Product Content – The differences between PIM and PCM
Initially, in business to business e-commerce, companies and organizations were quite selective and kept their product content exposure to a minimum. With changing trends, many companies are now creating online customer experiences that are designed to meet all their customer’s needs. This trend has necessitated the need for PIM and PCM, with most companies confusing which of the two they need.
Customer facing product content
We are all up and down trying to get our enterprises out there and “in the know”. Customer facing product content is one of the biggest concerns. This includes the user interface, the help desk or any software application available for the customers. Satisfying customer needs and corporate ROI goals requires highly detailed information drawn from a variety of sources. Customer facing product content involves the managing of this information. Every enterprise wants happy and loyal customers, which is why both PCM and PIM are necessary.
At the same time, product content available to customers is also at the disposal of other parties, even the competition. This means that this type of information requires quality analyzation. The information should be combined and blended to satisfy all parties, reflect a positive picture to customers and partners, while at the same time expose no loophole or data to the competition. Such levels of required standards are why product information management and product content management software is essential.
Confusion between PIM and PCM
If you are confused about the difference or which one to get, do not worry as it gets a little tricky for most businesses. Product content or catalog management, PCM, is often confused with product information management, PIM. There are many similar solutions that fuel the confusion, however, there is a big difference between the two. PCM offers data enrichment. The enrichment involves adding or editing the business product descriptions, images, data, and attributes. PCM from enterprise e-commerce solutions generally have an ability to manage a truth source for product information. So if your product content needs a makeover, you might want to get some help from PCM.
PIM supports multilingual data, many geographical locations, and like PCM modifies information on a product within a catalog. A PIM system collects data from various sources and combines large amounts of information, putting it into one source. It also creates product data that is reliable and consistent. The PIM then feeds information to media such as print catalogs, websites, data feeds to business partners and other channels to the customers. I bet you probably know what you want now.
Choosing between PIM and PCM for product content
The decision on which to choose between a PIM and a PCM is dependent on what you need. If you are looking for a full renewal of your product content or starting from scratch with the creation then you are in need of PİM. This will help to assemble the data and be followed up with proper distribution to all important channels. If all you require is the addition or editing of existing product content, then PCM is enough for you. Now that you are in the know, you can easily make your choice and ensure that your customers have a perfect experience.
Connect your PCM feed to Wordapp
If you are looking for unique, new product descriptions or a spice up of what you have been putting out there, then connect your PCM to Wordapp. We will give your product content a totally new look to get your enterprise in the top searches. Forget about incorporating writers to your employee costs. At Wordapp we have excellent writers ready for work. All of them are trained and equipped with the combination of skills necessary for producing customer-facing content.
