The one missing part in Magento

Tom Karwatka
6 min readFeb 7, 2018

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Magento is of course kind of industry standard for Mid-Size eCommerce Projects. The platform growth in last 2–3 years is very very impressive. But I fill they still miss one crucial component.

Content for Commerce

These days eCommerce Software is still not so good when it comes to building and managing content-rich shopping experiences. Recently, I heard from Matchesfashion.com that 35% of their revenue is driven by content. This is quite an impressive number but also an important trend to follow.

According to Content Marketing Institute research, 50% of companies are going to increase their budget for content marketing next year. The amount of information on the web is expected to increase by 500 percent (conservatively) in the next five years.

Only the best content can survive that. Even with the growing cost of professional content creation, this still looks like a cheaper option than giving massive discounts to attract new clients and then make them loyal.

The need for PIM

The main purpose of a Product Information Management System (PIM) is to be the central repository of all the company’s product data. PIM helps to classify, enrich, and translate your product information.

Pimcore PIM

Many years ago we had saw this and we have invested in PimCore. Now Divante is a core contributor to the platform and The First Pimcore Strategic Partner.

Pimcore Tribe at Divante

OK, so what makes Pimcore so special?

Training is easy

The current version of Pimcore is based on the well known Symfony 3, one of the most popular frameworks. The architecture is plain and simple, and honestly, most of the time you don’t have to worry about it. That’s why you need only 2 weeks to train a Pimcore developer.

Pimcore Inspire = Magento Imagine :)

Small but very vibrant community

The community of Pimcore agencies is relatively small if you compare this to other CMS communities, but this is also a huge advantage. People know each other and are open to cooperation. We routinely work with many agencies across Europe to complete projects together. This is very similar to Magento Community, just smaller :)

Modern technology stack

Symfony3 is the base for the newest version of Pimcore (5). Many developers prefer the newest technology stack because they feel they can develop themselves.

Built by developers for developers

The whole platform is built for developers so they really like it. We have seen that developers from IT departments, in even the biggest companies, are eager to find out more about Pimcore, and treat the platform as a great opportunity to learn.

Pimcore Architecture

Great UX for admins and editors

In Pimcore What You See Is What You Get is a true statement. Everything is very easy to edit and looks exactly as you intended. There is no need to hire a frontend-developer to make a change in the layout.

The whole concept of a Pimcore backed system is quite flexible but still very easy to get familiar with.

Pimcore

Compounding PIM, CMS and DAM

Probably the biggest advantage of Pimcore is that you can build PIM, CMS and DAM (Digital Asset Management) on one platform. This is extremely convenient and allows businesses to keep the cost of ownership low. No risky integration needed. Everything is written in the same technology and you don’t need to integrate different systems.

Workflow management

Pimcore fully supports workflow management while processing data. You can map all the internal processes of your client into Pimcore. You can, for example, start with the DAM module and process all Client’s photos for the products, organize them, and even edit them! The workflow module can help you to take them to the PIM module where all the products can be paired with the photos that have gone through the editing and reviewing process, then it’s a straight way to the Magento.

Great for B2B and Fashion

When you connect PIM with CMS and Magento it turns out that you have just created an ideal platform for Fashion and B2B. Luckily, these two are the fastest growing eCommerce segments. So you can address these two segments with a complex offer using only one solution. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Open Source Enterprise PIM

Of course there are many Open Source eCommerce platforms and CMS platforms. But there are not so many Open Source PIMs. So this is another huge plus for Pimcore. When you compare Pimcore to old-school PIMs that many companies are still using, you will win the deal every time. Adding to that flexibility and being open, means this is a killer-app for a PIM category.

Customer Experience

You can build a comprehensive User Experience on Pimcore, not only because you have one source of product information, but also because you have quite complex tools for segmenting and targeting users. You can personalize content with Pimcore without any third party solutions.

Flexible but also very fast

The Pimcore data model comes with an exceptional “connect anything” architecture. It is agile, hyper-flexible and highly adept at handling tens of millions of products or master data with thousands of different attributes. We have conducted many performance tests with Pimcore and it looks like we haven’t found a limit yet :)

Integrations and imports are piece of cake

Through its one of a kind API driven approach, it can integrate into practically any IT landscape. We routinely import clients’ data for workshops, only to show the client that this is very easy. Of course, this always makes a huge impression on our clients and helps us make a deal.

Feature rich

Showing a demo of Pimcore is a pleasure. Clients are always very excited and this helps us every time.

Key “good to show” features include:

  • Intuitive drag&drop interface
  • Very smooth and natural support for mobile
  • Great graphical editor
  • Impressive targeting and personalization tools
  • Easy data integration mechanism
  • Multi-language and multi-domain suppor

Magento Integration

It’s very easy to connect Magento and Pimcore, using our connector.

PWA Support

With OS VueStorefront your Pimcore is fully PWA ready. Full article about PWA for Pimcore.

PWA Product Catalogue

How to interest your Magento clients in Pimcore — my ideas

  • storytelling and storyselling — build eMagazines, content pages and landing pages that will build a story around your brand and products
  • Product Information Management — build complex product-cards, automate workflow
  • generate leads — build interactive forms and landing-pages to gather leads

Start using PIM right now without engaging IT forces

A ready to use Product Information Management system based on Pimcore® that shortens implementation time without engaging IT forces and unnecessary expenses.

You can try Pimcore, using our PimonCloud Solution.

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Tom Karwatka
Tom Karwatka

Written by Tom Karwatka

CoFounder of @CTTornado eCommerce Startup Studio

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