If you’re still wrangling spreadsheets and copy-pasting product data across marketplaces, your product team probably hates Mondays—and your customers might not be far behind.
In 2025, product data isn’t just “nice to have organized”—it’s the foundation of your entire commerce engine. Whether you're selling to end consumers, retail buyers, or B2B procurement teams, your product content has to be clean, consistent, and complete. Across every channel. In every language. With every spec, image, and variant.
That’s where PIM comes in.
Product Information Management (PIM) systems aren’t just software—they're sanity-savers. They centralize all your product data into a single source of truth, so your team spends less time chasing typos and more time launching faster, selling smarter, and scaling globally.
But not all PIMs are created equal.
Some are lightweight tools with a fancy UI but no real scalability. Others require a PhD and a six-month onboarding plan just to upload your catalog. And between those extremes? A growing crop of platforms claiming to be “the best PIM for 2025” without ever addressing the realities of how modern businesses actually manage product data.
So, we’re cutting through the fluff.
So how do you separate the PIMs that actually solve problems from the ones just selling buzzwords?
We’re about to break down what really matters when choosing a PIM in 2025—from the features that make your product ops team breathe a little easier, to the platforms that actually live up to the promise of “single source of truth.”
Because if your product data’s a mess, no amount of marketing magic can save it. Let’s fix that.
Why PIM Is Non-Negotiable
Let’s be honest: most businesses don’t wake up one day and say, “You know what we need? A product information management system.”
They get there after a few too many fire drills—missed deadlines, mismatched specs, duplicate SKUs, and customers asking why the same product has three different descriptions depending on where they saw it.
PIM becomes essential the moment your product data starts getting in the way of growth.
Here’s why, in 2025, it’s not optional—it’s mission-critical.
1. Product Data Lives Everywhere—And That’s a Problem
Your product info isn’t just sitting in your eCommerce platform. It’s spread across ERPs, supplier spreadsheets, Dropbox folders, and marketing decks from 2019. Every team touches it, but no one owns it. And that chaos leads to inconsistent listings, slower launches, and a whole lot of finger-pointing.
A modern PIM consolidates your product data into a central, accessible, always-up-to-date hub—so you can manage once and publish everywhere.
“Companies using a centralized PIM see up to 45% faster product launches across channels.”
— WebFX, PIM Software Report 2024
2. Channels Have Multiplied—But Your Team Hasn’t
You're selling on your D2C site, Amazon, maybe a few B2B marketplaces, a printed catalog (yes, still), and now someone in sales wants to push into TikTok Shop. Every new channel means more product content, more variants, and more opportunities to get it wrong.
A good PIM system turns that chaos into control—letting you tailor product info for each channel without duplicating effort.
3. Customer Expectations Are Brutal
Today’s buyers expect rich, accurate, and instantly available product content. A missing dimension, a low-res image, or an out-of-date spec sheet? That’s all it takes to lose the sale. And when you’re dealing with hundreds—or thousands—of SKUs, manually keeping everything aligned isn’t just painful. It’s impossible.
PIM ensures every product detail, image, doc, and translation stays in sync, so your product pages (and your brand) don’t look sloppy.
4. Internal Ops Need a Lifeline
Whether it's marketing, merchandising, product, or IT—every department suffers when product data lives in silos. Without a shared source of truth, teams waste hours chasing answers, fixing errors, and duplicating work.
PIM doesn’t just streamline your product data. It reduces friction between departments and gets everyone—from marketing to supply chain—on the same (digital) page.
5. Multichannel Readiness Isn’t Optional Anymore
Omnichannel isn’t just a buzzword—it’s how your customers shop. DTC store, B2B portal, Amazon, distributors, print catalogs, maybe even TikTok. Each one demands slightly different product info: different formats, specs, character limits, languages, images, and local compliance.
Without a PIM, your team ends up duplicating effort—or worse, publishing inconsistencies that kill conversion.
A centralized PIM turns “launching on new channels” from a 4-week project into a few clicks.
6. Product Experience is the New Storefront
Buyers don’t walk into stores anymore—they scroll through product detail pages. And if your PDP doesn’t inspire confidence? They bounce.
Great product content—accurate, rich, localized, and consistent—comes from great data governance. That’s the job of a PIM.
7. Operational Complexity Is Only Growing
More SKUs. More regions. More marketplaces. More internal teams. If your product data is still managed in spreadsheets or stuck inside your ERP, you’re setting your ops team up for a meltdown.
A modern PIM acts as the connective tissue between departments and systems—ERP, PXM, DAM, CMS, and beyond.
Without it, you're left duct-taping data together across five platforms and 17 Slack threads
What to Actually Look For in a PIM Platform (in 2025)
Choosing a PIM in 2025 isn’t just about cleaning up your data—it’s about unlocking growth. The right platform helps you move faster, sell smarter, and scale globally without losing control. The wrong one? It becomes just another system your team learns to work around.
Here’s what separates the future-ready PIMs from the spreadsheet-with-a-UI crowd:
1. AI-Powered Data Enrichment (This Isn’t a Nice-to-Have Anymore)
Let’s start with what’s changed: AI is no longer experimental in PIM—it’s essential.
Top platforms now use machine learning to:
- Auto-suggest missing attributes and categorization
- Flag data inconsistencies or low-quality content
- Generate product descriptions optimized for SEO and channel-specific formats
- Predict gaps in product completeness before you publish
In a world of endless SKUs and shrinking attention spans, AI isn’t just a helper—it’s the only way to scale.
If your PIM isn’t using AI to improve your product data, you’re paying your team to do what machines could be doing better—and faster.
2. Strategic Control Over Product Experience
PIM is no longer just about back-end hygiene. It’s about the front-end experience, too. A good PIM lets you:
- Curate and tailor product content per channel (not just push the same data everywhere)
- Manage relationships between SKUs (variants, bundles, accessories)
- Enrich listings with storytelling elements like videos, PDFs, and lifestyle content
Why this matters: In 2025, your product content is your storefront.
And better storytelling = better conversions.
3. Instant Syndication Across Every Channel
Adding a new sales channel shouldn’t feel like launching a new store. Your PIM should let you:
- Instantly adapt and push product data to marketplaces, storefronts, B2B portals, and print
- Configure export templates based on the data needs of each partner/channel
- Map and transform attributes without developer support
Great PIMs make multichannel feel like single channel.
4. Built-In Governance That Doesn’t Slow You Down
Speed is great—until someone accidentally publishes a product with no image and the wrong specs.
That’s why the best PIMs bake in governance:
- Approval workflows that match your team structure
- Role-based access for data entry, enrichment, and publishing
- Validation rules to block incomplete or non-compliant products from going live
This isn’t about bureaucracy. It’s about protecting your brand and margins.
5. Scalable Data Modeling (Built for Change, Not Chaos)
If your business evolves—new verticals, new catalogs, new markets—your PIM needs to keep up without needing reimplementation every six months.
Look for platforms that offer:
- Flexible schema design (custom attributes, localized fields, etc.)
- Hierarchies that reflect your product logic: categories, families, variants, kits
- Localization-ready frameworks for global data expansion
Because the only constant in product data? Change.
6. Composable Architecture and APIs That Don’t Suck
You need a PIM that works with your existing tools—not against them. Whether it’s your ERP, DAM, OMS, or marketing stack, modern PIMs should:
- Restful APIs (or GraphQL) for real-time syncs
- Support webhooks for custom automations
- Integrate easily into your composable commerce ecosystem
No more six-month integration “projects.” The best PIMs are plug-and-play—on your terms.
Bonus:
Where Most PIM Platforms Fall Short
Let’s be real—most PIMs look great in demos. Then go live hits… and so do the headaches.
Here’s where the wheels often fall off:
1. No Real AI—Just Marketing Spin
Some vendors slap “AI” on basic automation. True AI should assist with enrichment, spot errors, and optimize product content. If it can’t? It’s not AI—it’s a glorified rule engine.
2. Rigid Data Models
Need to tweak your product structure? Good luck. Many legacy PIMs force you into fixed schemas that don’t flex with your catalog complexity.
3. Channel Syndication is Manual
If you still need CSV exports and developer help to update Amazon or your D2C site, that’s not syndication—it’s suffering.
4. Clunky UX That Slows Teams Down
If your PIM feels like filling out tax forms, adoption will tank. Fast.
5. Integration Nightmares
ERP sync shouldn't require a system integrator and a prayer. A good PIM plays nice with your stack—out of the box.
Bottom line: If your PIM adds work instead of removing it, it’s not a platform. It’s a bottleneck.
PIM Platform Showdown: Who’s Actually Built for 2025?
Time to separate the real contenders from the overhyped dashboards.
This isn’t a bloated feature grid. It’s a direct look at which platforms are built to scale, support real-world product operations, and make life easier for your team.
Platform | AI Enrichment | Channel Syndication | Data Modeling Flexibility | ERP/DAM Integration | Best For |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
BetterCommerce PIM | ✅ Yes (smart AI suggestions) | ✅ Native + customizable | ✅ Highly flexible, localization-ready | ✅ Real-time, API-first | Mid to enterprise brands that want speed + scale |
Akeneo | ⚠️Limited (beta-level AI) | ✅ Strong (especially with Akeneo App) | ✅ Good for most B2C use cases | ✅ Strong with connectors | Mid-market brands with omnichannel focus |
Pimcore | ⚠️ Basic rule-based logic | ✅ Possible (with dev help) | ✅ Very flexible (open-source) | ✅ Strong but dev-intensive | Teams with in-house dev and complex data needs |
Salsify | ✅ Advanced (especially for retailers) | ✅ Strong (retail-first focus) | ⚠️ Moderate flexibility | ✅ Retail-focused connectors | Brands selling via major retail channels |
Informatica P360 | ✅ Strong (enterprise-grade AI) | ⚠️ Requires configuration | ✅ Strong but complex | ✅ Deep enterprise integrations | Large enterprises with IT support |
Catsy | ⚠️ Entry-level AI | ✅ Decent for basic use cases | ⚠️ Limited schema flexibility | ⚠️ Basic integrations | SMBs managing fewer SKUs |
Plytix | ❌ No AI | ✅ Lightweight syndication | ⚠️ Basic attribute control | ⚠️ Limited | Small teams needing quick setup |
BetterCommerce PIM: Fast, Scalable, and AI-Driven
If you're looking for a modern PIM that balances power with usability, BetterCommerce hits that sweet spot. Built for fast-moving commerce teams, it combines AI-assisted enrichment, real-time ERP integration, and flexible schema design—without the enterprise bloat.
Ideal for brands managing large, complex catalogs across multiple channels and markets.
Conclusion: Your PIM Should Be a Growth Engine—Not a Data Dump
Let’s cut to it: PIM isn’t just about organizing data. It’s about enabling growth.
If your team is still stuck updating product info manually, jumping between spreadsheets, or fixing the same errors across channels—you’re not just wasting time. You’re leaving revenue on the table.
In 2025, the right PIM:
- Speeds up product launches
- Powers consistent, high-converting product experiences
- Reduces operational chaos
- Scales with your business—not against it
And the wrong one? It turns your product team into a support desk for your tech stack.