How to select the best PIM?

The PIM market is crowded. The useful question in a selection is which of the many products fits your requirements.

PIM has been developing for almost two decades, so the providers differ in focus and in maturity. Analyst firms such as Gartner and Forrester review the market from a global angle. That includes providers who do not matter in the DACH market, and it leaves out providers with a long history and real weight there. Names that dominate the wider market include Akeneo, Contentserv, Riversand (Syndigo) and Stibo. The DACH market adds many more. We currently count about 50 providers, with different target groups, functional strengths and technical traits. Betting on one of the largest names is not automatically safer. A smaller provider can cover the same requirements, sometimes on a smaller budget.

How to choose a PIM: the method in short

Without your requirements, the systems are not better or worse. They are different. So the method works from your needs outward:

1. Start with business needs and goals: the product-data problems you have to solve and where the business is heading.
2. Put the selection team together and rank the requirements, so must-haves decide and nice-to-haves do not.
3. Score every vendor on the same selection criteria: architecture, data quality, integrations, vendor and partners, user experience and cost.
4. Run the seven-day selection sprint: shortlist up to five vendors, test them in demos and decide with a scoring matrix.
5. Write the specification that carries the choice into implementation, with outside help where it pays off.

Already running a PIM? The same steps apply, with three extra checks in the section on updating or replacing your current PIM below.

Start with business needs and goals

A clear picture of your business needs comes before any vendor name. Teams that start from specific product-data problems end up with a PIM that fixes those problems. This matters most when the catalog is complex or you sell through many channels: a B2B ecommerce platform with thousands of SKUs has to keep product information accurate on every sales channel, for customer satisfaction and for compliance.

Identify your product data problems

List the concrete pain points first, such as inconsistent data formats across platforms or trouble keeping global product information in sync. Specific problems lead to targeted solutions instead of generic fixes. Three questions size the problem:

• Catalog size. How large is the range? Thousands of SKUs need strong data management.
• Market complexity. Do you sell in several regions or languages?
• User roles. Who will use the system? Marketing, sales and IT all need an interface they can work with.

Define long-term objectives

Align PIM capabilities with the overall business strategy, set measurable goals for a better customer experience through better product data, and plan for later integration with new technology, such as AI-driven insights. Clear objectives prevent expensive missteps during implementation.

Build a PIM strategy before the vendor list

At the start, potential providers should play little or no role. Settle the strategy first: which market you are in, which channels and touchpoints matter in marketing and sales now and later, and where the data is born. A manufacturer mostly creates it in-house. A dealer or an association has to collect and standardize data from many suppliers before any channel can be served.

Target processes only hold up after you have looked at the data processes that cross departments and technical domains, with the organization chart and the place of the PIM in the IT architecture in the same picture. If there is no PIM yet, map the article-data processes you have. Years without a central store usually produce loops, parallel processes and redundant silos. Copying that 1:1 into a new system wastes the project.

Put the selection team together and rank requirements

The selection team

A PIM affects the whole organization, so the stakeholders belong in the selection. IT is in the room for the technical questions at minimum, but do not run this from IT alone.

• Name one project lead who pulls working methods, questions and wishes out of the departments.
• Involve every department that touches product data, early. Marketing may care most about product visibility, logistics about inventory. A selection that ignores one of them gets a tool people will not use.
• Treat the implementation as the project. A new PIM does not fix data nobody maintains. Dirty data stays dirty in a better database.
• Write rules that protect quality without turning every change into a procedure.

Must-haves and nice-to-haves

Write down what the PIM is supposed to change, including the trade-offs. Every department will add requirements. You can tailor the list. You still have to rank it.

Use MoSCoW before the first vendor call: must have, should have, could have, and would have. The method is explained in the MoSCoW overview. If a requirement sits in the primary business process, it is a must-have. If a PIM cannot do a must-have, it is not an option. A system can miss a nice-to-have, or meet it another way, and still fit.

• Transactional and analytical data usually stay out of the PIM. Connect the systems that already own them. If you also need CRM, stock, accounting and a webshop in one suite, look past products that only do PIM.
• Start with basic article data. Enrich further once that layer is stable.

From that ranked list, write the functional and technical requirements. A PIM RFP turns them into a document vendors can answer.

PIM selection criteria

Score every vendor on the same criteria, functional and non-functional. These are the groups that decide fit in practice.

Architecture and scalability

The architecture decides how far a PIM scales. There is a trade-off between flexibility and control: cloud PIM scales easily but usually allows less customization than an on-premises system.

• Cloud suits companies that want little IT overhead. Deployment is quick and updates arrive automatically, which fits environments that change fast, such as B2B ecommerce.
• On-premises suits organizations that need full control over their data and accept a higher upfront cost, for example under strict data-privacy rules or regulation that needs heavy customization.
• Scalability is judged against projected growth, not today's catalog: more product lines, users, markets and sales channels without slowing down or losing data quality.
• Channels and markets. Many teams look only at internal workflows and forget how product information leaves the building. Check that the PIM connects to your webshops, marketplaces and social channels, supports localization for your markets, takes on a new channel easily and pushes updates to every platform automatically.

Investing in a scalable PIM now prevents an expensive migration later.

Data quality and data standards

Some PIM systems offer validation or data quality reports. Ask whether the system checks product content before it goes live. In the Netherlands, SRC-PIM validates in real time against several standards, and data can be published to data pools or external channels only when it meets the requirements you set.

GS1 is the most widely used data standard in the Netherlands, so a compliant solution is the practical choice there. Food and drugstore, DIY, garden and animal, healthcare, and fashion all use it. GS1 is not mandatory. If you exchange data with companies in those sectors, you will often still have to process product information to the GS1 standard and publish it to a GS1 data pool. Large retailers sometimes refuse suppliers who do not.

Security and compliance

Check that the system offers role-based access control and encryption, and ask each vendor how security and uptime are handled. In a regulated industry, such as pharmaceuticals or food, verify the compliance support in the software.

Integration with your existing systems

Most PIMs sit between an ERP, a CMS and one or more commerce platforms, and a PIM is only as useful as those connections.

• Map the systems that must connect. An online retailer that runs inventory in the ERP and content in a CMS needs the PIM to integrate with both. A legacy ERP without modern integration options can leave you with data silos that undo the point of the PIM.
• Judge the APIs and their documentation. A well-documented API lets you automate the transfer of product data from the ERP to the PIM. Without clear guidelines, developers spend their time working out how to connect the systems.
• Plan the data migration from legacy systems. It is often the hardest part. Organizations underestimate how complex it is to move historical data and keep it intact, so the plan needs cleansing and validation steps.

Teams often miscalculate the time integration takes, or assume any modern PIM will connect to their tools without checking the technical requirements. Both lead to delays and extra cost.

Vendor, partners and support

Do not score the software alone. Score the package around it: implementation and operation. Each provider has a DNA that shows up in architecture and functions, and also in target groups, industry solutions and how they deal with you. Implementation is done by the vendor or by a specialized partner, so the vendor's concepts, the implementation quality and the partner network for development, support and maintenance all count.

• Track record. Look for documented results at businesses like yours, check for a history of outages or unhappy customers, read independent reviews instead of marketing claims, and ask early about the pricing model.
• Support and community. Check the documentation and training material, how fast support responds, and how active the user community is. Vendor support does not replace knowledge in your own team, especially in peak periods.
• A partner for years, not a quarter. Ask what your organization looks like in five or ten years and match that to the package. Ask each vendor whether it runs fully in the cloud, which integrations exist and can be extended, and how it scales in employees, articles and orders.
• Further development. Plenty of teams sit on a custom system that was worth the investment and is now slow. Look for a vendor who ships an update at least four times a year, and preferably more often. If you want a say in the roadmap, buy from the party that builds, implements and supports the software itself.
• Communication. How they communicate, how fast they answer and whether you can reach them matter as much as the feature list.

User experience

A PIM that is easy to use raises productivity, especially for non-technical teams. The trade-off is between simplicity and depth.

• Different users. Marketing wants to update descriptions quickly. IT needs deeper data manipulation and the backend integrations. A well-designed PIM serves both.
• Role-based dashboards and workflows. Many organizations assume an off-the-shelf setup covers every requirement, then find they need tailored features as the business changes.
• Mobile access. Sales reps and store staff who update product details on the go benefit from it. Test what actually works on a phone: mobile interfaces often offer less than the desktop version.

Cost beyond the license

Judge cost over the life of the system, not at purchase.

• Total cost of ownership covers the purchase price and the ongoing fees. A cloud PIM may cost less upfront than an on-premises system, while annual maintenance and support add up over several years. The PIM costs overview helps budget the whole project: selection, design, implementation and the license.
• Subscription or one-time purchase. A subscription looks cheaper because the entry cost is low, but monthly fees can exceed a one-time purchase within a few years, especially when features are added often. A perpetual license costs more upfront and can be cheaper in the long run. Model how growth changes the total and ask whether upgrades have fixed pricing.
• Training and implementation services are the usual hidden costs. Without them, adoption stays low and the investment is wasted.

Future-proofing: AI and channel trends

AI in a PIM can help through predictive analytics and automated workflows, mostly with large datasets and complex product lines. Many teams overestimate their readiness for AI in a PIM and skip the data-quality work that has to come first. AI does not fix bad data. Choose for how the business will run in a few years, with personalization and omnichannel selling in view, not for the current trend alone.

The seven-day selection sprint

A selection does not have to drag on for months. With a structured, requirement-driven approach and a focus on real business priorities instead of feature lists, you can reach a decision in seven steps of roughly a day each. It works when stakeholders are aligned and the requirements above are written down before vendors are contacted.

1. Day 1: objectives and requirements

   Set concrete business goals. If the goal is a shorter time-to-market, the PIM must support fast data entry and integration with existing systems. Bring in stakeholders from every department and audit current processes for gaps in data quality.

2. Day 2: market research

   Check which PIM features are becoming standard and which are optional. Compare vendors: some are strong in ecommerce integration, others in data quality management. Read case studies in context, because a testimonial without the customer's situation sets the wrong expectations.

3. Day 3: shortlist

   Rank your evaluation criteria by business need and apply them the same way to every product. Most PIM products now cover a high share of any feature list, but a tick does not tell you whether a feature is usable, mature or fast. Keep the matrix to the functions that matter for your use case, stop at five vendors, and prepare targeted questions.

4. Day 4: demos and trials

   Give each vendor your use cases, such as bulk product uploads, variant management and integration with your sales platforms. A questionnaire that asks "do you support this function?" gets a yes from almost everyone. A demo shows whether the function is there and whether people can use it. Test the operation, not the look of the interface, and collect feedback from every department. One department's approval is not enough.

5. Day 5: integration and scalability

   Check compatibility with your ERP and CMS, read the API documentation, and ask how the PIM handles more products, users and channels. Do not assume every PIM scales.

6. Day 6: total cost of ownership

   Split the initial cost (licenses, hardware, consulting) from the ongoing cost (maintenance, upgrades, extra users or product lines). Compare subscription and perpetual licensing against your growth path, and budget for training and support.

7. Day 7: decision and implementation plan

   Build a decision matrix with the vendors on one axis and the criteria on the other. Every team member scores every vendor: 1 for the weakest, 3 for the strongest. Drop anyone who cannot deliver a must-have, and check that one attractive feature does not outweigh daily needs such as user support. Then draft the implementation timeline with milestones for data migration, training and go-live, for example data migration complete by week three and two weeks of user training before going live.

A specialist IT retailer ran a full selection in three months with a do-it-yourself playbook; the case shows how.

Updating or replacing your current PIM

If you already run a PIM, look at the processes, not at the product you already know. The company is not the company that bought the current system: new channels, a larger organization, and an original target state that has been watered down. Users and stakeholders find it hard to step away from how things work today. Be specific about which functions the current PIM lacks. A procedural analysis and a remodel of the process pay off here.

Three checks decide whether the current system can be updated or has to be replaced.

• Requirements. Start with what the stakeholders actually need today, from marketing, IT and ecommerce alike, not with what they needed when the current system was bought.
• IT architecture. The PIM has to fit the current architecture and connect to the systems and output channels you already run. It also has to leave room for later changes. PIM often forces architecture changes and pulls other tools into the same decision. Do not lock the choice to whatever is already installed. The ERP can be central today and still need an upgrade so ERP and PIM can both be best of breed, and so the company can grow.
• Budget. PIM is often booked as a necessary cost. That framing is thin. A working PIM makes the organization more efficient, raises sales directly or indirectly, and cuts returns. The system you pick still has to fit the budget.

What a modern PIM changes in the business is covered in the benefits of a PIM system.

Write the specification and get outside help

Once processes are revised and requirements are prioritized, choosing a provider is easier. A specification describes the target state and gives providers something concrete to respond to. Criteria that are independent of any one product make the answers comparable and lower the chance of a bad pick, and providers demo more usefully when the goals are clear. The PIM RFP guide lists what that document should contain.

Independent external experts cost money, and in practice that cost pays off. They bring market knowledge, keep asking why a process runs the way it does, bring patterns from similar projects, and cut the internal rounds that happen when a team arrives with incompatible ideas. As a neutral moderator, a consultant also keeps the process and organization changes aligned with the strategy. The requirements you write become the base for implementation, test cases, go-live and acceptance.

How PIMvendors runs a selection

We match you with PIM vendors independently, in three steps.

• Exploration. A 50-question quickscan covers your company workflow, data onboarding, data enrichment, output channels and technical requirements, plus the current organization and its architecture.
• Shortlist. Vendors answered the same questions, so your answers in the PIM Scan are set against their product, and we walk through the shortlist with you.
• Match and guidance (optional). For a fee, we guide the selection: strategy, partner selection, needs mapping, demo workshops and the meetings around them.

Related guides

• Best PIM software: how to compare platforms, and a top 10 for e-commerce.
• The PIM RFP guide: turning requirements into a tender.
• PIM costs compared: budgets per segment.
• PIM implementation phases: what happens after the choice.
• Victron Energy: from clear requirements to implementation.

Where to go from here

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