Co-Founder
Managing product data in e-commerce is far from straightforward. Unlike traditional workflows that follow a clear linear path, product data management involves multiple, often overlapping stages. Decisions made by designers, merchandisers, and production teams frequently occur in isolation, resulting in a fragmented approach where critical information is trapped in siloed spreadsheets.
For example:
Designers may forget to inform other departments before they drop a product they're unhappy with.
Merchandising might remove products due to budget constraints, leading to planning complications.
Last-minute changes to sizing or costs may get missed downstream.
These isolated decisions contribute to what is known as the "Dark Stack"—a disjointed, chaotic system of data management that hampers efficiency and increases the need for constant alignment through meetings and communications. The non-linear nature of this process demands a more adaptable solution that can handle the dynamic and interconnected aspects of product data.
Examples:
Product Codes or SKU Changes: Minor errors, such as design changing colour, can impact the SKU code and cause integrations to fail.
E-commerce Sync Issues: Without a centralised system to manage product evolution, unapproved products may sync with platforms like Shopify, causing further complications.
In summary, product data doesn't follow a simple, step-by-step process. It requires a flexible, integrated approach to keep everything aligned and functioning smoothly.
Product Data: Left in the Dark Stack
In the world of e-commerce, product data management often gets trapped in the "Dark Stack," a chaotic mix of unstructured tools and manual processes. While useful for specific tasks, traditional systems like PLM and PIM fail to provide a cohesive, user-friendly experience. As a result, teams rely on disconnected spreadsheets and manual workflows, which can lead to errors and inefficiencies.
Cal Newport's The Human API Manifesto argues for the importance of systems that prioritise human interaction over rigid automation. Newport explains that "the most valuable interface creates value by placing humans at the centre, allowing them to be more effective." In the context of product data management, this means adopting flexible and intuitive tools designed around how people want to manage their workflow.
Traditional systems like PLM or ERP are built on the assumption that data flows in a linear, predictable manner. However, product data management is often non-linear, requiring real-time adjustments, cross-team collaboration, and quick decision-making. These tasks are challenging for rigid systems, leading to inefficiencies and mistakes.
The Power of Human-Centric Tools: Why Airtable Is the Right Choice
The journey from design to company-wide clarity is often obstructed by siloed decisions, miscommunication, and the chaotic "Dark Stack" of scattered spreadsheets. Traditional systems like PLM and ERP are designed to solve specific problems within these silos, but they are not equipped to unify product data across the entire business. These systems are slow to implement and rigid in structure, making them ill-suited for the dynamic needs of modern e-commerce.
Why Airtable?
Airtable offers a flexible, customisable solution that aligns perfectly with the fluid nature of e-commerce product management. Unlike the rigidity of PLMs and ERPs, Airtable enables the creation of custom apps. This ensures real-time updates, seamless integrations, and streamlined workflows.
Based on Cal Newport's The Human API Manifesto, we understand that "the most valuable interface places humans at the centre, allowing them to be more effective."
Airtable embodies this principle by offering a platform that doesn't constrain users with rigid processes but empowers them to mould the system to their unique needs. This human-centric approach enhances efficiency and fosters better collaboration and decision-making across teams.
Airtable's Key Advantages
Customisation and Flexibility: Airtable's framework allows businesses to tailor product information management to their needs. This pays big dividends when managing complex product data and attributes, and your front end constantly evolves with Shopify feature additions, new sales channels (like Zalando), and website changes.
Ease of Integration: Airtable builds its API as you create custom fields, meaning you can sync any data you add to any destination. This reduces the risk of errors and ensures that all teams work with the most up-to-date information.
Real-time Collaboration: Airtable enables teams to collaborate on the same data set, ensuring that updates are immediately reflected. This real-time interaction is crucial in preventing the delays and miscommunications that plague product launches.
Value for money: Unlike specialist systems, you don't pay an ongoing fee for the specialist feature set you need; instead, you pay for the initial customisation and any ongoing maintenance required. The Airtable Business Plan starts from $54/user/month.
Scalability: Whether you're a startup or an established company, Airtable scales with your business. Nike, Netflix, and Apple are all enterprise businesses operating on Airtable. I imagine they’ve got some product data somewhere!
From Product Inception to Live on Shopify
Using Airtable from product inception to your Shopify storefront ensures that product information remains in a single source of truth. It can be handed to other systems like your ERP, but because the very nature of Airtable is that it is custom, it is where you create and manage the unique product fields each team needs. If the merchandising or product design team changes an attribute used on the website's front end, triggering a change in their Airtable app could sync changes to the E-Commerce team to approve and publish. No product data entry should be repeated unnecessarily across any of the workflows.
Staying Aligned
Switching to Airtable for product data management connects all your product data from design to e-commerce, reducing manual work and ensuring everyone is on the same page.
By embracing a human-centric tool like Airtable, brands can break free from the constraints of traditional systems and achieve a more effective, unified approach to managing product data. By making the system more efficient, you make everyone involved in it more effective in their specific part.
Streamlining Product Data Management: Passenger Clothing's Journey to Airtable
Passenger Clothing, a brand deeply committed to sustainability and outdoor adventure, faced a significant challenge with managing its product information. Relying on an array of disconnected spreadsheets to handle product data became increasingly unsustainable as the company grew. These manual processes led to inefficiencies, errors, and a fragmented view of product information, complicating everything from pre-orders to translating content for global markets.
Recognising the need for a more robust solution, Passenger Clothing explored various Product Information Management (PIM) systems. However, they found traditional options insufficient due to their lack of integration with Shopify Markets and translation platforms. After thorough research, Passenger Clothing implemented Airtable, a flexible and customisable platform, as their new PIM solution.
This transition to Airtable was driven by the need for a highly adaptable system to streamline their processes, consolidate information, and future-proof their data models. By migrating to Airtable, Passenger Clothing simplified its Shopify upload process and significantly reduced its reliance on spreadsheets, aligning its product data management with its agile growth strategy.
When the decision was made to expand into France and Germany, the Passenger team could turn to Airtable to leverage the agile product data strategy they'd implemented. Airtable's AI capabilities support translation management, enabling Passenger to enter new markets with product listings, including Metafields, translated without creating additional Dark Stack documents to manage these new workflows.
