How PIM & MDM Boosts eCommerce KPIs

There is one thing what all companies who subscribe to e-commerce solutions often do not see. It is the one thing without this, e-commerce sales is impossible. Selling fashion or electronics or any product or service online, is not as simple as people think. Without correct, complete and current DATA, e-commerce sales is not possible. The following examples are just two of many, which show to non-data people, that this market is maybe bigger then e-commerce and it decides how good digital commerce will be.

Shop the look

Online pure play Zalando for example launched a „shop the look“ offerings in 2015 the first time. But if you sell over 2 Million products from over 1000 suppliers, the challenge gets complex. You have to consolidate different colors schemes, size charts, fabrics; styles and many more to one common standard to enable these bundles. And this at fast pace. And now think of an industry with even more complex dependencies like automotive after market, building materials, construction or others.

Three important eCommerce KPIs

I once published an extensive survey based on 400 retailers and manufacturers from 14 countries. The study with a university delivers more than 30 pages measurable results where attendees with roles in e-commerce, marketing, supply chain, procurement and IT shared their KPIs before and after implementing an PIM/MDM solution. This press release summarises the key findings of the research which was divided into three main areas: revenue growth, cost savings and operational efficiency. The most compelling outcomes im my view are these three:

1. Conversion rates increase by 35% using PIM
2. margin increase by 44% using PIM and
3. speed in in time-to-market is 75% faster in eCommerce, using PIM

Another good read is the blog: “Do I need a PIM if I have an eCommerce solution?”.

Blogs worth reading for eCommerce Managers to understand the impact of product content for their conversion rates and cart revenue:

Good vs bad examples of product e-commerce pages
Product content with wow features in B2B commerce
9 examples of good and bad e-commerce product pages
Why PIM and data quality are essential for e-commerce

I collected a list for other KPIs, business outcomes and benchmarks, impacted by the use of PIM & MDM solutions. These may help you to find and define the objectives for your business.

Retail examples of business outcomes

Music & enterainment retail: Sales increase through faster SKU build & launch time; Improved time to market from 12 days to 4 days; Enabled product volume from 1M to 2M+ •

Fashion luxury retail: Productivity enhancement by 50-60% with improved data quality

Beauty & drug store retail: Increased productivity by 33%; Reduced new product introduction timeline by 80%

KPIs that significantly improved productivity and cost reduction

• 3x more output with the same team (multi merchant retail)
• 60% less steps to enrich products online (from 15 to 6 steps) (luxury retail)
• 100% less email exchanges to share and collect media data (from 25 to 0 emails) (luxury retail)
• 50% less in workload for data stewards (industrial distribution)

KPIs on Speed & time to market

• 4x faster introduction of new products (multi merchant retail)
• 67% faster creation of customer quotes (from 60 to 20 min) (building distribution) 
• 70% faster translation of product information (from 10 to 3 days) (luxury retail)
• 94% faster system integration from a new subsidiary acquisition (from 3 months 5 days) (industrial distribution)
• Up to 60% faster time to market by decreasing time to onboard new online product information (from several hours to only a few minutes) (consumer electronics)
• Grow the business 60% and hit sales targets and within two years as the full product range is available online (multi merchant retail)

KPIs on customer experiences with

• 25% less returns for online orders thanks to rich product information and informed purchase decisions (building material)
• Increased average basket size by 21% thanks to improved cross selling (building material)
• Increased online range coverage from 12% to 96% (multi merchant retail)
• Supported conversion rate boost of 10% to 20%(fashion brand)

Improved product data quality

• 80% reduction of product data quality issues (multi merchant retail)

Conclusion:

Master Data management Experience solutions, who follow the advantages of the platform economy on a no-code or low-code level, are the next big bet for investors and business leaders.

These solutions allow e-commerce businesses to reach new heights by enabling scale & speed with optimized operational efficiency. They connect products, customers, employees, suppliers, locations and more. Of course machine learning is part of such offerings.

Also read: How to leverage analytics and engagement insights from your master data in e-Commerce.