Solving Seasonal Sales Struggles With PIM

Soon enough, the days will get shorter, the leaves will change, and the crisp breeze of autumn will fill the air. That means school buses will be roaming the streets and that teachers, students, and parents will once again be gearing up for another year of learning.  Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to pack up our sandals and break out the ski boots.

It also means that distributors, manufacturers, retailers, marketplaces, and other B2B and B2C businesses alike are turning over their sales catalog. Out with the summer styles, warm-weather wares, and beachside basics, in with the cozy coats, indoor indulgences, and winter weather equipment. But making these seasonal changes in your product catalog isn’t as simple as flipping the calendar to the next month. Updating or expanding a product catalog is often a monumental undertaking for nearly all companies. It means onboarding new products from manufacturers and suppliers, adding new photos and other digital assets, and updating hundreds or thousands of SKUs on multiple sales channels in time for the new season, all without succumbing to errors and inaccuracies in product information. Add it all up, and it’s enough to make even the most resilient retail product manager or distribution diehard want to go into hibernation until it’s all said and done. What’s more, this isn’t a one-time problem — product assortments change regularly due to changes in consumer tastes, seasons, and even new legislation or regulation. Don’t despair — prepare! You can get ready for seasonal shifts in product catalogs and information by unleashing the power of your Product Information Management (PIM) solution. This powerful tool can help you easily and efficiently deal with the challenges that arise from a new season making its presence felt.

Model & automate 

One of the biggest shifts that often accompanies a change in season for B2B and B2C organizations is the change in product assortment. Many companies will offer entirely different product lines or collections for different seasons, often with little-to-no crossover or overlap. Manually deleting products and adding new ones to your product catalog in time for each new season is a truly time-consuming and error-prone process, one that can drive your team nuts and cripple your efficiency. The same can be said of dealing with photos, videos, and other digital product assets can also quickly become a nightmare. Relying on a PIM for help with implementing product catalog changes, on the other hand, makes it dramatically easier for product managers. PIM tools automate processes, easily model new categories, offer bulk editing, and allow you to centrally manage product data and digital assets. They also make it easier and more efficient to include certain products in these catalogs only for the time of the sale to create a limited-time catalog or product groupings.

Get emotional 

It’s time to create some warm, fuzzy feelings on a cold winter’s night. Whether you’re getting your catalog ready for the Christmas rush, helping customers delight the objects of affection for Valentine’s day, or coming up with a spooky surprise for Halloween, emotionally compelling product experiences are catnip to seasonal consumers. But if your team is stuck dealing with tedious, time-consuming work like manual product updates or digital asset management, they won’t be very inspired. A PIM can help liberate your team so they can set their creativity free. It takes manual tasks off their plates, allowing them more time to craft compelling product descriptions to help stir emotion and build trust in potential buyers. What’s more, PIM can help ensure that products are put into context for each of the several sales channels you use to reach them. Your objective is to assemble a unified set of product information, and to also make sure that the “right” information appears in the print catalog, the eCommerce store, and your mobile app. Now that’s managing the product experience!

Pick up the pace

As anyone who’s wished for summer to be just a little bit longer can tell you, the seasons change fast. If you can’t keep up with the pace of these changes, you’ll get left behind, and could find yourself trying to sell Christmas decorations in July! When it comes to seasonal sales, time is of the essence and organizations can’t afford to miss the seasonal window. A long catalog enrichment process could doom your sale if the catalog isn’t available during peak buying times. PIM significantly increases productivity and helps you keep up with changing seasons — without making careless errors or providing inaccurate product information. PIM solutions can help foster collaboration across the teams involved in onboarding new products, streamline the catalog update process, eliminate errors and inconsistencies in product information and ensure that any updates made within the system are distributed to all of the appropriate channels. It can also further help improve sales as it supports the multi-channel marketing of seasonal campaigns and bundled offers.

Solve Seasonal Sales Struggles With PIM

Make sure your team is ready to conquer the Christmas rush, beat the summer heat, go back to school, and bloom with the flowers of spring by arming them with PIM. PIM lets you move with speed and agility all year long, whether you want to do a limited-edition collection or want to do a small specialty catalog for back-to-school. It makes seasonal and contextual sales and responding to customer moods and rapidly changing trends breeze. Solve seasonal sales struggles with PIM! Learn how PIM can help your team conquer expansions with relative ease by reading our blogs on Turning A New Commerce Channel Into A Success and Expanding To New Locales today!