If your business involves working with a retailer, it’s safe to say that eCommerce solutions are a big part of your service offering. With changing consumer preferences, traditional brick-n-mortar players are quickly embracing the industry shift and looking for quick and affordable ways to leverage the potential of online sales. Not just this, they want to think and act like their digital native competitors that have made this model a huge success with omnichannel, mobile commerce and heavy focus on delivering great customer experiences. In fact, the online share of total retail sales in the US has steadily been on the rise—with e-commerce penetration hitting 16.0% in 2019, according to Digital Commerce. In order to thrive today companies must furnish an ever-growing number of touchpoints with optimized product information at every stage of the customer journey.

The expectation from digital agencies today has got a broader implication involving eCommerce solutions that complement branding and marketing strategy. The primary factor that determines the success of an eCommerce project is undoubtedly a high-quality, centralized product information database that translates into a wide range of tangible benefits like:

1. Increase in traffic to the online store
2. Meaningful customer experiences that positively impact customer stickiness
3. Increased conversion rate
4. Streamlined internal operations and automated processes
5. Faster time to market
6. Increased product searchability
7. Up-skilled employees and increased productivity

Most digital agencies recognize the importance of an optimized product database but are hesitant to advocate this solution to their clients due to various factors; heavy cost & complexity, project timelines or as in majority of cases; due to insufficient in-house skills to support such projects. The biggest reason is the lack of the right business & technical skills that require careful planning and great execution. 

Consider this scenario, where even your client understands the sales benefits of a well-managed product database and requires a PIM deployment as part of their eCommerce strategy – how do you ensure a successful PIM implementation? Without core system integration skills and proven implementation expertise developing a clear and actionable roadmap could prove to be frustrating and costly for both parties involved. Even a few missteps can be painful to deal with & cause duplication of efforts. On the other hand building in-house skills may not be profitable for agencies unless there are multiple PIM projects in the pipeline ensuring a steady revenue stream to offset the investments.   

Implementing PIM for eCommerce smoothly needs a deep understanding of product data and proven implementation expertise that represent complex legwork and big investment for agencies whose core service offering are focused on front-facing creative & strategic marketing services. Partnering with a digital services firm like StrikeTru in such cases is a good way to move forward 

StrikeTru is a digital services company helping small and mid-sized businesses drive their eCommerce sales. From product data collection, to product information management, to product data syndication, StrikeTru is a one-stop-shop for affordable cloud-based product data solutions.

Read more to find out how we solve product data challenges for digital agencies.

If you’re a digital agency looking to solve your clients’ product data management challenges or complement your e-commerce service offerings, we can help.

Contact us for more information on how we can partner.