What Is the Difference Between Product MDM and PIM?

When your company sells a wide variety of products, it can be challenging and overwhelming to keep track of all the data surrounding them. From product listings to photos to marketing materials, it's easy for individual pieces to get lost in the shuffle, making more work for each department.

Fortunately, modern software tools offer comprehensive product management so your employees can find what they need quickly and efficiently. However, since there are multiple data management solutions, how do you know which one is best for your business? Let's break down the differences between PIM and product MDM to find out.

What Is the Meaning of PIM?

PIM stands for product information management, and it refers to a system of managing and curating all data and materials for individual products. These can include photos, user manuals, tutorial videos, SKUs, product dimensions, and more — basically, anything related to marketing, selling, or servicing a product.

A PIM solution keeps each data and marketing point with the product itself. So, users from different departments can look up a single product and see everything related to it on a single dashboard.

By centralizing this data, employees don't have to hunt through multiple servers or shared folders to find what they need. PIM software is much more streamlined and easier to manage.

What Is the Difference Between Product MDM and PIM?

Product master data management (MDM) is similar to a PIM but much broader in scope. Typically, MDM solutions are company-wide, storing and organizing data for the entire business, not just the products it sells. Other data like vendor lists, financial information, and operations manuals would also be part of an MDM.

In most cases, a PIM solution is much easier to implement and manage. Unless you have an enterprise-level company, you likely won't need to upgrade to an MDM service. Since product information management tools only focus on products, they help both sales and marketing teams excel without overloading the server with unnecessary information.

What Is the Difference Between PIM and PCM?

Product content management (PCM) is a system designed to create, store, and organize content related to products (i.e., a photo shoot or social media video). While PCM software is useful for marketing and sales purposes, it's only focused on content, not product data.

Fortunately, most product information management software also includes digital asset management (DAM). So, while the software may not facilitate content creation, it can still effectively store and organize content. This way, employees can still curate content for various marketing and sales needs while also accessing different product information like SKUs or dimensions.

Some product information system examples like Lumavate even go a step further by providing product experience management (PXM). This system allows you to turn content into digital experiences for customers and leads. This way, you don't have to buy multiple programs and worry about syncing or compatibility issues.

What is PIM Software Used For?

Typically, PIM software is used to store all product information on a centralized server. When a company sells dozens or hundreds of products, it's challenging to make everything accessible. All too often, some product details are stored in different locations, forcing users to hunt them down across various servers and folders.

Another advantage of product information management software is that it serves as a single point of truth for the company. Rather than updating product information in multiple spots (like shared folders, web pages, and product listings), a PIM manager can update the system once and everything else will update automatically.

This way, users never have to worry about whether they're accessing the most up-to-date product information. This efficiency also eliminates mistakes and errors, such as providing incorrect data to customers and leads.

Some PIM software examples include Acquia PIM, Salsify PIM, Pimcore, Inriver PIM, and Catsy PIM. Each of these systems is excellent at managing and curating product data, and most of them also include digital asset management (DAM).

However, when comparing different PIM tools in market, Lumavate offers additional features like product experience management (PXM). This way, it's much easier to turn product data into marketing experiences. Overall, your marketing and sales teams are in sync, and you can promote products more seamlessly.

Another reason why Lumavate is the best PIM software is that it's affordable and offers transparent pricing. While other PIM tools require sales meetings to determine the price, Lumavate is upfront about what you get.

If you're struggling to manage your product inventory, Lumavate can help. Once you get everything imported, it's much easier to access all data across your organization. You can also share product details with marketing agencies and other third parties to supercharge your sales and marketing initiatives.