Since its release in 1985, Microsoft Excel has been the go-to solution for businesses to manage and organize their product spreadsheets. But just because something has been done a certain way for this long doesn’t mean it must continue. Some traditions can be detrimental.
Product data is complex and long with multiple features. It doesn’t just include the product’s attributes but many other digital assets, such as images and videos. Storing these in a spreadsheet can lead to erroneous formats.
There are some digital assets that you can not store in a spreadsheet. But this isn’t all. Spreadsheets are a no-go for you when it comes to managing your e-commerce stores and product information for various other reasons.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the various issues that arise with the use of Excel spreadsheets and why it’s time to move to more efficient solutions, namely: PIM.
Reasons to leave Excel Spreadsheets
There are several reasons why a company should consider leaving Excel spreadsheets and adopting a product information management (PIM) system.
Here I have highlighted the main reasons why;
1. Spreadsheets are prone to human error
Data is one of a business’s strongest assets that rely upon making quality decisions and creating guidance. But what, then, if the data is not complete or accurate? It is reported that 88% of spreadsheets have errors in them. With each person within an organization making changes to a file, the chances of contamination increase.
Small, minor errors along this process result in a spreadsheet that contains inaccurate and inconsistent data. These errors find their way into spreadsheets because Excel cannot notify users when they enter a product attribute that may be inaccurate or if they mistakenly skip a cell, as is possible in PIM solutions.
If you’ve been in the e-commerce industry long enough, you will understand how inconsistent data can impact customer satisfaction. It simply drives them away from your brand. So what’s the point of spending hours upon hours of hard work on maintaining spreadsheets when they produce undesirable results and drive away sales?
Therefore, as your business grows, it’s essential to move away from product spreadsheets towards data management systems that allow you to keep track of all product-related information that is free of errors. Such systems immediately notify the users of any missing product attributes and duplicate entries and ensure consistency between all channels.
2. Don’t allow for collaboration between team members
A major reason spreadsheets are so susceptible to error is that they don’t allow collaboration between team members. Syncing spreadsheets can not be done in a way that changes are made to them by more than one employee at the same time.
Each Excel file is designed to be updated by one instance of Excel at a time. They don’t have the same architecture as enterprise databases or product information management systems that are designed to support multiple users.
Despite the existence of cloud computing solutions, it is still difficult to share spreadsheets among team members and other departments within the organization. Google Sheets is one of the possible cloud solutions allowing real-time sharing, but it can breach a company’s security policy and cause a data breach or loss.
This is different from how PIM solutions such as Apimio operate. Multiple employees can update such solutions in real-time without worrying about unsaved changes from different sources.
PIM software allows for collaborative working, leading to seamless flows of information across all departments and channels. It also saves a lot of time.
This is unlike in spreadsheets, where you have to wait for one employee to finish making his changes to the sheet to pass on to the next employee. And this inefficient cycle goes on endlessly.
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3. No accountability as changes can’t be tracked
Now, anyone with access to a product spreadsheet can change it. If you’re giving spreadsheet access to 5 different employees, there is no way of tracking made what changes to those files. If there is ever an instance where important information is lost or changed, you’ll spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure out who was responsible for that. Then you’ll spend additional time recovering that information somehow.
This is unlike automated solutions such as PIMs that log all changes made to the system. You can configure it to track changes on items, products, and other entities. This information makes it possible to reconstruct all the actions that happened to the configured entities.
This is extremely important as it helps simplify a system/data process to restore in the event of loss or some malicious activities occurring in the PIM system.
4. Lack of security
Typically, spreadsheets are not that secure and therefore are at greater risk for data corruption or mismanagement of information. Files that contain sensitive financial information may not be safe from hackers. You can password-protect a product spreadsheet file; however, it may still not be sufficient for businesses to use. Once someone has access to the spreadsheet data, it is impossible to restrict what they do with it.
Therefore, other types of data collection software may be a more viable option. For instance, Apimio has built-in safeguards that protect data integrity. Only the manufacturer has the autonomy to make changes to product data. You can allocate different tasks to different employees on the portal, restricting access. In a spreadsheet, this is impossible, as you can’t restrict the access of certain cells.
Similarly, a user might sort a column of information and may unknowingly find related information, such as first and last name, to become out of sync. In contrast, a database will unite all parts of a record, thereby ensuring better data integrity.
PIM systems are optimum for omnichannel selling. Therefore, in the process of distributing data across multiple sales channels, data integrity is intact, with no corruption or loss of information.
5. Don’t support real-time decision-making
Spreadsheets cannot support real-time decision-making due to outdated and inaccurate data. It is time-consuming to gather the most up-to-date information from multiple users and summarise the information.
Spreadsheets provide raw data all at once. Thus, it’s challenging to interpret what data is essential and what is not. Perhaps the only option in a spreadsheet is pressing the “sort” button, which doesn’t always help find what you’re looking for. With other existing systems, prioritizing data through visualization tools can be possible. Unlike spreadsheets, these tools can highlight the critical aspects of a data set or results.
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Product Spreadsheets are not designed to keep historical data. Often during the action of reducing their size to keep them more manageable, someone may mistakenly delete historical data. Even if you retain different versions, it is tough for decision-makers to compare files and spot trends within their data.
PIM systems are built to accommodate data analysis. With all information stored in one place, organizations can read consumer trends and make quality business decisions. The right dashboard software will provide you with the chart framework to build from while giving you plenty of opportunities to customize.
Spreadsheets are also typically without context. It’s difficult to correlate different data sets together in Excel to see how they interrelate. Dashboards, on the other hand, can have different layers of information and blend multiple sources seamlessly. You start with a high-level view of your metrics and add drill-downs to show the data driving those numbers with a single click.
6. Unsuitable for Digital Asset Management (DAM)
Have you ever tried storing an image in a spreadsheet? It has you clenching your fists out of frustration because it’s near impossible. PDFs, videos, images, and other digital content is essential for e-commerce businesses as they bring your products to life. Basic product attributes won’t engage buyers.
Digital assets are often published in different departments with different employees. Having a central location that stores all this data with the rest of your product information ensures that it is easily accessible and available to any member of the organization so they can push it to all sales channels whenever.
PIM has unlimited DAM capabilities to keep all files and multimedia content safe and up-to-date. You can manage images, videos, graphics, and files in one place, linked directly to your products. Having your product information and digital assets in a central repository allows marketing teams to push out content related to their products as necessary easily. It also enables the creation of more suitable content, as no files are lost. Teams don’t have to spend extra time trying to locate these.
With Product Information Management tools like Apimio, publishing your digital assets to the right channel, at the right time, and in the right format is automatic. You don’t have to stress about optimizing them for the user front, as the system does it for you.
Another Read: Understand the fundamental difference between DAM and PIM systems
7. No auto data-backup
Excel does not have any auto-data backup feature. So once you start putting product data into your excel sheets, you better prepare yourself to prepare a backup for it as well manually. Also, if there ever comes an instance that you forgot to make a backup, that data goes out the window, nowhere to be found. Loss of data is a huge risk for any business. It results in incomplete product data on the public front and inaccurate data analysis in the future. This is because huge chunks of data do not reflect in the sheets.
However, every PIM has an auto-data-backup feature that makes database backups frequently and automatically and stores them in different virtual locations. Users need not worry about the loss of data as everything will be safe and secure. You can access it at any given time, at whatever location they deem convenient.
Think about the time and effort your team will save when you back up data automatically. No manual work is necessary. We love to hear it!
Conclusion
With robust PIM systems in place, companies should stop relying on outdated Excel spreadsheets that create inaccurate and inconsistent product data. Tools like Apimio are now in the market to help e-commerce companies streamline their operations and access the highest quality product data with guaranteed data security and integrity.
What to do next?
- Read more about our Product Information-related Guides here.
- Learn how to use a PIM tool to Improve your Product Time to Market & SEO. Start your Free 14 Day Trial.
- Contact our support or Comment your thoughts under the blog section if you have any questions or issues.
Frequently Asked Questions
PIM differs from Excel spreadsheets in that it provides a more robust and scalable solution that can handle large volumes of data and enables easier collaboration and workflow management.
Excel spreadsheets have several limitations when it comes to managing product information, including difficulty handling large volumes of data, lack of standardized data structures, limited automation and validation capabilities, and limited collaboration and workflow management features.
