Boost Your Competitive Prowess with the ECLASS Classification and PIM

In today’s business world, the efficient management and classification of your product data plays a decisive role. The right classification does not only facilitate your search for products and product information but also optimizes the data exchange with companies, customers, and partners.

This article analyzes the synergy between ECLASS standard (formerly “eCl@ss”) and PIM — and how it can increase the efficiency of your product management, reduce the error rate, and push your competitiveness. The smooth interplay of PIM system and classification standards supports your company in the digital age and guarantees that your product information is not only all-inclusive but also well-harmonized – aspects that are important if you want to stay successful in this data-driven world.

 

What is ECLASS?

ECLASS is a cross-industry classification standard that enables you to consistently identify products and services on an international scale. The same-named non-profit organization was founded on November 14th, 2000, by twelve of the largest companies in German economy. By 2020, the association had already gathered well over 150 members worldwide. As a state-of-the-art ISO/IEC-compliant data standard utilized on a global scale, ECLASS is commonly referred to as the universal language of Industry 4.0 nowadays.

The standard is a hierarchical system and encompasses around 45,000 product classes and 19,000 unique features – allowing for a fine-grained and precise classification as well as a unique description of products and services. The result is standardized master data that can function as the enabling condition for an efficient Master Data Management. And it assures data integrity besides facilitating collaboration with global customers and suppliers. You can find an overview of the current ECLASS version on the official website of ECLASS e.V.

 

PIM and ECLASS Put into Practice

When it comes to formatting your products in accordance with the ECLASS standard, a so-called PIM system (Product Information Management system) can be of great help. Now, how exactly may a PIM system support you in putting your product classification into practice?

• Data Processing and Data Consolidation: A PIM system enables you to collect and optimize product data from diverse sources. This is a decisive step towards creating a comprehensive data foundation for your classification. With the aid of a built-in import configurator, you can import files in any data format into the PIM system.
• Data Quality Management (DQM): DQM helps you in your data maintenance processes with validation mechanisms that check for the completeness and quality of product data. Equipped with these DQM criteria defined on the basis of a classification, you can easily identify data records which don’t correspond to the criteria and make sure that this data can’t be exported from the system until it’s corrected or completed.
• Exportability: A PIM system allows you to export classified product data in various formats so that you can use it in other systems and on other platforms which require ECLASS data.
• Updates and Changes: Since classification standards improve over time, a PIM system can contribute to quickly adjusting product data to match the newest version and make corresponding updates for all channels.

These are only some examples as to why a PIM system can support you in exhausting the full potential of a cross-industry standard.

 

ECLASS, ETIM, and BMEcat – the Magic of the Digital Product World

While the classification makes sure that you can always pick out and categorize the correct product, BMEcat handles the smooth data exchange between business partners. In the E-Procurement field, this makes for a significant increase in efficiency while also reducing the error rate. Electronic catalogs that use a data standard are usually interoperable and can exchange data with both other systems and other platforms using the same classification. For more information on electronic catalogs in the BMEcat format, please refer to our article BMEcat: Exchange Format for Your Product Data.

Besides ECLASS, there are many more standards which serve other markets or sectors. One such example is ETIM. Here, once again, the versatility of PIM systems are brought to bear. Such systems do not only support ECLASS but offer possibilities to fully integrate it together with several other standards. Equipped with this, you’ll always correctly classify product information in a range of contexts.

Product Data Feed: What is this – and what do you use it for?

An unwieldy word that holds great meaning: product data feed – or product data flow – refers to a well-structured data record that contains all essential information about your product. That is to say, the product data feed bundles all product data in a centralized manner: This includes article identifiers, colors, descriptions, prices, availability, image URLs, and shipping information. Such a product data feed, however, is more than just a mere list of data: If used efficiently, it enables you to transfer data to all target sales channels in a quick and secure way without any errors – while, at the same time, also guaranteeing that this data pool is always up to date across all marketing and sales platforms. This is because the product data feed draws directly from your database and can, with the help of a management system, be utilized flexibly in all sorts of manners. How exactly does this work? That’s what we’ll discuss in a moment.

We can already take notice of the following at the very least: You can’t imagine today’s e-commerce and multichannel marketing anymore without a product data feed. There are, in fact, even more benefits which speak for creating and maintaining your own product data feed:

• The simplest yet also most important point: With a product data feed, you establish a reliable and consistent foundation for your data. You can look forward to information that is up to date, clear, consistent, and complete! This, in turn, enables the customer to make informed decisions concerning their product selection, makes their purchasing experience much simpler – and establishes more trust in your brand overall.
• Apropos customers: You want happy customers who are satisfied with your products rather than dissatisfied? With a product data feed, you make sure that all data about your products is always correct and complete – regardless of where your products are presented. Once you’ve centralized them, you can distribute the data to anywhere anytime – be it on B2B marketplaces, online shops, or comparison portals such as Google Shopping. This way, your customers always know exactly what they can expect from their purchases.
• But a product data feed does more than merely distribute your data completely and consistently: You can also use it to create personalized marketing campaigns and individualized recommendations for your customers. How? By evaluating which products sold particularly fast on which channels, by which target group, and for which reason. This is how you can also use the data drawn by your product data feed to conduct an analysis of your customers or their purchasing behavior.
• A structured product data feed grants you higher visibility on the web: The search engine gathers your product data and bases its rankings on it – when the data is complete and expressive, your SEO does also benefit from it! Besides being found by Google, do you also want to be listed on comparison platforms? A complete and correct data record makes this possible.
• All this culminates in: efficiency. Such an optimized product data feed facilitates your sales processes. Your product data transfers are processed without any errors in an automated manner – and this, in turn, saves valuable time and personnel-related resources.

 

An Optimal Product Data Feed: What do you need to look out for?

Product data feeds are usually stored as a .csv or .xml files on a server. Your sales partners are granted access with a URL. Be it .csv or .xml, both formats allow you to structure a large quantity of data, distribute it, and import it into other systems. When setting up your own data feed, pay special attention to the following aspects:

• Invest sufficient time into formulating clear and concise product descriptions! This is not only helpful to your customers but does also increase your chance to be listed higher on relevant marketing and sales platforms.
• List all relevant product details. Required attributes are, by convention: Product ID, product title, price, the product description, and an image.
• Add further optional information as you see fit – such as promotional offers or special availability.
• Optimize the data you provide for popular search engines – this concerns, in particular, the product title, image files, and image titles.
• Adjust the feed specifications as necessary to match with the respective target channel’s or platform’s individual requirements.
• Keep in mind that you need to keep your product data feed updated at all times – especially when it comes to availability and price adjustments. It goes without saying: Optimize, maintain, and check your data feed at regular intervals. This is because once data with errors or gaps is provided, the respective product may not be adopted or listed by your sales partners.

You can already see: Even if your product data feed is well set up, occasional updates are indispensable. Whenever you increase prices, make adjustments to the product availability, add new products to your assortment, or launch promotions, you’re required to update your data.

Also, a complete and well-maintained product data feed can only come to be when all data from all sorts of sources are unified in a clean, clear-cut manner without any redundancies. The to-be-managed data, however, rarely comes from a single source; the following domains may contribute to generating a complete set of all your product data:

• Product development provides all particular product specifications that are only known to your team in this form.
• Alternatively – or additionally –, product data may be supplied directly from the manufacturer.
• Your product managers optimize the product descriptions.
• Your marketing department assigns strategic keywords to the products in order to increase findability in the SEO field.

Further data may come from:

• A CRM system that unifies product data and customer data.
• The data system of your online shops that unifies the product with the search and purchase patterns on top of your customers’ consumer behavior.

How, then, can you bring together all this data in the best possible manner so as to form a single, well-manageable, and flexible data record? How can you make updates in a quick and easy fashion? How can you make sure to prevent duplicate data records so that you team can rely on complete and correct data records that convince with high data quality at any given time?

 

Our Definite Recommendation: a PIM System

In a PIM system (Product Information Management system), you can manage all your product information efficiently and smoothly distribute it to all sales channels – be it online shops, B2B or B2C marketplaces, apps, comparison portals, or online catalogs. A PIM takes your product data feed and elevates it to the next level of efficiency and applicability.

Think of PIM as your well-assorted shop next door that you would recommend to your friends: All products are neatly organized in intuitive categories so that you always have the full overview; you can search and sort relevant data according to your individual use case or, in the customer’s case, the current purchase decision; and you can easily compare products and articles. All this is established by a PIM – with the difference that PIM is like a digital rather than a physical store. With a PIM, you organize all your product data and media assets in user-defined hierarchies – e.g., by brands, types, or specific attributes –, you create relations between products, and you create the optimal basis for your product presentation on the web.

The product data model created hereby facilitates the management of your product data – and renders your data all the more flexible. Use your PIM system to personalize your product information, for example to strategically address your target groups – allowing you to appeal to a diverse range of regional markets. How is this possible, you may ask. You can do so, for example, by also maintaining your complete data records in relevant translation languages together with corresponding digital assets. This way, even a multi-lingual customer experience can be achieved in a smooth manner – while everything stays consistent even across multiple languages.

By providing further technical data (such as measurements, compatibilities, energy efficiency, operation requirements, and further specifications) as well as images and other kinds of media (optionally with the connection to a Digital Asset Management system), you perfect your product data. Accordingly, you can now look forward to…

• how all the different data sources are unified to constitute your consistent data pool,
• managing and distributing your product data throughout all stages of the customer journey
• and the entire customer experience.

 

In Closing, Some Tips: This is how you can optimize your product data feed

In order to make sure that your products can be searched, found, ranked, and accessed in the most optimal manner possible, you should keep the following in mind:

• Optimize your product titles: Put extra emphasis on short but concise formulations that only contain the most relevant information.
• The same applies to product descriptions: They should be 500 to 1000 characters long and only contain important information.
• Ask yourself what kind of expressions your target group uses when searching for your products – and add corresponding synonyms (e.g., a “hoodie,” “jumper,” and “sweatshirt”).
• When adding colors, be more general rather than concrete: Users are more likely to search for “light green” than “spring-meadow green.”
• Define categories for your products; and assign multiple ones if your product fits into several of them in a meaningful way (e.g., “outdoor clothing,” “clothing for change of season,” and “weatherproof clothing”).
• Make sure that every product has a European Article Number (EAN) as well as a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN).
• Always specify product sizes in all relevant measurement systems.

We wish you a good run with your new, well-organized visibility in digital sale!

Accelerating and Simplifying Business Processes with CPQ – How It’s Done

You want to secure your competitive edge and set yourself apart from your competitors in a highly competitive business environment? Then you should be in search for a timely solution in order to optimize, digitize, and automate your business processes. Efficiency, after all, is the key to staying successful in our fast-paced and digital world. Luckily, there are smart tools which support companies on this path. Two performative software solutions which can help you enhance the management and sales of your products are CPQ (Configure Price Quote) and PIM (Product Information Management).

While a CPQ software serves the primary purpose of optimizing offers and processes for offer creation, the PIM puts its focus on consolidating and managing product data. A heavenly combination for automating your business workflows and making them even more efficient. In this blogpost, we let you in on what’s behind CPQ and to what extent the combination of CPQ and PIM can drastically improve your processes.

Configure Price Quote: What’s Behind its Three Concepts?

1. Configure: Realizing Individual Customer Whishes
Just as the name says, this first step is about the configuration of a product or service which consist of various components. Accordingly, the CPQ solution also functions as a product configurator. Both, product configurator and CPQ, are tools which help companies in creating tailor-made products for customers. There are, however, definite differences between the two:

• Product Configurators: A product configurator is an interactive tool which enables customers to put together their own product variant. To this end, it makes sure that all selected options fit together and it generates a visual model or description of the final product. The product configurator is often used in conjunction with an e-commerce system to facilitate the ordering process of the product and to provide the customer with a positive customer experience.
• CPQ: CPQ systems do, in fact, go one step beyond pure product configurations. They help companies in creating customized offers. Such offers may, for example, include variant prices and discounts. The CPQ system lets sales team members generate offers in a quick and easy manner without any manual calculations.

Or in short:
Product configurators serve the primary purpose of making the configuration and ordering of products in an individualized and customer-specific way possible, whereas a CPQ system does, additionally, also facilitate the generation of offers together with the dynamic pricing for such customized products.

2. Price: Dynamic Pricing Made Easy
Determining the prices is a decisive step in the sales process. A CPQ automatically factors in the listings of all individual components and their quantity for the configured product, while also taking discounts and other cost factors into consideration. This way, it can determine the exact price for the configured product. Nowadays, discounts and special terms are common practice. The CPQ solution checks automatically whether the price creation is within the bounds of the discount limit. This way, you can avoid potential error sources and make sure that customers always get fair prices, while still bringing in profits.

3. Quote: Offer Generation Easily Automated
Having completed the configuration and determination of the price, the CPQ automatically generates a professional offer. The offer contains detailed information about the configured product, its price, the technical delivery conditions, and other relevant data. This offer content is organized into a CI-conform layout. A consistent and targeted offer which is appealing to customers strengthens their trust in you and increases the likelihood of a successful transaction.

 

What are the Pros and Cons of a CPQ Solution?

What concrete advantages do CPQ solutions bring to the table and, at the other hand, what challenges do they have in store for companies? This is what we want to examine more carefully now.

Efficient Configuration
• Fast and exact configuration of complex and multi-variant products or services
• Avoid mistakes during the offer creation thanks to automated configuration rules

Consistent Price Determination
• Uniform price structure for all products and services
• Taking account of discounts, actions, and customer-specific pricing rules

Accelerated and Automated Processes
• Faster offer creation and automated offer generation
• Shortening the delay between request and offer for a positive customer experience

Error-free Offers
• Automated calculation avoids incorrect prices and product configurations

Support for Sales Team
• Automated processes for offer creation disburden your sales team
• Thanks to access to all relevant product information, it’s easier to fulfill customer whishes

Besides Various Advantages, CPQ Software also Pose Challenges to Companies, including:
• A CPQ project means extra effort and expenses because of the initial implementation of the software into your existing IT infrastructure
• Additional costs because of software trainings for your co-workers
• Changing your established processes can be resource-consuming and strength-sapping work
• To fully exhaust all possibilities of a CPQ system, your company requires high-quality data of all products or services, since the system builds on exact, up-to-data product and pricing information for generating apt offers

 

PIM and CPQ: Top Combination for the Decisive Competitive Edge

A well-implemented CPQ solution provides companies selling complex and multi-variant products with a great many benefits: efficient, error-free sales processes, higher performance rates for the sales team, more positive customer experience, avoiding data redundancy – just to name a few.

All of this, however, does not click together without a consistent data foundation. And this is where PIM comes into play. As a central datahub, PIM can provide precisely this much needed data basis – a central source for all product information. The CPQ system can draw from this source to guarantee error-free product configuration and exact price calculations for offers. By combining both technologies, companies can make drastic improvements to their sales process.

The result is an efficient sales process enabling the sales team to react to customer requests in a fast and precise manner with competitive offers. This saves time and resources, granting your company the decisive business advantage for staying streets ahead of the competition!

ERP, IMS, CRM, CMS, and PIM – where are the Similarities and Differences?

Are you sometimes reminded of popular hip hop songs full of “rapcronyms” and other kinds of abbreviations such as in the popular hit “Miami 2 Ibiza” by the Swedish House Mafia while researching software revolving around the management and organization of your product offers? Doesn’t this issue already pop up as soon as you try to get started? We understand this sentiment very well. Lots and lots of acronyms stringed together as if they were lines in rap lyrics and song titles. Songs such as the one just brought up are similar to what you encounter when informing yourself about software tools: “IMS, CRM, and C-M-S, / ERP or PIM, let’s clean that mess,” one might be tempted to sing along.

Let’s try and see if we can get some order into this alphabet soup. Which abbreviation stands for what? What software takes care of which tasks? Sometimes it’s best to simply spell it out for others: IMS stands for Inventory Management System, ERP for Enterprise Resource Planning, CRM is Customer Relation Management, and CMS is Content Management System. PIM, finally, stands for Product Information Management.

We can illustrate to ourselves how each of these individual systems function by looking at a simple product. Let’s take a bike as an example. Picture your own bike or the bike you always wished you could own for yourself. It doesn’t matter. Now, let’s switch to the perspective of the bicycle dealer: what software is required at which point of the process in order to deliver this fancy bike, be it in thought alone or in reality, straight into your hands as the customer? You’ve defined your ideal frame size and you’ve decided which tires and color etc. to settle for. And this is where we get down to business: there is a substantial difference between manufacturing, stock keeping, offer processing, and distribution. And this is also where mere labels and abbreviations are no longer going to cut it and the systems themselves need to prove what their names only promise. So, let’s have a look!

 

ERP Software

When configuring a bike as a customer, the individual components are automatically put together by the ERP. Out of this, then, an order is generated out of all positions. ERP solutions know the article number, purchasing price, net price, bulk buy prices, the manufacturer, as well as short descriptions of the items themselves. That is to say, it knows all the information revolving around enterprise resources for each position. The ERP software takes your order and generates out of it the order and delivery note as well as the bill. Additionally, it manages your supplier and customer data.

In connection to all this, the sales numbers, profit analyses, supplier margins, or even sales analyses and balance sheets are also calculated and created with the ERP system. All in all, the ERP system focuses on all business administration tasks relevant to your company. The most well-known ERP providers are SAP or Microsoft Dynamics.

IMS

To be precise, the Inventory Management System is a subset of the ERP system, specializing in the stock keeping department. The Inventory Management System knows your stock and the availability of components of your bike, so that it can even tell you where exactly in your warehouse the spare parts of your bike are physically stored, to bring up the example from above again. It can control minimum and/or maximum stock levels and trigger order recommendations, while also keeping track of all incoming supplies. The IMS identifies non-sellers and can generate an evaluation of your warehouse or inventory list. All such information is transferred over to the ERP system or the online shop. Your benefit: you can already check the availability while ordering. Here, too, prominent systems are SAP or Microsoft Dynamics.

 

CRM

With a Customer Relationship Management system, you can manage all customer-related information and interaction. It knows, for example, that you’ve already bought three bikes in the past. Let’s assume that you have already purchased a ladies’ bicycle, a men’s bicycle, and a balance bike for toddlers. Accordingly, what would be more natural than displaying an ad for a child’s bike? After all, it can be inferred from the purchasing date that your child has grown up by now. Another scenario may be that you’ve purchased some spare parts. Naturally, it’s most likely the case that your bike has already served its purpose for a few years and it might be a good chance to consider a newer, more attractive model? In this case, too, CRM software can take care of the customer interaction. It sends out targeted mails and ads as well as information for related customer events. Popular CRM solutions include, for example, Salesforce and HubSpot.

 

CMS

A Content Management System manages all information about your bike and its components on websites or your online shops. Equipped with APIs or other interfaces, it receives all relevant data from the ERP or IMS system, for example prices and availability. However, this is insufficient for establishing an online presence or even an independent web shop. What’s still missing are images, technical data, manuals, datasheets, and much more. The management of such data for your web presence or online store is taken care of by your CMS tool. On top of that, it handles SEO texts, sales banners, page images, and further content required by shops and websites. Go-to systems to achieve all this are Typo3 and WordPress.

 

PIM

A Product Information Management system is the datahub for all your data. The PIM software stores all information on product data. From the ERP system, it draws the prices; from the IMS system, it can draw the availability. In short: PIM contains all product information. This does also include images and media of, to continue the example from above, your bike and its components: detail images, atmospheric images, 360-degree images, datasheets, manuals, and all meta-data. But also product descriptions, SEO texts, and technical details about the individual components are gathered by and in the PIM. Furthermore, the PIM software grants you the option of managing multiple languages, i.e. it supports data management with translation functions. Equipped with this, you already have built-in support for serving the international markets. Last but not least, PIM supports you in your workflows for all processes concerning data management and publication of your data for any connected systems – this also includes Desktop Publishing systems for designing catalogs and flyers. You can even directly transfer last-minute changes right before print release from one system to the other thanks to the connectivity of the PIM system. This way, you can make sure that all prices are correct and up to date – without any additional feedback loops and correction cycles.

 

Bring Your Product Data Into Line

As the central datahub, the PIM system distributes all information to connected systems. In particular, this includes CMS, shop systems, and websites. To the ERP system, a short description and the article name is sent, maybe with an additional preview image. This way, companies can manage their product data in an effective and efficient manner and get the best out of it. And it also guarantees that all data is always up to date and fully available. In short: PIM provides a frictionless connection to all the various systems such as ERP, IMS, CRM, and CMS.

Be it bikes, coloring and coating, travels and tours, carpets, or fashion: these fantastic five systems help you on your exciting path to reaching out to your customers. With a strategic and smart integration of these helpful systems, you can provide your customers with targeted and relevant information, hereby creating an even better purchase experience. Finally, we’ve come full circle and have returned to our opening remarks, so that you’re now ready to “rap along” the next time somebody throws around abbreviations revolving around systems which will give the beat for your business. Now, the name of the game is: “IMS, CRM, and C-M-S, / ERP or PIM, we’ve cleaned that mess!”

ETIM: The Open Standard for the Classification of Your Products

 

What is ETIM?

ETIM stands for “Electrotechnical Information Model,” a classification system that unifies product descriptions from commerce, the industries, and construction. It’s a universal standard which can present product data in a neutral manner and independent of specific manufacturers, media formats, and languages. Equipped with this classification, retailer and manufacturer speak a common language, hereby facilitating and accelerating communication even on an international level. Initially, with the founding of “ETIM Deutschland e. V.” in Germany in the year of 1999, the open standard has exclusively been used in the field of electrical engineering up until 2015. By now, the classification system has also been adopted by many other sectors such as the “Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning” industry (HVAC) and “Tools, Hardware, and Site Supplies” industry (commonly abbreviated as WEBA in German, but there is no direct equivalent used by the English-speaking engineering communities). With the founding of “ETIM International” in 2008, the classification has started to receive a very high acceptance rate and recognition across all of Europe. In general, it’s a free standard so that you can utilize its data model without any license fees; you can also opt for a paid ETIM membership if you want to actively participate in the continuous optimization and refinement of the model.

 

How does ETIM work?

For the classification with ETIM, your products are assigned to corresponding article classes in a flat hierarchy. In order to achieve an exact mapping of all individual products, the differentiation of classes is very meticulous, resulting in a rich number of classes. Finally, all these classes are summarized into thematic groups, but these groups only serve the purpose of providing a more convenient overview and better internal organization. All in all, the current version 9.0 of ETIM consists of a total of 5,554 classes for the following 5 sectors: “electrotechnical” (E), “HVAC and plumbing” (W), “building materials” (B), “shipbuilding” (M), and “Tools, Hardware, and Site Supplies” (T).

Every class contains a well-defined set of technical attributes. You can use these attributes to describe all products assignable to this class. In order to also guarantee that the inserted product information is uniform and well-structured, the attributes come in the form of selection lists so that all you need to do is select from a list of pre-defined input values. In case of numeric values, you can select the metric unit. Thanks to the unified language, terminology, and structure, it’s very easy to identify, describe, and compare products. This reduces a lot of effort when generating offers or commissions and simplifies the selection process for compatible products, among other things.

In short, you can divide the process of classification and description for your products into three steps:

1. Assigning products to product classes
2. Assigning the attributes of the class to the product
3. Describing the product using the list of pre-defined values
In ETIM expert panels and working groups, members actively work on optimizing and developing the model further. Accordingly, this universal solution enjoys a high acceptance rate and international recognition, together with high data relevance and usability in your daily business.

 

BIM meets ETIM: The Future of Digital Product Communication

BIM (Building Information Modeling) is the method which allows all companies active in construction to visualize a building across its entire life cycle using a 3D model. With it, they can achieve an optimal and efficient collaboration for all construction projects. The relevant information required to do so comes in a standardized terminology and has a uniform format. You can learn more about how this works in our blog entry “What is BIM? Building Information Modeling in Simple Terms.“

BIM is an integrative, digital planning method for construction of buildings and infrastructure. ETIM, on the other hand, offers a standardized classification and well-defined, uniform product attributes. Applying the classification and attribute structure of the ETIM standard to BIM models is what enables a simple identification of technical products and facilitates their integration into your planning process. Bringing together ETIM and BIM makes it possible to optimize, digitize, and carry out the efficient planning and realization of construction projects. This, in turn, translates into a higher customer satisfaction rate, lower costs, and faster project completions. A clear advantage for all parties involved, be it manufacturer, retailer, or planner.

 

BMEcat and ETIM: How a Central Structure Facilitates Product Communication

While ETIM takes care of the classification as well as the attribute structure, thereby securing the uniform description of your products, BMEcat is a standardized format for the exchange of catalog data between electronic catalogs (commonly referred to as e-catalogs). The combination of both standards renders possible a simple and efficient exchange of product data between manufacturers, retailers, and even customers. Besides ETIM, BMEcat is also the go-to standard format for the transfer of product data for ECLASS, profiCl@ss, and the XML format ARGE Neue Medien. You can find further information about BMEcat and an overview of its benefits in our blogpost “BMEcat – A Universal Exchange Format for Your Product Data.”

 

How does PIM Software Support You in the Classification of Products?

The PIM system is the central system for managing your product data. And since it contains all your product data, it already contains everything you need for ETIM. By integrating the ETIM classes that are relevant to your industry and products, you can efficiently classify every article while also maintaining a good overview, i.e. you can handle the assignment of products to ETIM classes with PIM. You can also do so across different ETIM versions. Thanks to these relations, the corresponding ETIM descriptions are directly stored at the product and can be accessed and edited using the PIM system. Your user-generated and already well-maintained product attributes can be linked automatically to the respective ETIM attribute, so you can manage everything from a single source without any redundant data management.

We from eggheads support you with our knowhow and 30 years’ worth of experience in product data and classification systems when it comes to building your own ETIM structure, the mapping of your product data, as well as data distribution with our universal BMEcat export. A compact solution thanks to which you don’t need to rely on any specialized software for designing and creating e-catalogs. Does this topic resonate with you? We’re always happy to have an exchange over a virtual cup of coffee, without any commitments on your end. Make an appointment for a personal conversation with us.

Optimizing Product Data and Realizing Business Objectives Even Faster

In our digital day and age, product data and information are of decisive importance for the success of companies. Through the optimization of product data, companies can reach out to their customers in a more efficient manner, boost their online presence, and improve sales. This blog entry goes in-depth on product data – what it is, why it is so important, and how you can optimize it in order to accomplish business goals in a much faster fashion. So, if you want to draw from the full potential of your product data, make sure to keep on reading!

 

The Importance of Product Data for Your E-Commerce Strategy

Now that we’ve defined what product data is and know just how complex it can be, there still remains the question of how crucial this is to the sales of products. One good answer to this question are the results delivered by an empirical study conducted by KPMG and Statista.

 

According to this study, 57 percent of the surveyed people wish for detailed product information to avoid personally returning products. 42 percent of the people do also wish for more detailed product images in this context. This means that the majority of people wish for an overall higher quality of product data which can serve as the basis for good purchase decisions without product returns. In short: the quality of data is decisive. This, in turn, is easy to comprehend if you consider the gigantic quantity of products comparable to one another in a vast market such as e-commerce. Customers here have the freedom – or agony – of choice and must, therefore, rely on correct, precise, and elaborate product descriptions and product information. The point being: high-quality data is necessary to stay streets ahead of the competition.

Only this way can you create target-group-oriented product experiences which inspire customers and motivate more purchases. To achieve the desired results, you ought to concentrate on the quality of your data. The following guides you in 5 steps through the best practices for getting the best out of your product data while also optimizing the quality of this data at the same time.

 

Step 1: Shifting Perspectives – Think Just Like Your Customers Do

The rule of thumb in this context is: customers think in use, not in product properties. So, before your company gets down to business and starts filling product data with life, it’s imperative that you first step into your customers’ shoes and view things from their perspective. Grab pen and paper and write down your answers to the following questions:

• What problems do your product provide solutions for?
• What kind of search terms would you use for googling after these solutions?
• Now, imagine you’ve found just the right product: which attributes and properties are essential to your product?

This step is of utmost importance! After all, this is what constitutes the concentration point where all your target-group-specific information comes together. With it, you create a solid foundation from which all subsequent steps follow, allowing you to realize your objectives in a strategic manner.

 

Step 2: Unmistakable – Convince with Your Unique Selling Points

After analyzing the needs of your customers, your second step should be to present the unique value your products bring to the table in a clear-cut manner. What makes your products special? How can they make your customers’ lives easier? Even seemingly simple standard attributes such as size, color, weight, or material can already leave a lasting impression.

An example may best illustrate this: you’re selling flowerpots in your online shop. Providing only a simple description or a single image with the headline “Flowerpot” to your customers may, with a very high possibility, be insufficient for motivating purchase decisions. What is unique to your flowerpot? Tell an authentic story which inspires your customers to buy exactly this flowerpot and no other.

There’s one thing in particular that you should keep in mind concerning this step: in the first step, you’ve already determined the concepts and keywords which customers type into search engines to look for products like yours. Make sure to integrate them into your description in meaningful ways. This way, you don’t only provide relevant information to your shop but also make sure that your product or service can be found across different channels.

 

Step 3: Coherence – Pay Great Attention to Uniform Descriptions

One further golden rule for a successful online shop is the uniformity of your product information. The reason for this is self-evident: providing different currencies, measurement units, or color labels for related products will quickly make your shop appear to be unprofessional and may, consequently, result in consumers opting for the competition instead.

Conduct regular check-ups for validating the uniformity of your product data. For example, have you used the correct currency and the correct measurements in all target channels? Also take the coherence of your product images into account. Make sure that your customers are provided with high-quality images. Such images should clearly display both your product as well as its unique selling points. A uniform presentation of your data is a must-have you should establish across all your online marketplaces.

 

Step 4: Consistency – Structure Your Product Data

To make it so that customers can find their desired products when browsing you shop, you should sort your product data by specific product groups or categories. Here, too, the same principle applies: look at it through the customers’ eyes. To make this point as explicit as possible, let’s once more refer back to our flowerpot example: judging from your customer’s viewpoint, in which categories would you expect to find what you’re looking for? The answer to this question depends on the scope of your product portfolio. Assuming you’re a specialized flowerpot manufacturer, a categorization by use cases may be adequate. This is an entirely different story, however, if you offer an assortment of diverse products across several domains. In this case, you should neatly organize everything into parent categories and sub-categories to give your shop a simple structure to navigate through. The flowerpot, to stick to the example, would then be available under the category decorations or similar labels.

When it comes to the structuring of your data, here you should keep another rule of thumb in mind: Make things easy for your customer!

After all, if you customers can get straight to their desired article with little to no effort, you simplify the customer journey and make it more experienceable – all the while reducing the bounce rate to the minimum.

 

Step 5: Single Source of Truth – Manage Your Data Centrally

If you’ve carried out step 1 to 4 consequently to the end, then you’ve already done a lot of things right. The place where you store all this high-quality data and product information, however, is also a decisive success factor for the optimization of your product data. For example, if your product information is spread over various excel lists or multiple digital tools and file systems, you’ll be quick to find out that maintaining your data is a process prone to fatal errors which will not remain unnoticed by your customers.

This does not only cost time but also money. Shop operators who sell a large quantity of products across various online marketplaces should, therefore, invest into a PIM. In a PIM system (Product Information Management), you can structure data in a customized manner for target groups, manage large quantities of data centrally, and automate exports to target channels and all given touchpoints at specified time intervals. At the same time, automated processes accelerate your time-to-market. In short: with a PIM, you get the maximum out of your product data and secure your company’s competitive edge.

The Product Classification Brings Order into Your Product Data

Every manufacturer and retailer of a product knows the ins and outs of what it has to offer. They are well familiar with the properties which perfectly describe their product and which make its uniqueness vividly graspable. Naturally, the company’s naming conventions, own neologisms, and individual style do also determine what the description of the product assortment looks like. All these aspects are important when it comes to differentiating your brand from the competition and conveying the feeling the brand stands for. After all, the kitchen chair is not simply brown: it has a warm color with a hint of red shimmering through – a chestnut brown. Or your product may feature other unique characteristics. For example, the grip of the hammer is made out of reinforced plastic, allowing its owner to also use it near wires which conduct electricity.

Together, they function as an important decision-making criterion for your customers to select the right product. On the basis of this information, they can compare products – within your own assortment, but also with other product offers on the market. And this is where the product classification comes into play: it’s what grants your product data and information the required structure. It forms the perfect foundation for smooth data refinement in your PIM or ERP system and also guarantees a fast data transfer for optimal presentation in your online shop or e-catalog. In short: For those in the e-commerce and e-business world who want to market products internationally and globally, product classification is an uncircumventable topic. Further benefits include that your products will be presented in a much clearer and more distinct manner, be it in your own internal system or external sales channels. This, in turn, translates into higher customer conversion rates. How exactly product classifications function, what advantages they have to offer, and how you can profit from them – find out all this and more if you keep on reading.

 

What is a Product Classification?

When classifying products, they’re organized into so-called group structures and categories. In the process, each data record of your data pool is assigned to its respective category with specific properties. The product classification hereby allows you to find and compare product information more easily, while also simplifying and unburdening the entire data traffic going on between the systems of manufacturers, online shops, marketplaces, suppliers, and retailers.

Most commonly, data is organized in so-called standard classifications such as GPC, UNSPSC, or ETIM. These are centered around industry-specific criteria, providing you with a classification method which fits your company’s needs. The data exchange, in turn, is simplified with standardized exchange formats such as BMEcat.

 

How Product Classifications Prove to be Useful for You

For directly and automatically transferring your product portfolio into e-procurement systems (e.g. of wholesale retailers), a standardized description is necessary. To this end, there are product classifications by classification standards used within the respective industry. One example is the standardization developed by ETIM e.V., utilized for facilitating the product data exchange between the two industries of electrical installation as well as HVAC or sanitary engineering. In this particular case, we’re looking at an ID-based data model composed out of product classes, attributes, and attribute values.

Of course, there are also other classification standards. Other prominent examples include ECLASS, GPC, and profiCl@ss, which are employed in their respective industries. More often than not, they come with their own unique classification principle (while others build on and modify existing classifications, e.g. the XML format developed by ARGE Neue Medien was originally build out of the ETIM classification). By now, you may already have realized just how diverse the field of data processing really is. In order to make your journey through this field as simple and efficient as possible, you should first answer the following question before anything else: Which product classification do I need? How should the classification be structured in more detail? And how do I map my own data model onto it in the best possible manner?

 

This is how Product Classifications and Exchange Formats Synergize

Which product classifications you need is often times dictated by the market. It may be the case that a retailer or manufacturer demands a specific data format. A best practice example is to combine BMEcat with ETIM.

The widely used BMEcat format is applied to create e-catalogs. BMEcat has been slightly modified and expanded by ETIM in order to fit the requirements of all the industry-specific software systems involved. Usually, the product group structure is determined and parsed into the BMEcat format by the company which provides the data. However, in the use case of combining BMEcat with ETIM, this is no longer necessary, since ETIM already comes with the definition of such a group structure in its standard. No extra effort required. The receiving systems can already interpret the ETIM standard with their built-in means alone and can directly identify which article is to be assigned to which ETIM product group etc. In an ideal scenario, all suppliers agree upon operating with the same classification standard, meaning that all searches for orderable articles in e-procurement systems work with one and the same structure.

Another lesson you can take from this is that you need to be well familiar with both, your own data model and relevant product classifications. And this is where the use of a PIM systems (Product Information Management) can be extremely helpful.

 

Nothing Short of Classy: PIM and Classifications

PIM software serves the purpose of organizing your data in a data model in accordance with your product requirements. This way, you can map your products perfectly in a use-case neutral manner, without already having to worry about data exports and product classifications. Instead, you can approach the matter in a follow-up step, where you develop a mapping with which you can assign any given product attribute from your existing data structure to the required attributes of the respective classification. For example, the classification may only know the color brown; but in the terminology of your own data model, the product has the attribute chestnut brown; so, in the mapping, you can simply determine that the attribute chestnut brown is to be mapped onto and exported as brown.

In such a manner, you can map your entire data pool to a relevant classification’s requirements in step-by-step manner. In order to support you in this process, we’ve developed a method for our eggheads Suite which makes the mapping of your data as smooth as possible. Once the mapping is set up, you can automatically parse any set of relevant data records into the target classification and export it to target channels at the click of a few buttons.

Are classifications a topic on your current agenda? If so, don’t hesitate to contact us. Our experts have years’ worth of expertise in this field and are always happy to provide you with help when it comes to overcoming challenges revolving around product data. No obligations on your end. Here’s our contact form.

BMEcat Standard – For the Successful Exchange of Catalog Data

In the times of ever-evolving digitization, digital standards for date exchange have long become indispensable. After all, it’s crucial for efficient product management that data can be quickly transferred back and forth between various software systems. Digital standards are a good method for realizing an uncomplicated processing of all corporate data.

 

What is BMEcat?

BMEcat is a standardized format for the exchange of catalog data pooled together in electronic catalogs (so-called e-catalogs) between supplier and customer. It’s primarily used in the B2B sector, independently of the industry. The BMEcat format supports manufacturers and wholesale retailers in supplying the e-procurement systems of their customers with standardized electronic product catalogs. Those who don’t use an exchange format are, instead, required to create all product data manually in their system or typing it out manually by using print catalogs or excel sheets as a basis. Sounds tedious, doesn’t it? BMEcat takes care of all this for you. In doing so, it shifts the focus to the optimal searchability and findability of one’s own products in the recipients’ software systems while also making them stick out against the competition.

However, what even does the concept BMEcat stand for? In 1999, the Fraunhofer Institute (German Industrial Engineering IAO in Stuttgart) developed the BMEcat catalog version 1.0 in collaboration with Duisburg-Essen University. Two years later in 2001, the German Federation BME for Materials Management, Sales, and Logistics (Bundesverband Materialwirtschaft, Einkauf und Logistik e. V.) developed the more advanced version 1.2 of this BMEcat standard for electronic product catalogs. No more than five years later in 2005, finally, the most recent version of BMEcat was released, regarded as state-of-the-art by industries and experts to this day.

How does BMEcat work?

The BMEcat format is a normative description for the structure of XML files (Extensible Markup Language). This means: BMEcat determines the structure for the transfer of digital data. Based on this, software which can interpret the standard is able to automatically process all data, store received information about orderable products, and may itself also provide this information on demand to connected systems.

In addition to properties, prices and order-specific data, a BMEcat file often contains a tree-like structure of product groups to which the articles contained in the data delivery are assigned. The information can be either generally valid or recipient-specific.

Since 2005, committees concerned with e-catalogs have been privileging BMEcat as their standard format. In particular, this includes industrial bodies which develop classification standards for norming product data transfer. Paradigm examples in the area of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria are ECLASS, ETIM, and profiCl@ss, as well as the XML format developed by ARGE Neue Medien (which is itself based on the ETIM standard). Your country and industry may also employ other standards and norms such as UNSPSC etc.

 

What benefits does BMEcat offer?

BMEcat stands for a well-structured and optimized basis for data exchange across your entire product-data-related supply chain. The biggest advantage is the enormous time save when supplying e-procurement systems with standardized e-catalogs for customers. Besides this, however, BMEcat still has much more to offer:

• Quick and secure data transfers
• Freely configurable mapping for products and services
• Generate multi-lingual catalogs out of a single document
• Optimize all procurement and sales processes
• Translatability and compatibility with related classifications such as ECLASS, ETIM, and UNSPSC
• Industry-independent standard for data exchange well-established in regions such as German, Switzerland, and Austria
• Support for BMEcat catalog creation and design directly in software solutions

BMEcat, Data Quality, and PIM Systems

PIM systems (PIM = Product Information Management) are utilized by companies as their central datahub. With a PIM, all data is pooled at a central spot, managed centrally, and then distributed into the various market and sales channels. PIM systems guarantee well-maintained product data and high data quality. Quality of data here primarily means complete information and valid values for technical specifications. Product data can be mapped onto any format based on the requirements of the respective publication platform. This way, you can set up the active transformation from a BMTcat file or into a BMEcat file based on classification standards such as ETIM or ECLASS with relative ease – as a default export method in your PIM system.

As part of the process, the export collects all data and information required for creating a valid BMEcat file. The PIM system here provides the additional function of data quality assurance and structured distribution, including the actual classification procedure of the relevant data. Finally, a BMEcat file is generated in a fully automated manner and sent directly to the recipient system. In other words, you don’t need additional third-party software for parsing your data into the BMEcat format. PIM comes with the benefit of carrying out the data management and the mapping to e-catalogs within one and the same system, allowing you to switch between the relevant software modules at the click of a button. Accordingly, you also benefit from only having to maintain a single, all-encompassing data source. Equipped with this, you can kiss redundant data maintenance across multiple systems goodbye. During each and every export, the validity of the current data foundation is checked automatically thanks to the standards and classifications, hereby reducing the room for error to the minimum.

We eggheads made good use of the free configurability of exports as one of the functions of eggheads Suite and developed a universally applicable BMEcat export. Users can adjust it to their own individualized data model in a do-it-yourself manner – or make use of your support services and benefit from our expertise for doing so. After the initial setup, you’ve got a fully automated digital data transfer method at your disposal. Your product information is distributed directly to recipient systems – in a simple, efficient, and time-saving manner.

BMEcat or related classification topics are on your current agenda? If so, feel free to shoot us a mail and let’s have a look together at how we may be of help when it comes to mastering your challenges.

How Effective are Translation Processes in PIM with and without a Translation Management System?

On a daily basis, companies internationalize and localize text content of all kinds – be it for products or services, be it information offers to B2B parties or B2C target groups. Sometimes in the form of internal datasheets travelling across corporate departments, at other times as published ads ranging from digital print catalogs to digital channels such as online shops and apps with multimedia content.

An integral part of the solution for optimally managing this colorful variety of content is a centralizing Product Information Management (PIM). Here, users pool together all data records and product texts, enrich them further, and, finally, distribute them to all relevant target channels. To this end, on the one hand, many PIM systems provide you with built-in functions for Translation Management. Yet, on the other hand, there are many more kinds of translation-relevant texts floating around in your company which are only indirectly related to product data. This is why there are Translation Management Systems (TMS) for all needs revolving around translations.

Now, considering this overlap between Content Management and Translation Management, the following questions naturally present themselves: Is it possible that a PIM with fully integrated translation functions all by itself can even replace a TMS tool? How about the alternative to simply outsource translation-relevant texts to freelance translators or translation agencies? Maybe a combination of both options is even more attractive – and, if so, what does this mean for data exchange and collaboration?

Lastly, the translation process is one of the most costly affairs when it comes to content creation. Even if you’re only offering your product in, say, the language of your main region together with an international language such as English. This is why we want to analyze the synergies between PIM and Translation Management from the viewpoint of the big picture in this blog post together with you.

How does Translation Management function and what is a Translation Memory?

In translation praxis, you can put your trust into a fast selection of helpful tools. Such tools are commonly summarized under the umbrella term Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT): The human being is doing the translation work, but digital assistance is provided in the form of spelling and grammar checkers, online dictionaries, and terminology or glossary lists for your industry of specialization. And in the case of Translation Memory Systems as all-in-one solutions, all benefits of these auxiliary resources are unified in a single, central CAT system. Just how a PIM system brings together all processes revolving around product data.

At the same time, the acronym TMS is often also synonymously interpreted as Translation Memory System. What does the word “memory” mean here? The system saves or, quite literally, memorizes all translated texts in all language pairs. It does so under the principle of “segment-based translations”: Continuous texts are divided into the smallest semantically meaningful unit, namely sentences. This segmentation is coupled with an alignment of the sentence in the source language (SL) and its respective target language (TL). On the word level, the system additionally memorizes all your company’s newly translated terminology. All this serves the following purpose: When translators work with new texts in the integrated text and translation editor, the system automatically compares to-be-translated sentences with all already translated sentences in the database. Accordingly, matching translation and terminology suggestions are directly displayed in real time.

• „100-Percent Match“: There is a 1:1 correspondence between the to-be-translated sentence and an already translated sentence.
• „Fuzzy Match“: There is a partial correspondence with an already translated sentence. Both TMS and PIM systems can calculate the exact percentage of overlap and can rank suggestions accordingly, starting with the most relevant suggestion.

With that, translators have a field day. They evaluate recommended suggestions and adopt them at the click of a button – depending on the use case, the translator can then finish the translation of the text or adjust it to the given context together with other finishing touches. And, once again, the system does also memorize these newly translated sentences for future translation projects. This way, your company maintains a valuable multi-lingual text corpus for all its texts and data.

 

Main Benefits of TMS-Tools for PIM

The benefits of a Translation Management System are more than obvious: The segmented-based translation alone with its real-time translation and terminology suggestions has much to offer…

• Fast and efficient translation process
• Avoid repetitions and redundancy
• Consistent tone and style for securing your corporate language across all regions
• Collaboration and division of labor for text editing and translation
• Creating automated machine-based translations in combination with post-editing work by human translators

The costs saved multiply if your factor in the creation of different text variants, for different target groups, on different target platforms – and increases exponentially for each additional target language.

Besides translation functions, almost all Translation Management Systems take care of the entire user-defined translation workflow. From the creation of the translation task to the billing on the basis of word count or time required for the translation. This is how Translation Management centralizes all functions and processes for localizing content – on the opposite end, however, it does only cover a fraction of the internationalization process, as we shall now see.

 

PIM as a Solution for Translation Processes – without TMS?

PIM, too, is a comprehensive system solution: As early as in the stage of data analysis, as part of the initial PIM implementation project, all product attributes of your assortment down to the very last article are checked extensively for translation relevance and internationalization potential. Language settings are an integral part of a company’s own data model, as actively managed and maintained by the PIM users. Depending on the setup of the data model of a company, this does not only include product and service data, but also analytics and supplier data. This way, PIM creates the ideal data foundation for all language-dependent use cases, one of which is internationalization.

A further enabling condition is the regular creation of translation tasks for data and content. In the industry, we refer to this field as “Translation Management”: Translation managers evaluate translation-relevant content, define translation projects, and accompany them throughout until the quality assurance is complete.

Concerning the evaluation of translation-relevant texts, too, you’re sitting right at the “single source of truth” thanks to PIM. Equipped with extensive search functions and user-defined search criteria, translation managers analyze all data records at the click of a few buttons, for example for the purposes such as: spotting currently untranslated attributes of actual products, translations which are outdated, or product texts which don’t match the user-defined data quality rules.

On the basis of such a well-selected set of data objects in the form of search results, a translation project can be created directly. This includes defining parameters such as relevant language pair(s), additional filters for selecting only translation-relevant data objects required for the current use case, due date, and the translators in charge. As part of the integrated workflow of your PIM, such translation projects can then be translated either directly in the text editors of the system – or outsourced accordingly, be it to a connected in-house Translation Management System or an external translation agency.

When completing the project, the PIM system knows exactly where translated data records belong to and directly stores them at the relevant data objects with their product attributes. Thus, a gapless process comes to its closure.

In short: Even by itself, PIM software is already an excellent Translation Management solution for data of all sorts. Some PIM systems even have a dedicated software module for translation functions to offer. However, without TMS connectivity, your in-house translators will have to fall back to the Computer-Assisted Translation tools (CAT) mentioned above – these alternatives are usually available for free. While it’s true that elaborate Translation Memories, in turn, come with licensing fees, they will easily pay dividends given that they simplify the entire translation process from start to finish in an all-encompassing manner.

 

Synergy between PIM and Translation Management

Last but not least, let’s have a closer look at the PIM-plus-TMS synergy. PIM solutions are explicitly designed to systematically pool together all your company’s data. Which is why connecting third-party systems poses no challenge whatsoever – be it a Translation or a Content Management System. All data exchanges are enabled thanks to the “XLIFF” translation exchange format – this way, even the active collaboration with external translation agencies is a secure alternative. Specialized PIM solutions can even process translation and terminology suggestions in real time as provided by the connected Translation Memory, displaying them directly in the text editors of the PIM’s graphical user interface. Starting from the opposite direction, you can also transfer translations created in PIM over to the TMS. Such features, in turn, are based on conventional “REST” interfaces as an out-of-the-box function which is standard for most Translation Management Systems.

And let’s not forget about the content creators and marketers who work with PIM either. They, too, can check translation and terminology suggestions for their source-language texts in the PIM text editors. This means that they can already start internationalizing content as they write it. If you have a PIM with print or DTP functions in place, you can even set up user-defined templates for publications tailor-made for relevant target platforms and make use of dynamics and automatisms to fill them with content at the click of a few buttons – namely, in each relevant target data language. Once a new content cycle draws near on your agenda, you can simply re-use these templates again and let your designers add the finishing touches to adjust things to the current use case. This is how some of our customers supply physical and digital channels internationally in more than 30 languages with the help of our PIM system, eggheads Suite.

It’s This Simple to Create Product Datasheets

Successful sales require more than simply offering the perfect product. A study by ECC Köln in collaboration with Hermes, SAP, and Yapital has shown that 85 percent of all shop visitors conceive of the product description as the decisive criterion for committing to a purchase decision. The less intuitive the product, the more important extensive and easy-to-understand product content is required to be. To this end, the product datasheet makes for an integral aspect of your product presentation.

However, what exactly is a datasheet? At first glance, the answer seems simple. Yet the more one zooms into the nitty-gritty details, the more difficult it becomes to formulate a clear-cut definition. In this blog entry, we have an in-depth look at this topic. We get to the very bottom of the question of what makes for good datasheets and demonstrate to you – using ONLINEPRINTERS Group as an example – how you can create datasheets yourself in effectively no time.

 

What Purpose do Product Datasheets Serve?

Datasheets are an important instrument for Product Marketing and Sales. Essentially, it’s about the presentation of the most crucial product information, allowing potential customers to see at a glance whether or not the product is what they’ve been looking for.

Datasheets serve the following elementary functions:

• Presentation of the most important information about the product
• Comprehensive overview of the product
• Quick access to technical data
• Clear distinction from similar products
• Easy comparability

Important: Product datasheets aren’t manuals. The name of the game is to provide consumers with an overview of functions and technical data which is as compact as possible, so keep the number of pages low.

You may also explain the use cases of you product. Here, the same idea applies: brevity is the soul of wit. Datasheets are primarily about providing an overview and facilitating the process of comparing products. After all, the purchasing process is about research and comparison, the price only comes after the fact.

The Must-Haves of Good Product Datasheets

Product datasheets can come in different layouts – be it text-heavy, table-centered, or like a glossy magazine. Indispensable are graphics of the product and a comprehensive presentation of technical information. The latter is best visualized in the form of a table or pivot table. For the ease of comparison, it make sense to standardize your datasheets across the board. This means that similar products should be presented in a similar way. If you’re active on the international markets, it’s essential to not only provide datasheets in the language of your main region but also in the language of your customers. For companies which design individualized products for their customers, it’s optimal to generate datasheets in an automated rather than manual manner, in order to make sure that all data is always up-to-date, correct, and consistent.

Naturally, there’re also technical aspects to look out for:

• Good readability on all end devices: Customers don’t only use PCs or laptops for getting the information they need. Accordingly, your datasheets should also be readable on smartphones and tablets.
• Thought-out print format: Many users print out product datasheets – be it as the basis for comparison or for a better overview. Which is why they should fit into a print format and also be usable in paper form.
• Up-to-date data: The most important thing, however, is that your data is always up to date. This is only possible if you never change your running system or automate the creation process. The manual creation process is always prone to error, so that data may be inconsistent and you may end up unintentionally providing customers with incorrect product data.

Meeting all these criteria poses a challenge for any company. However, you can tackle this problem head on by automating the generation of your datasheets. To this end, a PIM system is the best solution. This is how you can keep all your information up to date, automate translation processes, and compile everything in a clear well-standardized format.

 

Easily Automated: Ideal Product Datasheets in 4 Steps

Creating an ideal and flawless datasheet which convinces your customers and fulfills all technical requirements is a task which can barely be handled with manual labor alone. Thank god that there are suitable tools which can take care of the job. Using ONLINEPRINTERS Group as an example, we want to show you how this can be done in no more than 4 steps. ONLINEPRINTERS Group is one of the leading players on the European online printing markets. The group produces print outlets for more than 1,000,000 customers in over 30 countries across Europe – from flyers to complete exhibition stands.

To automate the production of product datasheets, ONLINEPRINTERS Group utilizes the PIM system developed by eggheads. The following process has stood the test of time:

1. Creating Generic SVGs (Scalable Vector Graphics)

ONLINEPRINTERS uses generic SVG assets – for both, their products and product groups. Such graphics come with placeholders. This means that, while the graphic remains the same, its content is dynamic. After creating the assets, they’re imported into the PIM.

2. Localizing Product-Specific SVGs

Having stored the generic graphics in the product system, the name of the game is to create product-specific graphics. On the one hand, this process depends on the specifics of the concrete article and, on the other hand, it depends on the respective language in which the articles are to be presented. All this is handled in a fully automated manner. In the process, a set of specific graphics is generated out of the generic SVG – one per product and language respectively.

3. Generating Multi-Lingual, Product-Specific Datasheets from Templates

In this process step, templates are used to automatically generate a datasheet for every product and article within the PIM system. The templates reference the previously-genreated SVG assets, integrates them, and creates product datasheets in multiple languages out of them. Once again, they are stored in the PIM so that every PIM user can access them, as necessary.

4. Distributing Publications to External Systems 

Finally, in the last step, the datasheets are ready for the export to external systems. For example, this may include shop systems where consumers can download the datasheets in required languages.

 

Conclusion: Automated Product Datasheets? No Problem!

Product datasheets are plain, they don’t snatch your attention with fancy graphics. What they do, however, is communicate product information in a clear and distinct way.

They’re the most important means of communication for customers who currently are in the last phase of the Customer Journey, providing them with the decisive impetus for purchasing the product. Because of the compactness of datasheets, the creation process poses a great challenge for many companies – from keeping product data up to date to customizing datasheets for specific target customers.

All these challenges can be mastered in effectively no time with the help of a PIM software, since it allows you to automate the creation process. The example of ONLINEPRINTERS group shows just how simple it is to automate product datasheets. With a PIM system as the central datahub, you can assure consistent data, flawless product information in multiple languages, and a clear-cut layout.

We’re always happy to show you in a personal web demo how to optimize and automate your product data processes with out software – individual, free, and without any commitments on your end. Secure your demo tour now.