Widen solves for the content supply chain with an updated digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM) solution that can be bundled with e-commerce syndication

Widen today launched sweeping upgrades to the Widen Collective^®, its platform that combines digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM) into one category-bending solution. The Collective equips brands to bring together product data, marketing content, and digital assets, send them anywhere their customers shop, and automate the steps in that process. The upgrades will help brands establish a product content supply chain that minimizes manual steps and maximizes speed to market.

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Widen’s combined DAM and PIM solution is designed for omnichannel brands that sell physical goods. Widen developed this technology because marketing teams often struggle to bring products to market efficiently when the required product data, marketing content, and digital assets are siloed in multiple systems and files. The manual steps required to aggregate, categorize, and publish that information on e-commerce sites are simply too time-consuming and fraught with potential for errors and inconsistencies.

The Widen Collective solves these problems by offering a central place to assemble, manage, and distribute all product information. The following upgrades and offerings enable brands to get even more value out of the platform:

• Product hierarchies. Marketers can now categorize their product catalog into a hierarchy with product brands, families, and lines that is easy to navigate and reflective of what customers see online.
• Product variants. When marketers update specs like dimensions, weight, and materials for a “parent” product, the new data automatically cascades to every product variant in that family, eliminating the need for one-by-one updates.
• Auto-updating portals. Portals has become a favorite tool for sharing collections of product assets with distributors, retailers, and dealers. Now, users can configure portals to automatically ingest the newest product assets based on metadata rules.
• E-commerce syndication bundle. Brands can now purchase Widen’s combined DAM and PIM solution in a bundle with Productsup, an e-commerce syndication platform that can launch products on more than 1,500 e-commerce channels.

Other updates include native support for 360-degree images, revamped apps for iOS and Android, and a free, on-demand PIM basics training course.

“E-commerce has become the key driver of brand growth and resilience in the post-COVID economy,” said Chris Schroeder, Head of Product at Widen. “More than ever, brands need a dialed-in content supply chain that brings products to market with accurate product data and compelling content. Our aim is to eliminate the usual barriers, manual steps, and risks that stand between a brilliant new product and its successful launch.”

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