2021 saw another year of great growth in e-commerce, yet some businesses still struggled. In this blog, we explore what these companies can do to overcome these challenges, and how can PIM software help.
Higher customer expectations
Personalisation, an easy-to-browse website, great customer support, free returns, a variety of payment options, etc. The list is truly endless of what the modern informed customer wants when shopping online. If you can’t meet their needs, they will simply look elsewhere.
PIM simply supports most of these. Your website will be full of up-to-date, rich product information which allows easier browsing and filtering. Images will be high quality and fast loading. There will also likely be fewer product returns as the data you provide your customers is more accurate and detailed. Even your customer support team can have access to the PIM to be able to respond accurately and easily to customer queries.
Increased competition
Quite obvious, but e-commerce is growing rapidly which means more competition. In 2021, retail e-commerce sales amounted to approximately 4.9 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide. This figure is forecast to grow by 50 per cent over the next four years, reaching about 7.4 trillion dollars by 2025.
PIM allows you to stay ahead of your competition in a number of ways, like reducing your time-to-market and providing customers with richer product information than competitors. A PIM System will also allow you to easily manage multiple sales channels, like selling on Amazon as well as your own e-commerce site.
Customer experience
The user experience on your e-commerce website is vital to e-commerce success. A robust search bar option, a clean and simple UI, a fast and responsive website, clear CTA’s and efficient checkout options are all important in maximising user satisfaction on your site.
PIM can help by keeping your categories up-to-date and easy to navigate. You can also provide richer product data that customers can use to filter through your products. A PIM can also provide higher-quality media that will load faster for users to visualise the products and emulate an in-store experience.
Customer loyalty
Customers who make return purchases are very valuable for a business as they reduce the cost of acquiring them in the first place. In fact, it can be up to five times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Existing customers are 50% more likely to try a new product and spend 31% more per purchase than new customers.
Customers become loyal when they have a great experience with your products and brand. PIM can simply increase customer satisfaction, and thus, make customer retention easier.
Product returns
More than 60 per cent of online shoppers said they looked at a retailer’s return policy before making a purchase. Offering a transparent and fair returns policy is critical in today’s e-commerce environment. But this can be detrimental if a business gets a lot of returns or requests for returns.
PIM Systems can help mitigate these risks as providing much clearer and more accurate product data to customers means they are less likely to need to return it. For example, if you have exact measurements provided for your t-shirts as opposed to “Small, Medium and Large” size options, then customers will be more accurately able to predict what will fit them correctly.
If you would like to learn more about what PIM can do for your e-commerce business in 2022, feel free to get in touch with us. Or, check out our e-commerce connectors to see how OneTimePIM can drive your e-commerce store forward.
