Relying on a single, all-in-one CRM platform can cause more headaches than it solves, making it harder for brands to scale efficiently and react quickly to changing customer demands.
Composable commerce’s modular approach allows companies to integrate various independent technologies best suited to their unique needs. Unlike headless architecture, it does not require much back-end maintenance.
A case in point is how the AI-powered network from product information management (PIM) company Pimberly boosts revenue for retailers, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands, and manufacturers by centralizing, curating, and distributing product data across multifaceted channels. It also improves customer experience (CX) with composable commerce strategies that enable businesses to create personalized, seamless, and omnichannel shopping experiences.
This approach offers the best of both worlds. Composable commerce helps brands stay agile by combining the most effective tools from legacy platforms like Oracle and SAP with newer, best-of-breed software. Pimberly’s integrated PIM and digital asset management (DAM) platform enables teams to adapt brand content quickly.
Composable commerce is more flexible and scalable than traditional, monolithic software platforms. Martin Balaam, Pimberly’s CEO and co-founder, sees it becoming the standard for digital commerce architecture, offering unparalleled agility for brands looking for fast adaptation.
“As application programming interfaces [APIs] and microservices continue to mature and develop, businesses will have to be agile and prioritize best-of-breed solutions that can be assembled and reassembled as market demands shift,” he told CRM Buyer.
How Composable Commerce Goes Beyond Headless
Headless software architecture separates the user interface or front end from the back end, which contains business logic, data, and operations. This decoupling allows for greater flexibility, scalability, and agility in developing and deploying applications, especially across multiple platforms and devices.
Composable commerce takes this approach further by modularizing every aspect of the commerce tech stack, including product information management.
“With composable solutions, teams can optimize each component like PIM, Content Management Systems (CMS), and checkout functions independently to streamline operations and innovate faster,” he explained.
Pimberly’s product is keenly suited for this approach, he added. The software developer built its platform from the ground up to be API-first, modular, and cloud-native, which makes it a natural fit for composable/headless ecosystems.
“The platform’s gen-AI-driven enrichment and validation tools ensure that product data is accurate, enriched, and ready-to-go for any customer-facing commerce experience,” Balaam said.
Overcoming Challenges of Monolithic Systems
Legacy systems often consist of tightly coupled architectures and siloed data islands of crucial information. That presents a significant hurdle, making integration and data migration complex.
Balaam observed that the shift requires more than finding more modern solutions. It entails a cultural change internally. Companies must embrace agility, cross-functional collaboration, and incremental rollout strategies.
According to Balaam, clearing that roadblock enables retailers and CPG brands to improve CX and drive revenue. By centralizing product data and digital assets and automating their distribution to all sales channels, Pimberly’s PIM solution helps ensure customers always view accurate and engaging content.
“This consistency boosts customer trust, reduces returns, and accelerates conversion rates across all your e-commerce channels,” he said.
How AI Enhances Product Data Management
Pimberly’s AI capabilities include data classification and categorization, automated SEO-optimized product descriptions, inconsistency flagging, and image recognition. These tools within the platform significantly reduce manual effort while reducing time-to-market and increasing content quality across all selling channels.
“Our customers often report a 70-80% reduction in time spent managing product data and onboarding new SKUs across channels,” said Balaam. He added that many also see strong sales growth driven by improved product content, better SEO performance, and faster time-to-market.
Pimberly supports robust REST APIs, pre-built connectors, and customizable webhooks to integrate easily with leading e-commerce, enterprise resource planning (ERP), CRM, and order management system (OMS) platforms.
Balaam said this enables companies to leverage a composable tech stack that meets their unique requirements. They can ensure their data is in sync and the front end remains unaffected.
PIM/DAM Platform Powers Smarter Workflows
Augmented with generative AI, Pimberly’s product data processes enable e-commerce teams to launch new channels, product lines, or markets in regions with speed and confidence in their reliability. Balaam said the platform continues to evolve alongside the business to support ongoing optimization and innovation.
“Accurate, reliable product data is proven to drive higher conversions, reduce the number of returns, and strengthen customer trust. It ensures every channel from web to marketplace delivers a unified brand experience that leads to greater loyalty and increased customer lifetime value,” he added.
Balaam recounted his experience with one of his customers, Luxe Collective, a retailer specializing in secondhand handbags, footwear, and jewelry, to support that performance improvement. He revealed that the company saw as much as a two-times increase in its time to market. Previously, the merchant had listed 20 items a day with a four-to-five-person team.
“With Pimberly in place, they’ve progressed to 40 items a day with the same team, or even up to 150 with an expanded team. They chose Pimberly for the speed with which products could be brought to market, along with the platform’s ability to automate manual, tedious processes,” Balaam noted.
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