How to choose a PIM: ten questions to ask before you sign

Before the demos, measure where you start

A PIM is easier to choose when you know which problem it has to solve. Before asking for the first demo, gather three numbers:

• How many products you have and how many you add each year, counting variants.
• How many are incomplete for each channel you sell on: no description, missing key attributes, not enough photos.
• How many hours your team spends completing, fixing and copying product data between systems.

With those numbers, every demo stops being a feature list and becomes a concrete question: does this bring my numbers down? If you're not sure what a PIM is or how it differs from an ERP or a DAM, start with what a PIM is and PIM, ERP and DAM.

The ten questions

1. How does it model my products?

Ask how attributes are defined and whether they have a type (text, number with a unit, list of options, yes or no). Check whether they can be grouped by product family, so a tool doesn't ask for the same data as a garment, and how it handles variants: size, color, pack size.

2. What does it tell me about each channel?

Every store and marketplace asks for different columns. A good PIM tells you, product by product, what's missing for it to go out complete on each destination, and exports with the columns, order and format that channel expects. Without that, you'll keep checking it in a spreadsheet. The note on product feeds explains why it matters.

3. How does it measure completeness?

Ask whether completeness is measured against what each family and each channel requires, or whether it's one overall percentage. An overall number says little; what helps is knowing which attribute is missing on which products. More in catalog completeness.

4. How does my team work inside it?

Check roles and permissions: who can edit, who approves, who only reads. Ask whether someone can be limited to a brand or a category, whether there are comments and tasks on each product and whether there's a history of who changed what. A clear approval workflow keeps half-finished product pages out of your store.

5. How do suppliers get in?

If you receive catalogs from suppliers, ask how they add their products: whether they upload a file, whether they fill in a form with your rules and whether someone on your team approves before it enters the catalog. The note on supplier onboarding has the full list.

6. How does it integrate?

Ask which native integrations it has with your store and your ERP, whether there's a documented API, whether it sends webhooks when something changes and which import formats it accepts (CSV, Excel). Ask to see the API documentation before you sign, not after.

7. What does the AI do and what does it cost?

If the PIM offers AI to write descriptions, fill attributes or translate, ask what a person reviews before publishing, how it keeps to your brand voice and how it's charged. A clear usage price lets you work out what completing your catalog costs; one hidden in a plan only shows up on the invoice.

8. What happens with images?

Check whether it keeps photos linked to each product, whether it produces the sizes each channel asks for and whether it writes the alt text. A separate DAM only makes sense if you have a lot of brand material that isn't tied to a product.

9. What does it cost over a year, all in?

Add up license, implementation, integrations, training and the content work it saves you or leaves for you to do. Ask whether suppliers and reviewers count as users and whether variants count as products. The note on PIM pricing explains the three pricing models.

10. How do I leave if it doesn't work?

Ask whether you can export your full catalog whenever you want, in a format another system can read, and whether there's a minimum term. A vendor that trusts its product doesn't lock you in with your own data.

Test with your catalog, not the demo's

A demo with sample data always looks good. Ask for a trial with a hundred of your products, chosen to include the hard cases: variants, products with many attributes, product pages in two languages. Run the full cycle: import, complete, review and export to a real channel. At the end, measure the same things you measured at the start.

The red flags

• They want you to sign before testing with your data.
• Completeness is a single percentage, without saying what's missing or for which channel.
• There's no public API documentation.
• The AI price isn't in the quote.
• It isn't clear how you get your data out.

Where Bruxel fits

Bruxel is an AI PIM: you import a CSV or an Excel file, complete descriptions, attributes, categories, photos and translations with AI and your team's review, and export to each channel knowing what each product is missing. It's usage-based, with no monthly plan, and it has a documented public API. The details are on the PIM page, on pricing and in the developer portal. If you want to compare it with other options on the market, the note on PIM alternatives gathers what each one publishes.