The Problem

Product data that lives in three places simultaneously lives in none of them properly. The ERP holds the master record. The category manager maintains a separate spreadsheet with enriched descriptions. The storefront has a third version, edited directly by whoever had access at the time. When these diverge - and they always diverge - the result is products blocked from publishing because a required attribute is missing, search indexing that returns nothing because the category taxonomy does not match the filter logic, and translation workflows managed through email threads that no one can audit.

Scaling a product catalog under these conditions is not a content problem. It is an architecture problem. The absence of a single governed source of truth means that every new market, every new channel, and every new product line multiplies the manual work rather than absorbing it.

What We Deliver

PIM Selection and Implementation

Platform selection depends on catalog complexity, asset volume, and the degree of customization the product team needs. Gradion implements Akeneo for mid-market retailers with strong B2C catalog requirements - it is well-suited to teams that need structured enrichment workflows with a low barrier to adoption. For organizations that need a unified platform spanning product information, digital asset management, and content, Gradion implements Pimcore. As a certified Pimcore partner, Gradion has run full implementations across retail, manufacturing, and distribution, including a Japanese food and beverage distributor where time-to-market for new suppliers was reduced from four weeks to one week after the Pimcore MDM rollout. For organizations with specific requirements not covered by a standard PIM, Gradion designs a custom integration layer that functions as a governed data hub between ERP, storefront, and publishing channels.

Data Model Design

The data model determines whether catalog enrichment scales or becomes a permanent manual bottleneck. Gradion designs the attribute taxonomy, category hierarchy, and completeness rules before any data migration begins. Channel-specific completeness rules specify which attributes are required for the storefront, which are required for the marketplace, and which trigger a quality gate before any product reaches a published state. A poorly designed data model can be functional at 500 SKUs and unusable at 5,000. The architecture work at the start determines which trajectory the catalog follows.

ERP to PIM Integration

Product master data should flow from the ERP into the PIM without manual re-entry. Gradion builds and maintains these integrations for SAP, Infor, and Microsoft Dynamics as source systems. The integration handles initial data load, ongoing delta synchronization, and exception handling for records that fail validation on arrival. Product teams receive clean, structured data in the PIM on which enrichment can begin immediately, rather than spending the first hours of each product launch correcting ERP export formatting.

Channel Publishing

A PIM without governed channel publishing is a better spreadsheet. Gradion connects PIM to storefront - Shopware, Spryker, custom API-first storefronts - to marketplace channels including Mirakl and Amazon, and to print and PDF pipelines for B2B product catalogs. Each channel receives the data it requires in the format it requires, from a single source that product teams manage in one place. Detlev Louis, a motorbike accessories retailer with over 2,300 employees, maintained catalog integrity across international markets through a Spryker-based migration that preserved SEO rankings and allowed new country stores to launch in 20 days. That stability during migration comes from having a governed data layer beneath the storefront, not from the storefront itself.

Digital Asset Management

Product imagery, video, and documentation managed outside the PIM create the same fragmentation problem as product data managed in spreadsheets. Gradion integrates DAM functionality either within Pimcore - which unifies PIM and DAM in a single platform - or through a dedicated DAM connected to the PIM workflow. Product teams manage structured data and assets in a single editorial environment. Assets are linked to product records, versioned, and channeled to the appropriate output without manual packaging per channel.

Translation Workflow

Translation managed through copy-paste between spreadsheet, email, and storefront backend is unauditable and does not scale past a single market. Gradion implements structured translation workflows within the PIM: source locale content is locked during translation, translation assignments are tracked, and translated variants are validated against completeness rules before they are eligible for publishing. The result is a repeatable, auditable process rather than a series of ad hoc handoffs between teams.

Data Quality and Validation

Quality gates prevent incomplete or inaccurate products from reaching the storefront. Gradion implements completeness scoring per product, attribute validation rules that enforce required fields and permitted value ranges, and publishing blockers that prevent products below a defined threshold from going live. For a leading German designer furniture retailer, process automation reduced manual work in supplier and product workflows by 70 percent. The principle applies equally to PIM: automated validation catches errors before they propagate to the channel, rather than after a customer reports a missing specification or a search index returns a null result.

Proof in Production

A Japanese food and beverage distributor operating a nationwide distribution network implemented Pimcore MDM with Gradion across a catalog supplied by multiple wholesalers in inconsistent formats. Time-to-market for new supplier onboarding fell from four weeks to one week. Manual data work was significantly reduced, and the localized workflow tooling increased adoption among internal content teams.

Detlev Louis migrated from a legacy platform to Spryker with Gradion managing data integration and platform performance. SEO rankings were maintained through the migration, five years of customer review data was migrated without loss, and new international stores launched in 20 days.

CTA

Describe the product data challenge. We will scope the PIM implementation or the integration.