PIM

A PIM system manages all your product information centrally and sends it to your store, marketplaces and catalogues. Learn when you need one.

By Arthur LauwersUpdated October 15, 2026

A PIM, short for Product Information Management, is software where you manage and enrich all your product information in one place, then send it out to your store, marketplaces, catalogues and sales team.

What a PIM system holds

Product names, descriptions and translations

Specifications such as dimensions, materials and weight

Images, manuals and certificates

Relations between products: variants, accessories, successors

Channel-specific data, such as a shorter title for Google Shopping

What a PIM usually does not do: stock, prices and invoices. That is the job of an ERP.

PIM or ERP: where does product data belong?

An ERP knows a product as an item number with a price and a stock level. A PIM knows it as something you need to sell: with copy, images and specs in every language. With a few hundred products in one language, Shopify's own product management is enough. With thousands of products, several languages or several sales channels, a PIM pays off.

When you need a PIM

You have more than a few thousand SKUs, or your suppliers each send data in their own format.

You sell in several languages and translations drift out of sync.

You sell through your store, marketplaces and printed catalogues at the same time.

Product information is spread across spreadsheets, the ERP and the store.

Well-known PIM systems include Akeneo, Pimcore, Plytix and Salsify.

How 6th Man works with PIM

For T'Hooft Buitengewoon we moved more than 100,000 SKUs to Shopify and built a pipeline that cleans and normalises supplier data. Read the case. If your PIM or ERP has to talk to Shopify, we design that integration as part of a custom Shopify store.