In the News: Mint Velvet’s Trading Director Talks to Drapers About OMIO PIM

We were delighted to see Drapers’ interview with Laura Boyd, Mint Velvet’s Trading Director. In the article, she discusses why retailers should have a PIM, the benefits it can bring and why Mint Velvet chose OMIO PIM to handle their product data.

Continue reading to see our highlights from the interview or click here to read the full article.

Why Choose OMIO PIM?

There are a multitude of PIMs on the market – why choose OMIO PIM? Laura said: “So what I really, really like about OMIO PIM – and it makes me smile when I think about it now – is that aesthetically it’s the nicest looking product I’ve seen. When something makes you smile when you look at it and when something reminds you of, perhaps, the front end that you use at home when you’re using an Apple Mac or of some of the controls you use on social media, you know that young people are going to absolutely adopt it very easily. It stood out by a mile.

“Now, aesthetics aren’t going to sell a product – you have to make sure it functions as well. So, second to the aesthetics, is an end-to-end solution that’s not ‘just’ a PIM solution. Other PIMs are basically just attribution management systems, but the bit that OMIO PIM does on top is that it’s taken the product and style creation part of the process and that sits in the PIM as well. Other PIMs just were not as end-to-end. What OMIO PIM has is an end-to-end, ready to go, complete product and I honestly can’t think of anything you’d want to add to it that Retail Assist haven’t already thought of.”

How Can a PIM Help Retailers?

Explaining the challenges that retailers can face when getting their products out to market, Laura said: “We have to provide data to 9 different selling partners and, prior to obtaining a PIM solution, we transferred this data to partners in varying formats. But, in effect, it was the equivalent of sending 9 different Excel spreadsheets each week. My team download varying pieces of information from Merret and then cut and paste this information into the format of the required spreadsheet, which will then be emailed across to the partner. This needs to be done for each selling partner at least once a week dependant on the volume of information being sent. Sometimes the partner will say they haven’t received it, sometimes the partner will say there’s something missing or sometimes they’ll say: “you’ve left a field blank, we can’t accept it”. It’s a process which is prone to being inaccurate and, if you transmit inaccuracies, it takes longer to rectify. The whole cycle can go on much longer than you would like it to because until the data is effectively received, you can’t allocate product. Whether you’d call this a complication or inaccuracy, this is a very big issue when it comes to getting your products to market.

“When it comes to managing product data, you have to be very accurate. It’s a task that’s crucial but it’s also very routine and very mundane – you can’t make mistakes. For us, the churn of people managing this task prior to a PIM solution has been very high and I think any other retailer would say the same. You’re constantly retraining people and obviously new people bring a level of errors because they’re learning. So, every retailer really needs a PIM solution. A PIM solution costs almost the same as an entry level team member, who could then be used elsewhere in the business and you also have no accuracy issues. It’s a very sensible thing to do.”

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