Your brand is scaling. You've got new products coming in, new creative, new channels and new retail partnerships on the go. 

The problem is your tech set up is starting to creak. Managing hundreds of SKUs in a single spreadsheet is unsustainable. And spending ages trawling through shared drives for the latest product shots is eating into your workday.  

This is the sign that it’s time to improve your tech stack.

But should you be investing in product information management (PIM) or digital asset management (DAM)? Both of them will seriously improve your workflows, but you may not have the resources to buy both right away. 

This article will help you figure out which one you actually need, whether the answer is both, and where to make a start.

Why your current tech set-up stops working at scale

For most brands, the early days of managing products and assets look pretty similar. Product information lives in a spreadsheet or two and images are stored in Google Drive or Dropbox. It's scrappy, but it works well enough when you're small.

But as your product catalogue grows, and you refresh your existing products with new shots, the cracks start to show. You might recognise some of these:

• Your master product spreadsheet has grown into something nobody fully understands. You’ve got hundreds of rows and columns added by different people over time, and formulas that break whenever someone edits the wrong cell
• Product information is spread across multiple places: spreadsheets, Notion docs, email threads. 
• Expanding to a new channel or marketplace means someone on your team has to spend hours reformatting product data to fit that platform's requirements.
• Wholesale and retail partners often need product information in a specific format. Without a central source of truth, pulling that together means raiding multiple spreadsheets and docs, and there's always a risk that what you send out is already out of date before it lands in their inbox.
• There's no clear ownership, so when a product detail is wrong it's not always obvious who's responsible for fixing it or where the correct information actually lives

The same thing happens with your visual content:

• Drive folders multiply and assets get duplicated, mislabelled or lost entirely
• Your team wastes time hunting for the right image instead of using it
• New starters have no idea where anything lives or what's been approved for use
• A retailer asks for your latest product photography and nobody can get their hands on it quickly

None of these problems are catastrophic on their own, but together they add up to a lot of wasted time, avoidable errors and missed opportunities. Plus, they tend to get worse the faster you grow. That's the point at which most brands start looking at tools like a PIM or a DAM to bring some proper structure to the way they manage their products and assets.

What is a DAM?

A digital asset management (DAM) tool gives your team a single, searchable library for all your visual content. That’s product photography, lifestyle imagery, videos, campaign assets and brand guidelines. Rather than hunting through nested Google Drive folders or hassling colleagues to track down the latest version of a hero image, everything is tagged, organised and ready to use.

For ecommerce brands, product imagery and videos do an enormous amount of the selling. When your visual content is disorganised, the knock-on effects go further than most people realise. 

[fs-toc-omit] Benefits of DAM 

• An easy way to organise your content: Product photography, lifestyle imagery, campaign assets, videos, brand guidelines - everything is organised with tags, filters and metadata. You can store a single image in multiple folders (without duplication) and all your assets are presented in large thumbnails, making it easy to browse and find content later. 
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• Find assets in seconds: A good digital asset management tool makes it super easy to find your content. In Dash, for example, you can use the search bar to type a keyword or phrase like ‘woman’s jacket in yellow and blue’. You can then use filters and fields to quickly narrow down your search to get the exact asset you need, fast. 
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• Control over what gets used and where: You can set permissions so that different teams only access certain assets and folders. It helps reduce noise for certain teams who don’t need to see the full extent of your asset library. 

• Ensure brand consistency across all channels: Brand asset management is also a big deal and can easily be managed with your DAM. You can keep all your brand assets - like logos, iconography and guidelines - in one central library. Plus, version control means only the most up-to-date and approved content is available to your team. This way you can be confident everyone is on the same page.  
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• Feedback workflows on your creative: DAMs like Dash allow you to set up approval and feedback workflows. For example, a photographer can upload some new product shoots to your DAM. You’ll be able to add comments, request updates and only approve creative that you’re happy with. 
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• External retailers and partners can self-serve assets: Rather than zipping up folders and sending them via WeTransfer, a DAM like Dash lets you create branded portals so retailers and agencies can browse and download the assets they need directly. 
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• Integration with your ecommerce tech stack: If you're on Shopify, a DAM with a native integration means your team can push imagery straight from your asset library to your storefront. When you launch a new product or refresh your creative, it flows through to your store quickly and consistently. A tool like Dash also connects to Adobe Creative Cloud, WooCommerce, WordPress and more. 
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• A faster route to market for new campaigns: When assets are easy to find and ready to use, your team can spend less time on admin and more time actually deploying content. New product launches, seasonal campaigns and channel expansions all move faster when your visual content is properly organised.

What is a PIM?

A product information management (PIM) system is where all your product data lives. It’s a single source of truth for everything you need to sell a product accurately across every channel. That means handling technical data like SKUs, dimensions, materials and descriptions, as well as pricing, categorisation, localisation for different markets, and compliance information where relevant.

[fs-toc-omit] Benefits of a PIM

• A single source of truth for all your product data: Any update made in your PIM flows out to every channel automatically. It means you can stop making the same change in five different places and hoping nothing gets missed.
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• Consistent product information everywhere: Whether a customer finds you on your website, a marketplace or through a retail partner, they'll see the same accurate, up-to-date information. That consistency reduces the kind of errors that lead to returns or complaints.
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• Better handling of product variants: A PIM makes it much easier to manage products that come in multiple colours, sizes or configurations, keeping variant data clean and structured rather than sprawling across rows in a spreadsheet.
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• Localisation at scale: If you're selling across different regions or markets, a PIM lets you manage translated descriptions, region-specific pricing and local compliance requirements all in one place, without maintaining separate documents for each market.
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• Faster time to market for new products: With all your product data structured and ready to go in one place, launching a new product across multiple channels becomes a much faster process. 
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• Cleaner data for retail and wholesale partners: Retail partners and distributors often have strict requirements for how product data should be formatted and delivered. A PIM makes it easy to generate accurate, correctly formatted data feeds for each partner, reducing the back-and-forth and the risk of your products being listed incorrectly.
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• Fewer returns and customer complaints: Inaccurate product information can be a common driver of returns. When your product data is centralised and consistently maintained, customers know exactly what they're buying before it arrives.

DAM vs PIM: What’s the difference? 

Let’s get into more detail and cover the differences between a product information system, and a digital asset management system. 

DAM vs PIM pricing

The good news is that both tools have become significantly more accessible for growing brands over the past few years. You don't need an enterprise budget to get started with either. That said, there is a difference in what you should expect to pay for each, which is worth knowing before you start evaluating options.

[fs-toc-omit] DAM pricing

DAMs designed for fast-scaling ecommerce brands are generally the more affordable starting point. Just take Dash, which starts at £79 / $109 per month. You get all features and unlimited users included on every plan, meaning you're not paying more just to add team members or unlock integrations. Plans scale based on storage and download allowance as your asset library grows, but the entry point is low enough that it's accessible even if you're early in your growth journey. There's also a 14-day free trial, so you can get a feel for whether it works for your team before committing.

Enterprise DAMs do exist at much higher price points. For example, tools like Brandfolder cost around $1,600 per month. However, DAM prices often come with a level of complexity which isn’t necessary.

[fs-toc-omit] PIM pricing

PIM pricing is more varied, and the range reflects just how different these tools are from one another. At the more accessible end, tools like Plytix start at around $499 per month, while enterprise platforms like Akeneo start at $45,000 per year. It's also worth factoring in not just the subscription cost but also the time it takes to implement and migrate your data, which can be significant with more complex platforms.

DAM vs PIM: features 

While a DAM and PIM have a similar goal to bring order to product-related chaos, their features reflect two very different jobs to be done.

What a DAM does

A DAM is built around making visual content easy to find, use and share. Core DAM features include:

• Asset storage and organisation: a central library for images, video, audio and brand files, organised with folders, tags and custom metadata fields
• AI-powered search: find what you need by typing a natural language description rather than knowing the exact filename or folder location
• Permissions and access controls: give different teams or external partners access to only what they need
• Branded portals: let retailers, agencies and distributors self-serve assets without needing to email your team
• Creative approvals and feedback: review new photography or campaign assets, leave comments and approve content before it goes live
• File conversion and resizing: crop, resize and reformat assets without needing a designer
• Integrations: connect directly with Shopify, WordPress, Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud and more

What a PIM does

A PIM is built around keeping product data accurate, consistent and ready to publish. Core features include:

• Centralised product catalogue: one place for every SKU, with all associated attributes, descriptions and specifications
• Variant management: handle products that come in multiple sizes, colours or configurations without your data turning into a mess
• Multi-channel publishing: push product information out to your website, marketplaces and retail partners in the right format for each
• Localisation: manage translated descriptions, region-specific pricing and local compliance requirements from one place
• Data enrichment workflows: assign ownership of product data and track what's complete, in progress or missing
• Retailer and distributor data feeds: automatically generate product feeds in the formats your wholesale partners require

DAM vs PIM: which teams use it? 

[fs-toc-omit] Who uses a DAM?

A DAM is primarily owned by the marketing or creative team. These are the people producing and deploying visual content day in, day out. They’re also the ones who feel the pain most acutely when assets are disorganised.

But a DAM's value extends well beyond the creative team. In a typical ecommerce brand, you'll find it being used by:

Marketing and brand teams: managing campaign assets, maintaining brand consistency and getting content out to the right channels

Ecommerce teams: pushing approved imagery to product pages and keeping visual content up to date across the store

Retail and wholesale teams: sharing assets with partners through branded portals, without the back-and-forth of email and WeTransfer links

External partners: photographers uploading new shoots, agencies downloading approved assets, freelancers accessing brand guidelines

[fs-toc-omit] Who uses a PIM?

A PIM typically sits with ecommerce managers and digital merchandisers. These are the people responsible for keeping product listings accurate and consistent across every channel the brand sells on.

Beyond that core team, a PIM also supports:

• Operations and logistics teams: who need clean, structured product data for fulfilment and compliance
• International teams: managing localised descriptions, region-specific pricing and market requirements
• Retail and wholesale teams: generating accurate product data feeds for distributors and marketplace partners

How to decide whether to buy a  DAM or PIM first? 

If your team is constantly wasting time searching for images, resending files to retailers or trying to work out which version of an asset is approved, a DAM is probably the best first investment.

On the other hand, a PIM becomes more critical when product complexity starts causing operational issues.

Here are some PIM and DAM tools worth considering: 

Digital asset management tools for fast-growing brands 

Not all DAMs are built the same. Some are designed for large enterprises with dedicated teams and big budgets — others are built for growing brands that need to get up and running quickly. Here are a few worth looking at.

Dash: Built specifically for growing ecommerce and DTC brands, Dash is the easiest way to organise, find and share your visual content. It's quick to implement, intuitive for the whole team to use, and comes with powerful features like AI search, branded portals and Shopify integration. Unlike enterprise DAMs, you get all features and unlimited users on every plan. Starts at £79/month with a 14-day free trial.

Bynder: A well-established enterprise DAM with a broad feature set. Better suited to large organisations with dedicated teams to manage it. Pricing is not publicly available and typically runs into thousands per month. (Check out our article on Bynder alterantives)

Brandfolder: Another enterprise-level option with strong brand management features. Can be complex to implement and is priced accordingly, starting at around $1,600/month. (Take a look at Brandfolder alternatives)

[Download our free DAM comparison worksheet to compare tools for your team]

Product information management tool recommendations 

PIM pricing and complexity varies more than almost any other category of software — there's a big difference between a tool built for a growing brand and one built for a global enterprise. Here are a few options across the spectrum.

Airtable:  A flexible, spreadsheet-meets-database tool that many growing brands use as a lightweight PIM. It's not a dedicated PIM out of the box, but it's highly customisable and significantly more affordable than enterprise options. If you're using Dash as your DAM, Nolo Apps can connect the two — meaning your product data and visual assets stay in sync without any manual work. Pricing starts at around $20 per user/month.

Learn how Passenger uses Dash and Airtable together.

Plytix: A popular choice for growing ecommerce brands, with a focus on product content and channel publishing. More accessible than most enterprise PIMs. Starts at around $499/month.

Akeneo: One of the most widely used PIM platforms, with a large ecosystem of integrations. Built for complex, large-scale catalogues. Enterprise pricing starts at around $45,000/year, though an open-source community edition is available.

Contentserv: A good mid-market option for brands managing large catalogues across multiple international markets. Pricing varies based on catalogue size and channels.

Picking Dash as your DAM tool 

If you've decided that a DAM is the right next step for your brand, it's worth choosing one that's built around the way ecommerce teams actually work.

Many digital asset management platforms were originally designed for large enterprises. While they offer plenty of functionality, they can also be expensive, complicated to implement and difficult for busy teams to adopt.

Dash takes a different approach. It's built specifically for growing ecommerce brands that need to organise content, launch campaigns faster and make it easier for retailers, agencies and freelancers to access approved assets.

With Dash, you can:

• Find assets in seconds using powerful search, tags and custom fields
• Organise product photography, campaign content and brand assets in one central library
• Share content with retailers and partners through branded portals
• Manage creative approvals and feedback without endless email chains
• Push imagery directly to Shopify and connect with tools like Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva and WordPress
• Give your entire team access without paying extra for additional users

Dash starts at £79 / $109 per month and you’ll get all features and unlimited users. You can try free for 14 days, or book a demo with our team.