What will power the future of digital commerce?

Today, digital commerce is a primary business driver for retailers, brands, and distributors. According to an analysis of US Census Bureau data by research firm Stratably, 2024 revenue from digital is projected to grow 8.4% in the U.S. market compared to in-store growth of 1.2%.

As digital commerce has grown in importance there has been a corresponding explosion of downstream channels where brand manufacturers must send content, from retail stores to marketplaces to social shopping and direct-to-consumer websites. Each of these channels has distinct rules for the product data they will accept and these rules change often; Target, Walmart and Amazon changed their data ingestion requirements nearly 1,000 times combined in 2023. The reasons for these changes vary: differing regional regulatory requirements, unique merchandising opportunities the channel requires, or varying rates of digital maturity between the channels.

These constant changes make it exceedingly difficult for business teams to keep their data organized and optimized for each destination. It’s equally difficult for IT teams to maintain data governance and traceability of the enterprise’s product data as its sent so frequently to so many different channels. To achieve success, many organizations use a Product Information Management (PIM) system to centralize and store product data, but the architecture of a classic stand-alone PIM solution isn’t designed to support digital commerce. In fact, it may impede success.

Product experience management (PXM) solutions, on the other hand, were built for digital commerce and are already seeing widespread adoption by brands, retailers, and distributors looking to…