Why Marketplaces and B2B Platforms Can’t Scale Without a Strong PIM System

Imagine launching 1,000 products across 5 regions and 3 languages, without breaking a sweat. That’s what a powerful PIM makes possible. Codica’s marketplace developers know firsthand: once you clean up your product data, growth isn’t just easier, it’s exponential.

And the opposite? Chaos. We've seen it time and time again: out-of-date tools, disjointed spreadsheets, and never-ending manual updates. No PIM means slow time to market, mismatched quotes, and frustrated teams.

Codica’s experts have helped platforms move from firefighting to forward momentum by implementing modern product information management software that turns complexity into clarity. That’s how serious marketplaces scale.

PIM: The unseen engine of product success

​You can’t scale a business on disorganized data.

Marketplaces and B2B platforms live or die by the clarity and consistency of their product catalogs. Every time your team has to fix an incorrect attribute, track a missing image, or rewrite a description for yet another channel, you lose speed, and customers.

In reality, 99% of business leaders encounter at least one challenge related to product information, with automation, teamwork, and prompt product launches being the most frequent issues.

That’s why leading platforms rely on a Product Information Management (PIM) system as their operational backbone. More than just marketplace data management, a centralized hub ties together multiple components: specs, media, localization, taxonomy, supplier feeds, and more.

The result? Cleaner operations, faster updates, and fewer errors.​

What once took weeks to achieve, like onboarding a new supplier or launching a regional catalog, can now be achieved in minutes. Updates synchronize in real-time across marketplaces, B2B sites, and internal systems with perfect accuracy and control.

PIM translates backend complexity into frontend simplicity. It allows your team to manage thousands of SKUs, across regions and languages, from a single source of truth.

No duplicated listings. No inconsistent content. Just a seamless product content quality for every customer.

Errors, delays, duplicates: The no-PIM reality

As marketplaces and B2B platforms grow, their product ecosystems burst exponentially in complexity. New geography, new language, new suppliers, without a good product information management system, this growth soon becomes operational gridlock. What could be a smooth ride to scale becomes a bog of manual workarounds, mistakes, and delays.

This is what happens when PIM is not in the picture:

Data silos and fragmentation

When product data is scattered across spreadsheets, email, legacy systems, and third-party tools, your teams lose their single source of truth. Each department uses its own version of product data, marketing produces copy from stale specs, sales sells with incorrect pricing, and localization teams struggle with inconsistent formats.

Those silos create a ripple effect of inefficiencies: duplicated effort, internal friction, and ultimately, product listings that aren't consistent across channels. That fragmentation not only slows workflows, it propagates errors and undermines decision-making.

Increased time-to-market

With decentralized control and manual automation, every new release of a product is a separate project. Hours of valuable team time are lost gathering data, resizing content between numerous platforms, and manually double-handling updates. Entering new markets or signing up with a new supplier can take days rather than weeks. But if you don't have a PIM, you're in manual mode, where a small change triggers days of coordinating and downtime.

Each slipped deadline represents lost revenue potential.

Poor customer experience

From the customer's point of view, inconsistent product information undermines trust. If your product is called one thing on your B2B site, something different on your marketplace, and has different specs in your catalog: why should they trust anything? Incomplete or incorrect data causes customer frustration, cart abandonment, and higher return rates.

A poor product experience is not only a UX issue, but it's a direct hit to your brand and your bottom line.

Briefly put, scaling without an effective PIM system is analogous to building a skyscraper in the absence of a map. The building can stay together for a while, but cracks will begin to develop, and it will get tougher to brush off.

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From chaos to clarity: Business benefits of mastering product data

What begins as a handful of product listings can quickly snowball into a marketplace data management mess. A powerful PIM keeps things under control, no matter how fast you scale.

Here’s how a strong PIM system can make a difference:

Clear data leads to better decisions

Through consistent and accurate product data, you can trust your reports and make informed decisions. Gone are the days of trawling through stagnant spreadsheets or conflicting data, but only reliable insights when you need them.

In fact, 87% of businesses realized tangible business value from their data and analytics investments. This demonstrates the actual benefit of putting data to good use.

Smooth expansion into new markets

Its line extension or new market penetration becomes simpler through a strong product data management system. You can take advantage of existing content: translate the product descriptions, adapt the prices, and propagate through channels without redoing everything from scratch.

In fact, the global PIM market is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.7% from 2024 to 2030 and reach USD 32.84 billion by 2030. The growth reflects the increasing importance of PIM systems in facilitating efficient product data management across markets.

Read also: Online Marketplace Marketing Strategy That Works in 2025

Unified collaboration across teams

A product data management system centralized gives the same up-to-date information to all departments: marketing, sales, product management. Synchronization reduces errors, streamlines processes, and enhances team collaboration.

Customer experience (CX) leaders perform better than others when it comes to revenue growth. For example, in retail, CX leaders experienced a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) that was 26 percentage points higher than the lagging industry.

This underscores the importance of harmonized, accurate product information in fueling improved customer experiences and business growth.

Preparedness for upcoming innovations

Ecommerce is an evolving business which does not rest. A thriving PIM platform sets the platform for adopting emerging technologies, delivering individualized customer experiences, and welcoming new channels to sell through.

Implementing a strong PIM system not only improves your product data management, but also enables your company to make informed decisions, expand effectively, and maintain a competitive edge in a fast-paced market.

What defines a truly scalable PIM system

Scalability isn't just about handling more SKUs. A truly scalable PIM system scales with your business: structurally, technically, and strategically.

• Most importantly, data modeling agility is essential. As new product categories, product variants, or regional compliance standards are introduced, your PIM must be able to handle evolving data structures without constant developer intervention. If you're unable to establish and manage new attributes, new relationships, or new taxonomies in real-time, your business will slow down.
• Second, automation and workflows must scale with your company. Look for systems with rule-based automation. For example, auto-tagging, conditional formatting, or content validation across thousands of products. That's what saves hours of manual updates as you scale.
• Third, API-first architecture defines scalability. Your PIM needs to integrate with all the external systems, from ecommerce and ERPs to translation tools and analytics engines, via robust APIs. Otherwise, synchronizing product data across touchpoints becomes a bottleneck.
• Finally, don't overlook user governance. The more teams you involve, the more critical roles, permissions, and audit trails become. A scalable PIM lets you delegate without sacrificing data integrity.

Scalable systems are built not just for today’s catalog, but for tomorrow’s growth, complexity, and market expansion. Choose accordingly.

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Winning with PIM: Who’s doing it right

Still wondering if a PIM system is worth it? These real-world companies didn’t guess: they acted based on clear operational needs, from product data chaos to missed market opportunities. By implementing PIM, they achieved faster time-to-market, better team alignment, and scalable growth that wouldn't have been possible with manual tools.

Zalando: Streamlining fashion product data

• Challenge. Managing millions of fashion products across various categories, languages, and brands posed significant challenges in maintaining consistent and accurate product information.​
• Solution. Zalando developed its own Smart Product Platform (SPP), a combination of PIM and Master Data Management (MDM) systems, to centralize and manage product data efficiently.​
• Results. The SPP enabled Zalando to enhance product data quality, improve customer experience, and scale operations effectively across multiple markets.​

Leigh country: Accelerating time-to-market

• Challenge. Relying on spreadsheets for product data management led to inefficiencies, errors, and delayed product launches.​
• Solution. Leigh Country implemented Plytix PIM to centralize product information, streamline data management processes, and improve accuracy.
• Results. The company achieved a 95% reduction in time-to-market for new products, expanded its product catalog by 66%, and entered new markets in Europe.​

Grainger: Enhancing inventory management

• Challenge. Managing a vast inventory of over 1.5 million products with manual processes led to inefficiencies and errors.​
• Solution.Grainger implemented Clear Spider’s KeepStock VMI and InventoryScan CMI systems to automate inventory management and streamline operations.​
• Results. The automation reduced manual errors, improved inventory accuracy, and enhanced customer satisfaction through timely product availability.​

Intersport: Centralizing product information

• Challenge. Coordinating product information from over 600 brand manufacturers across various channels was complex and time-consuming.​
• Solution. Intersport adopted Contentserv’s PIM system to centralize product data, ensuring consistency and accuracy across all platforms.​
• Results. The centralized system improved data quality, streamlined product information distribution, and enhanced the overall customer experience.​

Ready to scale? Build your custom PIM solution with us

If your team is tired of fixing the same product data problems over and over, it’s time for a system that actually scales.

With years of experience in custom software development, Codica has helped fast-growing platforms move from frustration to clarity by delivering powerful, custom-built PIM systems.

Want to see what’s possible? Start by checking out our portfolio, or contact us for a free consultation. Growth doesn’t wait, and neither should your data.