentioned that it’s not always easy to know who has access to which files and folders.
- Reviewers enjoy how Kontainer improves their relationships with customers, mainly by sharing content and materials with them.
- Reviewers appreciate the ease of use and setup of the solution, though some mentioned that they can’t always easily find what they’re looking for.
1,534 Twitter followers
- Overview
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- User Satisfaction
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Ergonode is a PIM solution that enables digital commerce leaders to efficiently manage their product information on their communication channels. With our solution, we empower Content Teams with a col
- Apparel & Fashion
- 56% Mid-Market
- 32% Small-Business
129 Twitter followers
- Overview
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- User Satisfaction
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We offer Headless Commerce solutions to Retailers and D2C Brands. Our suite of Headless commerce APIs & Applications enables rapid change to consumer demands at scale. We offer affordable, easy
- Apparel & Fashion
- Retail
- 60% Small-Business
- 33% Mid-Market
Learn More About Product Information Management (PIM) Systems
What are Product Information Management Systems?
The importance of PIM software may not be so evident since other solutions can be used to manage products (such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), product lifecycle management (PLM), or inventory management solutions). Therefore, buyers must understand when they need PIM systems and why.
The main reasons why a company should use PIM systems are:
- The number of products or combinations of items is so high that it cannot be managed efficiently using other systems (such as an ERP)
- The business model of the company focuses on regularly launching new products or iterations of existing products
- The company distributes products from many providers in different markets
- The industry of the company experiences significant fluctuations in demand based on seasonality
Buyers also need to understand where PIM fits into their software ecosystem and how it may overlap with other solutions. In a nutshell, product data is initially created using PLM or other design solutions. The data is then transferred to ERP to create bills of materials for production and determine each product's cost and price. When product information is imported into PIM solutions, most product details are already defined and will only change when the company decides to adapt its offering to changes in demand.
From a business perspective, it is essential to understand the role PIM plays in the lifecycle of a product and its stages: design, production, sales, after sales, and end of life. While this type of software can provide companies with valuable information at any stage of a product lifecycle, it is most beneficial after the product launch and during the sales and after-sales stages.
Finally, PIM systems should not be confused with:
- Product data management, which is usually part of PLM solutions and helps designers and engineers manage product metadata
- Inventory management, which is never part of PIM; buyers need separate solutions to manage their stock
- Master data management (MDM), which can be used to manage product information, but this type of software is not specifically designed for this need and does not offer all the features included in a typical PIM solution
Why Use PIM Systems?
Companies that sell a large number of products benefit most from using PIM software. PIM can also be handy for companies that sell many variations of the same products, such as multiple colors and sizes for the apparel industry
When companies need to manage hundreds or thousands of products, it is vital for them to have a central repository that contains all product details such as name, description, price, and physical characteristics such as volume, weight, or color.
Who Uses PIM Systems?
Product managers use PIM to define and track products and categories of products. PIM also helps with managing the relationships between products. For instance, some products may be sold together as kits, while similar items may replace other products.
A company’s marketing department can use PIM systems to create printed or online catalogs. Marketing departments also need product information and images to create promotional campaigns or brochures.
E-commerce managers need PIM to ensure they make the right products, with the correct characteristics, available online. PIM also helps companies update their e-commerce stores with any changes they make to their products.
Manufacturing companies use PIM to sell their products on multiple channels, such as websites, e-commerce, or online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. Manufacturers may also use PIM to transfer product information to other systems such as ERP or PLM.
Kinds of PIM Systems
While most PIM providers offer proprietary software, some vendors choose to build their solutions on an open-source model. Open-source vendors usually provide a community edition that is free to use and can be a good starting point for companies that may not want to invest significantly in this type of software. The drawbacks of community editions of PIM are that buyers need to manage the implementation and maintenance on their own and the solution is sometimes delivered on-premises, which means that it needs to be downloaded and installed on a server managed by the customer.
From a functional perspective, some vendors focus on PIM only, while others offer related modules or solutions such as digital asset management. There are also business intelligence (BI) and data management vendors who adapt their solutions to compete with PIM providers.
PIM Systems Features
The following features are must-haves for an effective PIM:
- The ability to consolidate product information from multiple sources, including all types of databases, software such as ERP or e-commerce, and files such as spreadsheets
- Customizable workflows and processes that define which users can publish or update product information and users who can approve changes
- Filters and search options that allow users to quickly find products using criteria such as the physical characteristics of the product (size, color, or weight), price, name, or description
- The ability to make mass updates to product information, which can be beneficial when users need to make changes to large numbers of products. For instance, changing the description for all products in a category should be performed in one operation, instead of having to modify each individual product
- The management of different types of content about products such as PDFs, images, or videos
Additional Product Information Management Features
Kind –
For buyers with more complex needs, the following features may be hugely beneficial when used in conjunction with the features described above:
- The ability to allow partners such as dealers and distributors to access the PIM solution and use the product information on their websites or e-commerce stores
- Provide syndication of product information to make it easier to publish on platforms such as Amazon or eBay
- Data governance and master data management (MDM), which can help large companies better manage large volumes of product information and content
Potential Issues with PIM Systems
PIM software can be complicated and challenging to maintain, especially when the system is installed on-premises, and the buyer is responsible for the IT infrastructure needed to run the solution. Even cloud-hosted PIM software may be challenging when it is delivered as a mix of separate solutions that are not tightly integrated.
Integration with other solutions, such as ERP or e-commerce software, is critical for companies using PIM systems. How product information is transferred between PIM systems and other software can significantly impact sales and revenue. The ideal data migration should be completely automated; this is not always the case, which can cause errors. For instance, if pricing information is inaccurate, companies may lose money.
