A Product Information Management (PIM) system is a big investment. The features you prioritize today will determine your capabilities for a long time – from launch speed to digital shelf management across sales channels.

You may discover this reality the hard way.

After implementing a PIM that looked promising, you start finding out it’s missing some important capabilities. Your marketing team can't create rich descriptions, your e-commerce team struggles with marketplace formatting and collaboration becomes difficult.

Pick your PIM carefully, because its features directly impact:

• Your speed to market
• Your channel expansion opportunities
• Your overall data quality
• You team productivity
• Your product data experiences

So, when you evaluate solutions, look past the marketing materials. Vendors highlight similar-sounding features, but their solutions vary a lot in implementation depth.

If you don’t understand the specifics, you might select a system that meets your basic needs today but limits your growth tomorrow.

If you’re a big organization, dealing with many systems and channels, and vast amounts of products (and customers), read on. In this blog post I will lay out for you all the features to look out for.

Your company’s needs are unique, but if you use this as your shopping list, you can avoid learning the hard way. So, let’s go through the features to consider, group by group.

We’ll cover:

• Core data management and organization features
• Data quality and enrichment features
• Operational and collaboration features
• Commerce and channel enablement features
• Integration and scalability features

Core data management and organization features

These features will be at the core of any effective PIM system.

They define how well your product information can be structured, maintained and evolved over time. In other words: The bedrock for all your commerce operations.

Centralized product repository with flexible data modeling

You want your PIM to give you a single, authoritative source for all product information. Eliminate all product data silos and make sure everyone in your organization works with the same, up-to-date information.

What separates basic systems from advanced ones is the flexibility of the data model. Leading PIM solutions let you:

• Create custom product attributes that fit your specific industry needs
• Establish parent-child relationships between products (for variants, bundles, and collections)
• Set up inheritance rules that automate how information flows between related products
• Configure dynamic attributes that automatically update based on other data points

Let’s say you’re a sporting goods retailer.

You can set up a data model where size, color, and material variants inherit core product information from the parent product, but at the same time hold on to their unique specifications. Then, when the base product information changes, all variants update automatically, saving countless hours of manual updates.

Classification and taxonomy management

How you organize your products significantly impacts both your internal efficiency and customer experience. When you pick a PIM, look for advanced classification capabilities to:

• Create multiple hierarchies for different business needs (merchandising vs. supply chain)
• Build faceted classification systems for more granular product filtering
• Map your products to industry-standard taxonomies for better marketplace integration
• Automatically classify products based on their attributes, with machine learning

A good taxonomy structure gives you more precise product findability, better reporting and simplified product maintenance. It also helps you keep your categories consistent as your product catalog grows.

For a distributor managing thousands of products across dozens of categories, the ability to maintain multiple classification schemes (for their website, for the printed catalog, for the internal inventory management...) makes them far more efficient.

Version control and change history tracking

As your product information evolves, you want to be able to keep track of who changed what and when. That’s why you want version control features that give you:

• A complete audit trail of all changes to product information
• The ability to compare different versions of a product record
• Options to roll back to previous versions when needed
• Scheduled publication of future product updates

When you introduce new products or make seasonal catalog updates, and have multiple team members working on the same products at the same time, this is very valuable.

You get accountability, you can troubleshoot issues and you can always recover from mistakes.

If your supplier provides updated specifications for hundreds of technical products, version control lets you review the changes before they go live, approve them in bulk, and keep track of what changed and why.

Important stuff for both compliance and operational efficiency.

Data relationships and mapping

With a large, constantly growing, product catalog, you need a PIM that can handle managing complex product relationships. It should help you connect products and automate how information flows between related items.

You will want a PIM with capabilities to:

• Define parent-child relationships for product variants (like size/color combinations)
• Create product bundles and sets where component products maintain their identity
• Configure accessory and replacement part relationships

Inheritance rules are especially important. They determine how information flows from parent products to their variants. When you update a bike frame's material description, that change can automatically propagate to all bike models using that frame.

There are different inheritance types for different needs:

• Full inheritance where child products receive all parent attributes
• Selective inheritance where only certain attributes flow downward
• Override capabilities for variants to maintain unique values

If you are a large manufacturer with configurable products, inheritance rules make maintenance so much easier. Think of every time you need to update a component that is used across hundreds of products.

Data quality and enrichment features

Storing product data is only the first step. Your PIM should also transform basic product information into rich, engaging content that converts audiences across channels.

The quality and completeness of your product content directly impacts your customer experience and, ultimately, your sales performance.

Validation rules and quality scoring mechanisms

In advanced PIM systems, you can set up and enforce data quality standards through configurable validation rules. Those rules are your guardrails, ensuring your product information meets both your internal standards and external requirements.

You can set up validations for:

• Attributes that must added before a product can be published
• Format validations to keep everything consistent (for specifications, measurements, etc.)
• Value range checks to prevent errors (like negative dimensions)
• Pattern matching for standardized information (like model numbers)

The great PIM solutions don’t just validate your data. They also give different parts different scores, evaluating your product content against ideal standards.

So, instead of just telling you what's wrong, they direct your attention to the areas where you should improve.

Content enrichment tools and templates

The difference between basic product information and content that actually drives sales often comes down to enrichment capabilities. A good PIM system comes with tools that transform raw data into compelling product stories.

• Text editing tools with formatting capabilities, spell-check and character counters to create polished descriptions
• Attribute templates that pre-populate common information for similar products, saving enormous amounts of time
• Bulk editing capabilities for making consistent changes across multiple products at once
• Attribute cloning to copy content from one product to another

You also have templates to launch products faster, with standardized formats for different product types.

For example, when your team creates a new power tool listing, they can apply the "power tools template" and automatically populate the correct attribute fields (like safety warnings and technical specs).

Also here, some PIMs can score your content and make recommendations that help marketers understand where descriptions need improvement.

They analyze existing content and suggest enhancements that align with your brand voice.

AI-assisted content generation and enhancement

AI has transformed what's possible with product content.

In the most advanced PIM systems, you have tools that both make content creation much faster, and also raise the content quality across your whole catalog.

• Automated product description generation that creates initial drafts based on technical specifications and key selling points
• Intelligent attribute mapping that suggests fields when you import data from external sources, reducing manual work
• Image recognition for automatically tagging and categorizing product images based on visual content
• SEO optimization suggestions that analyze descriptions and recommend improvements for search visibility

AI tools usually learn your specific product language and brand voice over time. After processing enough of your existing content, advanced PIM can generate new descriptions that sound authentically like your brand, not bland, generic content.

Let’s say you’re a furniture retailer.

You can use AI-assisted content generation to give you basic specifications for a new sofa collection. The system can create detailed, on-brand descriptions for dozens of variants in minutes instead of hours. A human editor can then review and refine these generated descriptions. The human’s time and expertise is spent on enhancing the content, instead of starting from scratch.

AI can also help you maintain consistency across massive product catalogs.

When your terminology or messaging strategy changes, AI can identify all affected product descriptions and suggest updates that align with your new approach.

Digital asset management and media handling

Visual content sells products. That’s why media management capabilities play a big role in your PIM setup. To stand out in the marketplace, your PIM needs far more than basic image storage. Look for things like:

• Support for multiple file formats including images, videos, PDFs, 3D models and AR/VR content
• Automatic version control that maintains the history of asset changes and updates
• Asset transformation capabilities that generate the right sizes and formats for different channels
• Metadata management, so you can easily search and organize your visual content library

It’s a constant headache for marketing teams when their product images live in one system, specification sheets in another and videos somewhere else.

An integrated approach solves this problem. When your copywriter opens a product record, they should immediately see all associated assets in context.

Asset relationships also matter. Your PIM should let you distinguish between primary images, alternate angles, lifestyle photos and detailed specification shots. You should be able to prioritize which images appear first on which channels.

Translation and localization capabilities

If you sell globally, you have unique challenges with product information. You can't simply translate content word-for-word and expect it to resonate in different markets.

Content needs to be localized. And because that localization needs to be efficient at scale, your PIM should give you:

• Multi-language support that maintains translations alongside master content, not as separate copies
• Workflow tools that smooth out the translation process and track completion status
• Inheritance rules that automatically apply translated parent product information to variants
• Integration with translation management systems and services for efficient processing

The best systems also distinguish between what needs translation and what doesn't.

Product measurements might stay the same across markets, but product names and marketing descriptions need localization. Your PIM should intelligently manage these differences.

If you have massive catalogs, translation memory features help. They recognize if you have translated something before and then suggest that phrase.

Also, regional adaptations aren’t just about language.

Your PIM should help you manage market-specific attributes like local compliance certifications, regional pricing and availability information. You need to control which products appear in which markets and customize the content for each region's specific needs.

Operational and collaboration features

Solid data models and enrichment tools form the foundation of your PIM system, but real-world success depends just as much on how people use the system day-to-day.

The operational features determine whether your PIM becomes that indispensable, life-saving tool you planned for it to be.

Workflow automation and approval processes

Product launches can be complex. They need coordination across multiple teams and stakeholders. When you don’t have structured workflows, critical steps get missed, bottlenecks form and your time-to-market suffers. A good PIM should help with that, through:

• Configurable approval paths that match your organization's processes
• Status tracking to show exactly where products stand in the launch process
• Automated notifications that alert team members when their input is needed
• Exception handling for special cases that deviate from normal processes

Don’t force your product managers to spend hours each week sending emails to check on approvals and manually tracking status in spreadsheets.

With workflow automation, everyone involved in the process has visibility. Your merchandising team can see which products are stuck in legal review, while your copywriters know exactly which items need descriptions next.

Complete transparency replaces the constant "what's the status?" questions that plague manual processes.

The best workflow tools adapt to different product types and scenarios. A simple accessory might need only a basic review – regulated products need more compliance checks and approvals.

Role-based permissions and access control

Not everyone in your organization should have the same level of access to your product data. Different teams have different responsibilities, and your PIM should reflect that reality with smart permission controls.

• Granular permissions that limit who can view, edit or approve what content
• Role-based access controls based on your organizational structure and workflows
• Temporary access provisions for contractors or seasonal workers
• Audit trails that track who made what changes, and when

The best systems let you customize permissions based on both user roles and data attributes. For example, your pricing team might edit cost information but not marketing descriptions, or regional teams might access only products relevant to their markets.

Permission inheritance can simplify administration. When you organize your product catalog hierarchically, permissions applied at higher levels automatically flow down to child categories and products.

Your PIM should also integrate with your company-wide identity management systems. With single sign-on capabilities, you reduce friction for users and make sure that when someone leaves your organization, their access is immediately revoked everywhere.

Task management and collaboration tools

Product information doesn’t live in a bubble.

You need input from many departments and stakeholders, so your PIM needs good collaboration features. Here are some you should look for:

• Task assignment and tracking that shows who's responsible for which aspects of product enrichment
• Notification systems that alert team members when their input is needed or when changes affect their work
• Comment and feedback tools that keep discussions connected to the relevant product information
• Progress dashboards that show completion status across your catalog

The most effective PIMs treat collaboration as a core feature, not an afterthought.

They recognize that different teams speak different languages. Marketing thinks in terms of customer benefits, technical teams focus on specifications and legal worries about compliance.

Collaboration tools should accommodate these perspectives, of course without sacrificing data consistency. For instance, a technical team member should be able to update a specification, automatically triggering a notification to marketing that product descriptions might need revision.

Calendar views are also useful. They make it easier for teams to coordinate around product launches and seasonal updates. Everyone can see upcoming deadlines and dependencies.

Learn how Direct Supply improved onboarding speed by 94% and attribute completeness by 136% in this success story.

Data governance and stewardship features

If you have a massive, and growing, product catalog, it’s challenging to maintain data quality. Especially without proper governance structures, so make sure your PIM has those built in.

• Business rules engines that enforce data standards automatically
• Data stewardship dashboards that highlight quality issues needing attention
• Approval workflows that ensure proper review before information goes public
• Compliance tracking for industry-specific or regional needs

If you are a large organization, you probably have dedicated data stewards in charge of maintaining quality standards. Your PIM should support these roles with tools that make monitoring and improving data quality straightforward.

Look for systems that can automatically detect and flag potential issues:

• Missing required attributes
• Inconsistent formatting
• Outlier values that might indicate errors

Some PIMs don't just identify problems: They suggest potential solutions.

With custom validation rules, you have guardrails that prevent bad data from entering your system in the first place. For example, you might set up rules ensuring all product titles follow your brand conventions or that technical specifications use consistent units of measurement.

If your PIM lets you schedule data quality reports, that’s an effective way to keep stakeholders informed about the health of your product information, tracking improvements over time and finding areas you need to pay attention to.

Commerce and channel enablement features

To avoid slowing down your whole business, you need an efficient way to get your product information to market. That’s why modern PIMs need to do much more than just store data – they need to actively support your omnichannel commerce strategy.

Multichannel publishing and syndication

Your customers come across your products at all kinds of touchpoints, each of which needs properly formatted, timely information. Your PIM should excel at distributing this data, with features like.

• Flexible publishing schedules that let you plan releases around marketing campaigns and seasonal events
• Channel-specific content variations that follow your brand voice and different format requirements
• Incremental updates that only push changed information rather than complete product feeds
• Automated quality checks that verify data for each channel, before publication

Advanced systems can keep your master data and channel-specific adaptations apart.

That means you can make a single update to core product information, without losing all your channel-specific customizations.

It’s also useful to be able to preview how your content will appear on different channels before you publish.

And since you don’t want any nasty surprises that mess up the customer experience, try to find a PIM that lets your teams visualize exactly how product information will display on your website, in your mobile app or on marketplace listings.

Marketplace and e-commerce platform connectors

Your business is present on multiple marketplaces and platforms, each of which has their own technical requirements. A reliable PIM should help you with this with features such as:

• Pre-built connectors for major marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Walmart and relevant industry-specific platforms
• Integration with common e-commerce systems such as Shopify, Magento and Salesforce Commerce Cloud
• Support for industry standard formats like BMEcat, ETIM and other vertical-specific classifications
• Connector management tools that let you monitor the health and status of your integrations

These connectors should handle the technical complexities of each platform and map your product attributes to each marketplace’s specific fields.

A solid PIM can also manage the ongoing synchronization. If there are changes to the price, inventory or content, those changes flow smoothly to each channel.

Consider whether connectors are maintained by the PIM vendor themselves or by third parties. Vendor-maintained connectors are typically updated more often when marketplace requirements change.

Channel-specific formatting and requirements

Each sales channel has its own rules, capabilities and constraints. So, your PIM should be flexible enough to handle these differences without it affecting your core product information. Here are some features to look out for:

• Template-based formatting that automatically adapts content for specific channels
• Character count limits that ensure your descriptions fit within marketplace constraints
• Required and optional field mapping that meets each platform's minimum data requirements
• Category mapping tools that align your own taxonomy with each channel's classification system

Sophisticated PIMs learn from each of your channels’ performance. They help you identify which product attributes drive conversions on specific platforms. It makes it easier for you to prioritize the content enrichment efforts are most likely to give you a good ROI.

Be sure your system can handle image transformation requirements for different channels. Amazon may require specific dimensions and background colors, while your own website may need multiple high-resolution lifestyle images.

Digital shelf analytics integration

After you have published your product information, you need visibility into how it performs across channels, so you can keep improving your whole digital presence. Modern PIMs should be able to help bring you that visibility, through:

• Competitive monitoring that tracks how your products compare to alternatives on key marketplaces
• Content compliance scoring that measures how well your listings meet channel guidelines
• Search ranking analysis that shows where your products appear in relevant searches
• Buy box win rate tracking for marketplace sellers competing with other vendors

The most valuable analytics capabilities give you a feedback loop with your PIM.

When analytics find missing attributes that affect search visibility or conversion rates, that could trigger tasks within your PIM workflows to address the gaps.

Many organizations benefit from closed-loop systems where performance insights automatically find content to prioritize and enrich.

Integration and scalability features

Since your product information flows between a plethora of systems across your organization, your PIM needs to reflect that.

If the PIM can't properly connect with your existing technology ecosystem, it may just create more problems than it solves.

Enterprise system connectivity (ERP, PLM, CRM)

Your PIM has to be able to communicate smoothly with all kinds of core business systems that contain valuable product data or consume the enriched information you create. So, the PIM needs features like:

• Bidirectional synchronization with ERP systems that manage basic product data, pricing and inventory
• Connections to PLM platforms that generate design specifications and technical details
• Integration with CRM systems to give sales teams accurate product information
• Links to BI platforms that analyze product performance across channels

The most flexible PIMs let you choose your preferred integration method.

Methods range from batch processing for large data transfers to real-time API calls for time-sensitive updates. Flexibility is good when you need to find the right approach for each integration scenario.

Always consider the level of integration expertise you need. Some systems have user-friendly mapping interfaces that business teams can configure. With others, you may need developer resources.

The right balance depends on your organization's technical capabilities and how often your integration needs change.

Supplier data onboarding tools

Especially if you’re a retailer or distributor, the foundation of your product data comes from your suppliers. Therefore, make sure your PIM’s onboarding process as efficient as possible.

Look for features such as:

• Supplier portals that let vendors submit and update their product information directly
• Import templates tailored to different supplier types or product categories
• Transformation rules that convert supplier data to your internal data model
• Automated validation that ensures submissions meet your quality standards before entering your system

Advanced PIMs track supplier data quality over time, generating scorecards that tell you which partners consistently provide complete, accurate information. You can then work proactively with underperforming suppliers to improve their submissions.

Some systems also support digital asset requests. You can automatically notify suppliers when products don’t have required images or supporting documentation.

Learn how streamlined data exchange with its suppliers in this success story.

API capabilities and extensibility

Make sure your PIM can evolve with your business. Have a PIM strategy that is flexible enough to accommodate changing requirements. Here are some capability recommendations:

• RESTful APIs that support all core PIM functions, not just basic data access
• GraphQL support for more efficient, targeted data retrieval
• Webhook capabilities that trigger external processes when specific events occur
• Developer documentation and support resources for custom integrations

The most future-proof PIMs give you extension frameworks that let you customize functionality without modifying core code. You can perform upgrades without jeopardizing your unique business requirements.

Also, it’s good practice to make sure there are pre-built integrations with complementary technologies, like DAMs, translation services or product recognition tools. They make implementation and maintenance so much easier.

Performance and scalability considerations

As your product catalog grows and you expand into new markets, your PIM has to keep performing under increasing load. There are some critical performance factors to look out for:

• Catalog size handling that maintains responsiveness even with millions of SKUs
• Concurrent user support that serves your full team without performance degradation
• Import/export efficiency that can handle large data volumes in reasonable timeframes
• Global deployment options that serve users across different geographical regions

If you decide on a cloud-based PIM solution, scalability will probably not be a problem. Just make sure the pricing model doesn’t penalize you for this flexibility with unpredictable costs as your usage grows.

Make sure you ask the potential vendors about their largest implementations and typical performance metrics.

The best providers will share real-world benchmarks – not theoretical capabilities. They'll also discuss how their architecture handles common scaling challenges, like complex product relationships or extensive attribute sets.

When evaluating scalability, also consider not just the number of products, but:

• The complexity of your data model
• The volume of digital assets
• The frequency of updates

Factors like these often impact performance far more than simple product counts.

But even the most robust PIM with all these features represents just the beginning of what's possible with product data management.

As markets evolve and customer expectations rise, forward-thinking organizations know that managing product information effectively is only the first step. The real goal is creating exceptional product experiences across every customer touchpoint – which brings us to an important evolution in the industry.

Learn how Danfoss manages 1.5 million products across 33 languages in this success story. 

The evolution from PIM to PXM

The product data management landscape has undergone a significant transformation in recent years. What started as basic PIM has evolved into something more complete: Product Experience Management (PXM).

PIM centralizes and standardizes product information, creating a reliable foundation of accurate data. It focuses on the operational aspects of managing product attributes, specifications and assets.

PXM builds on this foundation. But extends much further by focusing on how customers experience your products across all touchpoints.

It transforms raw product data into compelling, contextual experiences tailored to specific customer segments, channels and moments in the buying journey.

This evolution happened organically as customer expectations transformed. Today's buyers just expect far more than basic product details: rich, personalized information that speaks directly to their needs – everywhere.

How Stibo Systems ties all this together

Let’s have a quick look at our own solution for some real-world context.

At Stibo Systems, we constantly see how organizations outlive their traditional PIM systems and need far more functionality. Our approach reflects this reality.

Overview of Product Experience Data Cloud

Our Product Experience Data Cloud (PXDC) handles both traditional PIM functions and newer product experience capabilities. We built it based on what our customers actually needed:

• It connects your scattered product data from ERP systems, supplier databases and old spreadsheets
• It helps you add better descriptions, images and specifications to that raw data
• It lets you share that improved information across all your sales channels without inconsistencies

We designed PXDC as a modular system with components that address specific aspects of the product data lifecycle. Each component works independently but gives you more value when used together on our integrated platform.

Our solution includes both core PIM functionality and extended capabilities that support your entire product journey. It means you don't need to piece together multiple solutions from different vendors.

How it integrates with our broader MDM capabilities

One aspect that makes our approach unique is how our PXDC integrates with other master data management solutions. It can connect product information with other critical data domains.

Our solutions give you a foundation for managing multiple types of master data, including:

• Customer information for personalizing product experiences
• Location data for regional variations and availability
• Supplier details for supply chain transparency

By connecting product data with these other domains, we help you create more contextual, relevant product experiences.

For example, you can combine customer preferences with product attributes for better recommendations, or link product and supplier information to support sustainability initiatives.

With this multidomain approach, your technical landscape becomes simpler. You have one platform for data governance across your whole organization, instead of separate systems for each data domain.

A few key differentiating features

We've developed several unique capabilities to address common challenges we've seen our customers face in product data management:

We are big on AI. Our AI-generated content features help you scale content creation by automatically generating product descriptions and enriching attributes based on existing information. That means far less manual effort when it comes to maintaining rich product content when you have large catalogs.

The platform comes with digital shelf analytics, so you can see how products perform across digital channels. You get a feedback loop that helps you continuously improve your product content, based on real-world performance.

We've also developed sustainability data management features that help you track and communicate environmental and social impact information about your products. These capabilities will only grow in importance as regulations become stricter and consumers more interested in sustainability.

Our platform architecture emphasizes flexibility. You can start with what you need most urgently and expand as your strategy matures. Since we’re using a modular approach, the implementation becomes much less complex from the start, and you have a clear path for future growth.

Final words

With the right PIM system – with the right features – you can transform how you manage product information across your organization.

I hope the capabilities we've explored in this blog post can give you a good knowledge foundation for successful product data strategies, and help you pick the right solution for your unique needs.

As you evaluate PIM systems for your business, focus on the capabilities that address your most pressing challenges first. But make sure it can grow with your needs.

The best PIM systems combine technical excellence with usability. They make complex data management tasks accessible to all team members involved in your product journey.

At Stibo Systems, we've seen how effective PIM becomes a competitive advantage for our customers, and it’s a beautiful thing. The right features don't just organize your data – they squeeze every drop of value out of each data set.

In the end, they help you create compelling product experiences that resonate with customers across every channel.

Stibo Systems Named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide PIM Applications for Commerce 2024-2025 Vendor Assessment

Discover why Stibo Systems was recognized in this in-depth report evaluation.

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