Changes in Product Information Management through innovations in the customer journey

Good product visualization can help a retailer to increase conversion and increase customer loyalty. By using virtual reality, you can for example allow residents of a new-build home to walk through their house and determine the layout before construction starts. Product information management is essential to product visualization, because it requires correct and also standardized data. At present, there are already good and effective applications of 3D visualization in combination with PIM systems. But in order to development it further, standards are needed that make it possible to exchange 3D models.

User-generated content (UGC) is not really new, just a newer version of advertising through word-of-mouth. What is different now, compared to the past, is that there are new technologies that make it possible to use the feedback of users (including photos, videos and reviews) for different purposes. Reviews are particularly helpful to increase the conversion of products and services, besides, they can be used in different channels. That is why the expert group has focused on user feedback.

You can apply user feedback with more transparency and a wider range of uses than just customer service. The product experience is becoming an increasingly lavish part of the customer journey and the relevant product-related feedback helps to further enrich the product information. If the latter is the case, you would be well advised to store this information in the PIM system for (re) use in the various publication channels.

The GfK Consumer Survey 2018 shows that more than half of the interviewees expect that in five years they will make a large part of the purchases through new channels, such as voice assistants. This will also have a major impact on product information management.

Voice requires feedback to the user as unambiguous as possible. The system landscape is more complex here, because more information from various sources needs to be combined. There are also higher data quality requirements. To be able to answer user questions correctly, it is important for a voice assistant to know the context of both product, customer and type of customer journey.

All the developments discussed have in common that they lead to more (product) data needing to be managed. On the one hand, it concerns product data that you receive (such as user-generated) and on the other hand extra product features that you – for example as a manufacturer – have to generate yourself (3D models). There is no doubt that you will use all kinds of tools for this, but it is now and will always be crucial to guarantee data quality. More advanced solutions on the user side actually increase the risk of working with incorrect data.

With each development, the expert group, led by Squadra, Informatica and GS1, suggests you learn by experimenting with the issues that are relevant to the retailer. Developments are moving fast and you can only really learn the impact on the product data domain when you are actually working on it. In the blue paper the expert group has fully explained some case studies to inspire you, the retailer.