Have you ever wondered why birds migrate? Birds thrive in areas of high or increasing resources—they begin to migrate when things start taking a turn for the worse (i.e. low or decreasing resources). Many ecommerce businesses choose to “migrate” for similar reasons.
Companies often choose to conduct a PIM migration with their ecommerce platform because their data quality has diminished and is creating a poor user experience for employees and customers.
Have a Clear Understanding of PIM Capabilities
A PIM is a software solution whose foundation is a robust centralized repository for inputting, storing, organizing, modifying and disseminating product data. Can you say you understand all its capabilities?
Next-generation PIM solutions can connect seamlessly with your ecommerce platform further simplifying the process of managing your existing tool. Using a PIM to its fullest ability allows for a more streamlined process of storing and standardizing the following part and product data:
- Essential product data (e.g. names, titles, descriptions, SKUs)
- Taxonomy categories (e.g. labels, product variants)
- Specifications (e.g. measurements, materials, sizes, ingredients)
- Digital assets (e.g. images, videos)
- SEO data (e.g. keywords, metadata)
- Sales information (e.g. prices, ratings, manufacturer details, contact information)
When you’re able to fully comprehend what’s possible with a PIM and why you need this tool in your tech stack, you’re taking the first step toward avoiding failure and being disappointed when it doesn’t meet your expectations.
>>> Check out these six ways a PIM system can improve ROI.
Plan Your PIM Migration in Advance
Migrating your PIM system to your ecommerce platform in a structured manner ensures you don’t miss out on any important product data. However, it can’t be something you decide to do on a whim. You must plan ahead.
Typically, when a company decides to migrate its existing PIM or integrate a new system, it doesn’t have a clear enough picture of what the process entails—it’s important to recognize it’s just not feasible to change your software solution on a regular basis.
We encourage you to take the time necessary to map out a clear strategy of what information is going where, when and how. At Convergence Data, we partner with companies to simplify this complex process. We start by cleansing your data. If you’re migrating on your own, follow these four steps for a strong start:
- Develop a classification
- Uncover hidden assets
- Define common style guidelines
- Scrub your data
Determine What Data Will be Migrated
Prior to any migration, it’s essential to break down your data and determine what needs to be moved on and what needs to be moved out. As we mentioned above, scrubbing your part and product catalog provides the perfect opportunity to get rid of dirty data and ensure the most accurate data is migrated into your ecommerce platform.
To scrub your data, start by completing a duplicate and near-duplicate analysis. This can be done with a duplicate analysis tool based on attribute value matches that drive pricing and differentiation. Once you’ve combed through your data…
- Begin building data taxonomies to keep data organized and create a seamless user experience.
- Define your product attributes to enhance product enrichment and drive sales.
- Set up data governance to secure product information and become well aware of who has access to what.
Define a Clear PIM Migration Timeline
Setting a clear timeline and communicating it across all teams is one of the largest pieces of the PIM migration puzzle. Creating a move timeline that is organized and realistic can help you keep track of workload and costs.
Basic data structures like taxonomies and attribute schemas make sense to move first since they form the foundation of product data. As you onboard each of them to PIM, it’s worth considering migrating business unit item records or data by region on a priority basis.
It’s important to include a strategy for migrating content like descriptions, images and other digital assets on your timeline and roadmap. Make sure you’re aware of the integrations between PIM and other systems so the timeline takes testing and launch into account.
Test Your Data Once the Migration is Complete
The most obvious sign of a successful PIM migration is an equally successful test of the data in your ecommerce platform. How can you perform a test?
We’d strongly recommend running it on a test database and not the live system. You’ll also want to test at several points during the migration process to ensure issues are corrected as you go instead of leaving them to pile up and sort through later. Ask yourself the following questions to see your migration through to the end:
- Was the import a success?
- What went right and what went wrong?
- Is the product data effectively organized within the PIM?
- Is it meeting your expectations?
We Have the Tools For a Seamless PIM Migration
Data migration is a big undertaking if you want to do it well and ensure accuracy. That’s where our team of technical data experts can help. If you’re thinking of planning a PIM migration in the near future, get in touch with us for support in making your migration seamless.
