Organize product data: TYPO3, PIM and shopping systems
In recent months, we received an increasing number of inquiries from interested parties and existing customers about product data management in the context of online stores, TYPO3 websites and other platforms. This already gave me a reason to hold a presentation on this topic at DMEXCO 2019 in Cologne. Since the linking of different systems with the aim of uniform product data management is still a topic and, what's more, one of our main focuses in MFC, I am taking a look at the issue once again in this blog post.
Why is this topic event relevant?
First of all, through consistent information, you achieve a uniform brand presence at all relevant touchpoints in the sense of integrated communication. This means that your products and services are displayed and presented with the identical names, images, features, etc. in all output channels.
As this information can now be made available to external systems via dedicated interfaces, project and problem-oriented consulting is easier to implement in many places because the core information (possibly even in several languages) is virtually already available and only needs to be inserted at the required point. It is then easy to introduce customers to the product range step by step and to underline one's own competence by providing in-depth advice. Almost as a side effect, the visibility of the digital offerings on the web is also increased, for example by picking up on targeted user search queries and developing solutions with reference to the product range. The more diverse the content, the greater the visibility and the competitive advantage.
If the whole is then also implemented in a technically professional manner and gives the impression that everything comes from a single source (keyword: seamless integration), this also creates trust on the user side, which in turn has a positive effect on conversion.
Two classical initial situations
In practice, we often experience two similar initial situations:
- A store system is already in place and should be extended by an editorial system. This is usually the case when a set of product data is already available in one's own store and the online marketing measures should be expanded and intensified, especially using original content.
- A TYPO3 CMS is already in place and should be extended by a store system. This is logically the case when one's own e-commerce activities are to be pushed further. The task then is to export the product data from the CMS. This is often more time-consuming than generating the data directly from a store system, since certain information (such as prices or availability) is not covered by a CMS.
In both cases, the question is how can information be exported from the existing system in order to transfer it to a PIM and there make it reusable for other channels.
In order to be able to use the existing data, it must first be converted into a structured form. For this purpose, the data is exported and made available in an exchange format. This can be an xml document, a JSON object or a csv table. These formats can usually be imported by all common PIM systems.
When introducing a PIM, it is very important that you define a point in time from which on the PIM is the leading instance ("single source of truth"). In other words, when will the data be maintained only in the PIM? Because from this point on, no further updates may take place at any other location that are not also carried out in the PIM. Otherwise, this data will be overwritten during synchronization and, in the worst case, cause organizational chaos. Experience shows that this scenario is not uncommon!
Full automation of exchange processes
The PIM is often operated together with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in order to fully automate the underlying processes. There are also systems that offer both directly. In this constellation, the PIM then houses the presentation data of the product range (i.e., product descriptions, USPs, data sheets, etc.), while the ERP manages the sales data (i.e., prices, availabilities, logistical information, etc.). Via an interface (which must be configured separately), the relevant data can be transferred to the store system and used there further in the context of your e-commerce activities.
If the sales features offered by a store system should now be linked to the editorial features of a CMS, an individual interface is required here as well. TYPO3 already comes with interfaces to external store systems; however, these are more to be seen as a technical bridge that needs to be configured further. The reason for this is that each CMS and each store system has its own data structure, so that an all-round solution is conceptually not possible.
As soon as this interface has been implemented, it is possible to access the article data records in the store editorially from the CMS and to integrate them quickly and flexibly in the content - for example as a simple image-text element, as a carousel, as an accordion, or in the form of other content elements that the user's own style guide provides. In this way, inspirational and advisory content can be directly linked to the store functions and promote conversion.
The advantages of this integrated system landscape are obvious
- Data consistency: all output channels access the same data source and have the same view of the data
- Minimal maintenance effort: product data only needs to be maintained and kept up to date in one place (i.e. globally, usually in the PIM)
- Low error rate: through a maximum degree of automation when linking PIM, ERP, CMS and store
- Multifaceted data use: the data can be used for presentation and sales purposes as described or also transferred to other output channels
Please feel free to share this article.
Comments
No comments yet.