Going at Scale: How PIM Can Help You Sell Globally?

Note: How PIM Can Help You Sell Globally

Pranu Dhyani

Brands & Communications

In an era where buying from across the border has been made possible and easy, all businesses should be tapping the opportunity. But as one heads on to do so, there are multiple challenges that a business faces.

But, to help, a PIM solves almost all product information related challenges to sell internationally for businesses.

Cross-border selling has been rising while the worldwide cross-border B2C E-Commerce Market was valued at approximately USD 780 billion in 2019. This market is projected to witness substantial growth and is anticipated to reach a staggering USD 4,820 billion by 2026, exhibiting a remarkable compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27% throughout the forecast period leading up to 2027.

The realm of cross-border commerce is experiencing rapid growth, as evidenced by several notable trends:

In Europe, cross-border transactions constitute a significant portion, accounting for approximately 23.55% of total online sales, highlighting the significance of international trade.
Cross-border shopping is projected to comprise 17% of the overall e-commerce landscape in 2023, with an estimated global sales value of US$736 billion. This indicates the growing popularity and acceptance of international online transactions.
The Asia Pacific region has witnessed remarkable growth in cross-border exports, experiencing a notable increase of 28%. This demonstrates the region's increasing participation in global trade.

Moreover, engaging in cross-border commerce offers businesses an array of advantages like enhanced market reach, increased competitive value and diversification of revenue streams.

So here are a few ways how PIM can help business to sell internationally:

Localization and multilingual support

PIM allows businesses to efficiently manage product information in multiple languages. It enables the translation and adaptation of product descriptions, marketing materials, and other content to resonate with local audiences and to meet the cultural, linguistic, and regulatory requirements of various regions. This helps effectively communicate the value of the products. It is one of the most important considerations while trying to sell internationally.

Localizing product information for different markets requires managing multiple versions of product catalogs, specifications, and pricing. Retailers are benefitted from a PIM as it handles translations, adapts product attributes to local requirements, and maintains accurate and up-to-date information across all markets.

Currency and pricing management

According to a report by PayPal, every 6th person among ten check conversion rates before paying indicating that currency is a hurdle as a foreign language.

PIM allows businesses to manage pricing information and currency conversions for different international markets. It helps in adapting pricing strategies based on local market conditions, currencies, taxes, and regulations, ensuring competitive and accurate pricing across regions. To facilitate the functionality, PIM uses connects to exchange rate websites/tools using their APIs and shows real-time exchange rates.

Also, managing cross-border payments involves handling currency conversions, international transaction fees, and different payment methods. A PIM helps retailers to simplify the process so they can partner with payment service providers that offer secure and cost-effective solutions to simplify cross-border transactions.

Having multiple domains

PIM supports scalability and accommodates the growth and expansion of international operations.

PIM offers one of the greatest advantages that it serves to sell globally supporting multiple domains. Businesses can have different domains for different countries. They will still be able to manage their product information from one place which makes it easy and eliminates the need for repetitive tasks.

The multiple domain can be monitored from one single place which doesn’t only help save time and resources but keep data consistent across all sales touchpoints.

Market-specific data enrichment

PIM helps in tailoring product information for specific markets by allowing businesses to enrich product data with market-specific attributes, regional specifications, pricing, and compliance details. This feature allows businesses to adapt products to meet local market regulations, industry standards, and customer preferences. Market-specific data enrichment enhances the relevance and competitiveness of products in international markets.

Channel and marketplace integration

PIM integrates with various sales channels and e-commerce marketplaces, simplifying the distribution of product information globally. It enables businesses to efficiently syndicate and update product data across multiple platforms, ensuring consistency and accuracy in real time. And all that happens from one place.

The PIM uses CSV files which incorporate the data requirements of various marketplaces. These files can be filled, uploaded to PIM and mapped against the internal attributes. As marketplaces do not expose their APIs, CSV files are used.

Cross-border product compliance

Selling internationally often involves adhering to various compliance regulations, certifications, and standards specific to different countries or regions. PIM helps businesses track and manage product compliance information, ensuring that products meet the necessary requirements for each market.

These can be product safety standards, labelling requirements, and data privacy laws which add complexity. Retailers need to stay informed about regional regulations and ensure their technology systems and product offerings meet the specific compliance requirements of each market.

This can be governed by setting up roles and permissions, and workflow management where standard checks in the PIM do not allow the next steps to be taken if the information isn’t complete.

Improved time-to-market

By providing a centralized system for managing and updating product information, PIM reduces time-to-market for international product launches too. It enables businesses to rapidly adapt and localize product data, ensuring quick and efficient market entry.

PIM makes the launches faster as multiple domains can be handled from the same dashboard, localisation and multilingual pricelists are also functionality of the PIM that make the job fast.

Centralized and standardized product information

PIM serves as a centralized repository for all product data, ensuring consistency and accuracy across different markets. It enables businesses to maintain a standardized set of product attributes, translations, and localized content, which can be easily adapted for various international markets.

Efficient product onboarding

PIM streamlines the process of adding new products to the international portfolio. It provides workflows and automation tools for efficiently capturing and organizing product data, simplifying the onboarding process for expanding into new markets.

Localization of digital assets

Most PIM come with an in-built DAM and hence PIM can handle not only textual information but also digital assets like images, videos, and documents. It allows businesses to manage and localize these assets for different markets, ensuring that visuals and multimedia content resonate with international audiences.

It tailors visual content to different international markets, ensuring that images and multimedia assets are culturally appropriate and appealing to target audiences. Hence there is no hassle of keeping digital assets for different marketplaces and domains at different places. Saved time and effort for consistency and quicker launches.

Streamlines the management of digital assets across diverse formats and stages, making it simpler and more efficient.
Minimizes the need for manual searches and eradicates duplicate files, enhancing productivity.
Automatically links digital assets with accurate product information, ensuring seamless associations.
Distributes digital assets across specific channels and formats tailored to their requirements.
Ensures rigorous adherence to licensing regulations and standards, fostering strict compliance.

Real-time data synchronization

Keeping product information, inventory levels, and pricing consistent across multiple systems and channels can be challenging. PIM enables real-time data synchronization across different channels and systems, ensuring that product information remains up-to-date and consistent across all touchpoints. This is particularly important for international selling, where changes in product information need to be quickly propagated to different regions and platforms.

Analytics and insights

PIM systems often provide analytics and reporting capabilities that help businesses gain insights into the performance of their products in different international markets. It allows businesses to track sales, and customer behaviour, gain insights, identify trends, and product performance metrics, enabling data-driven decision-making and optimization of international selling strategies. A PIM system should offer comprehensive analytics and reporting capabilities to track product performance, sales, and customer behaviour in different international markets. This enables businesses to

Scalability and Global Expansion

PIM supports scalability and accommodates the growth and expansion of international operations. It is capable of handling large volumes of product data, managing multiple markets and languages, and integrating with new channels and systems as businesses expand their international presence.

These PIM features collectively empower businesses to effectively manage and optimize product information for international selling, enabling them to adapt to diverse markets, localize content, and provide an exceptional customer experience across borders. All this helps to scale their international selling efforts without compromising data integrity or efficiency.

Apart from that, scaling operations to handle international growth requires a robust and scalable infrastructure to support PIM. Retailers need to ensure their technology platforms, servers, and networks can handle increased traffic, order volumes, and data processing demands while maintaining optimal performance and user experience.

Global Attribute Management

PIM supports the management of global attributes that are applicable across multiple markets. This allows businesses to define and maintain product attributes that are relevant universally, irrespective of specific regional requirements. Global attribute management ensures consistency and simplifies the process of managing product information across international markets.

Channel Syndication and Integration

A PIM system should integrate seamlessly with various sales channels, e-commerce platforms, and marketplaces. This enables businesses to efficiently syndicate product information across different channels and touchpoints, ensuring consistency and accuracy in real time. Channel syndication and integration features simplify the process of expanding into new international markets and managing product information across multiple platforms.

Workflow and Collaboration Tools

International selling often involves collaboration between teams across different regions and departments. PIM provides workflow management features, task assignment capabilities, and collaboration tools to facilitate efficient teamwork and streamline the process of managing and updating product information for international markets. Teams and departments can collab from across the team and maintain data accuracy and consistency.

PIM plays a crucial role in selling internationally by facilitating the management and localization of product information to meet the specific requirements of different regions, languages, and markets.

Are you ready to go global?