The History of PIM Systems: From Paper Catalogs to AI

Open a product page on a marketplace. You'll see photos, a title, specifications, a price, and a "Buy" button. Behind all of it is a lot of data work. Today, manufacturers and retailers publish the same product on a brand website, on Amazon and eBay, in a distributor price list, and in an advertising banner.

It wasn't always this way. Here is how, over a century and a half, the paper catalog evolved into an AI-powered PIM system, and why in 2026 it's hard to manage product content without one.

The Paper Catalog as a Database

The first mail-order catalog for the general public is usually credited to Aaron Montgomery Ward: in 1872, he mailed farmers a single-sheet price list of 163 items. But Sears became the symbol of the era. In 1886, railroad station agent Richard Sears started selling watches, in 1888 he put out his first catalog, and by 1894 the company was mailing out a 322-page catalog. It later grew past 1,000 pages, and over more than a century it offered more than 100,000 items: watches, plows, sewing machines, pianos, medicines.

From 1908, Sears even sold houses, through a separate Modern Homes catalog. The kit arrived by railroad boxcar with assembly instructions. It sold them until 1940, and estimates put the total at 70,000 to 75,000.

Logistics helped. Rural Free Delivery, launched in 1896, brought mail straight to farms, and Parcel Post added packages in 1913. Sears's sales tripled in the first five years of parcel post. But the real point was elsewhere: a farmer in a remote area chose a product by its text and picture alone. That's why the Sears catalog included details such as:

• precise descriptions: size, material, intended use;
• one price for everyone;
• a money-back guarantee.

This was a product database. Every item had a name, description, price, illustration, and technical specifications. All of it had to be coordinated, verified, and updated for the next print run.

Entire departments worked on it, including copywriters, proofreaders, and typesetters. When prices or dimensions changed, the team made corrections. The process was slow, expensive, and prone to errors. But it became clear that in distance selling, data quality decides everything.

The most interesting part of the Sears story is its end. The last catalog came out in 1993, and it's often said that paper catalogs simply became obsolete. That's only partly true. Sears had a ready-made model, a "storefront in every home," and it did try to take it online: in 1984, together with IBM and CBS, it founded Prodigy, an online service with shopping built in. Sears and IBM invested more than $1 billion and sold it in 1996 for $200 million. Others were the first to build an online catalog that millions of people actually used.

IKEA: 200 Million Catalogs a Year

IKEA tells a similar story. It began in 1950 with ikéa-nytt, a price list for spring and summer, much like Ward's, and the first issue actually titled "Katalog" came out in 1951. At its peak in 2016, circulation reached about 200 million copies in 32 languages, with 69 editions for more than 50 countries. For many people, it was a home idea book rather than advertising.

But a catalog like that had a downside. Each edition contained thousands of photos and descriptions, dozens of language versions, and regional prices and availability. By the time it went to print, some of the data was already out of date.

IKEA also industrialized its imagery early: by 2014, about 75% of the product images in its catalog were computer-generated rather than photographed. They were rendered at such high resolution that a single image could serve a web page and a wall-sized store display. It was an early example of one digital asset feeding every channel.

IKEA announced the end of its printed catalog in late 2020, and the 2021 edition was the last. A website and an app took its place. Others followed the same path. Germany's Otto started in 1950 with a 14-page catalog of 28 pairs of shoes and printed its last one in December 2018, with a smartphone on the cover and the line "I'll be an app."

In the UK, Argos stopped printing its "laminated book of dreams" in 2020 after 48 years and more than a billion copies.

The takeaway is the same. Shoppers didn't stop loving store catalogs. Paper simply couldn't keep up with the assortment, while a digital channel made it possible to update data at any moment.

The 1980s–1990s: Computers, ERP, and Excel

At the turn of the 1980s, companies began moving their data onto computers. Spreadsheets became the first tool that marketers and assortment managers adapted for product catalogs: VisiCalc in 1979, Lotus 1-2-3 in 1983, and Microsoft Excel from 1985. It was more convenient than folders of paper, but it brought new problems.

At the same time, large businesses were implementing ERP systems. They handled inventory, purchase prices, and logistics well, but they couldn't tell a customer anything about a product. Descriptions, photos, and marketing copy were still entered separately.

This is how the "Excel era" began:

• a single file grew to 40 tabs;
• within a week, 12 copies of the file were circulating, emailed to five colleagues;
• no one was sure which version was current;
• one wrong formula could quietly shift prices.

The Late 1990s: E-commerce Arrives, and So Do the First PIMs

Amazon launched in 1995, and other online stores soon followed. A single product now had to be published simultaneously on a website, in a printed catalog, in partner systems, and in price lists, and the data had to be identical everywhere.

Large brands felt the strain first and commissioned custom software to handle it. These solutions were expensive, and each was tailored to a specific company.

In effect, these were the first PIM (Product Information Management) systems. They are programs designed for the centralized management of product information, used to collect names, descriptions, specifications, and other data. They began to serve as a single source of product information. 

The systems made it possible to:

• store specifications, descriptions, and media in a single database;
• edit data centrally;
• export it to different channels;
• reduce manual operations.

DAM systems, built to store images and media files, already used similar logic: they could structure content and manage access. The first such programs appeared in the early 1990s: in 1992, Canto released Cumulus for the Macintosh, and Apple named it the most innovative product of the year.

Around the same time, Aldus launched Fetch, an image cataloger that later became Extensis Portfolio. Companies noticed that the logic of DAM applied to everything related to a product: specifications, prices, sizes, translations. That became the foundation for the PIM system.

The 2000s: PIM Becomes a Product

In the early 2000s, the number of internet users grew rapidly. Companies could sell to almost any customer at any time, and data complexity grew along with that. Off-the-shelf commercial PIM solutions appeared, and companies no longer had to build a system from scratch.

The concept of MDM, or master data management, took shape around the same time. The idea is simple: a company should have a single source of information that is available to all departments and systems. PIM became that source for product data, and its integration with ERP and DAM made it possible to build end-to-end processes.

The first MDM systems grew out of two areas: customer data hubs and PIM. SAP began shipping its MDM in the fall of 2003, and in 2004–2005 the big players bought up the pioneers: IBM acquired the PIM developer Trigo and the customer data hub maker DWL, and SAP acquired A2i.

The 2010s: Omnichannel

In the 2010s, cloud PIMs arrived, such as Salsify, founded in 2012. Implementation no longer required your own servers, and PIM became available to mid-sized businesses on a subscription.

The primary user changed as well. Early PIMs were built for IT departments, while cloud versions were adapted for marketers, e-commerce managers, and content teams, the people who actually create product pages.

Customers stopped shopping only on brand websites. They bought from their phones, in apps, on marketplaces, and on social media. Brands responded in kind and began selling everywhere.

Each channel required product content in its own format: its own product page structure, its own categories, its own image rules. To publish a single product on ten platforms, teams had to prepare ten versions of the same data.

PIM systems began offering syndication. A company maintains one master product record, and the system turns it into the versions each channel needs.

What developed during this period:

• Omnichannel. The same product looks the same across different platforms.
• Mobile commerce. This calls for compact descriptions, structured specifications, and photos that are easy to read on a small screen.
• International markets. Content is translated, units of measurement are converted, and local requirements are taken into account.

During this period, PIM became a permanent part of the sales infrastructure.

The Late 2010s: Content Quality Affects Sales

By the mid-2010s, data storage and export were already well established. But marketplaces were tightening their product listing rules, and legislation in different countries was adding further restrictions.

A data error could now directly hurt sales:

• incomplete specifications caused a listing to be rejected during moderation;
• unsuitable images reduced a product's visibility in search results;
• failing to meet a platform's requirements could result in a fine or a block.

PIM systems gained new capabilities: bulk editing and enrichment of data, completeness checks, localization management, and automated channel integrations. Full pre-publication validation appeared as well. Empty fields and inconsistencies began to be caught in advance.

The 2020s: Regional Marketplaces

PIM systems grew up alongside Amazon, eBay, and large retail chains. But every region has its own leader: Allegro in Poland, Zalando in European fashion, Trendyol in Turkey, Noon in the Gulf, Kaspi in Kazakhstan, and Mercado Libre in Latin America. In recent years, PIM has increasingly helped brands expand onto exactly these platforms.

Each platform has its own logic. Product page structure, moderation rules, formats for enhanced content, and languages all differ. A universal template doesn't work here. A PIM system has to adapt flexibly to each platform.

Since 2023 AI Changes PIM

For a quarter of a century, PIM systems stored information. Now they create it as well.

AI inside a PIM, built on large language models, handles several types of tasks:

• generates descriptions for hundreds of products;
• adapts copy to the requirements of different channels;
• translates the catalog into other languages;
• enriches product pages based on attributes that are already populated;
• creates infographics;
• validates data before it is sent for moderation.

The overall direction is clear. PIM is ceasing to be a system where data is simply kept and is becoming a platform that processes all product content on its own, and through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), outside AI assistants can connect to the catalog directly.

To simplify the work and reduce risk, you can use MARKETPROVIDER. It is a PIM system with DAM that brings together tools for managing product data: collecting it from different sources, adapting it to platform requirements, creating content, and publishing to your own channels and marketplaces.

For large catalogs, these capabilities matter:

• Bulk image processing. Product photos can be converted to the required format and size in a single operation.
• Automated work with thousands of items. Descriptions, specifications, and attributes are edited in batches.
• SEO optimization. Titles and descriptions are tailored to platform search queries.
• Marketplace synchronization. Data is updated on a schedule or immediately after changes are made.

This way, a team can scale its product catalogs and the number of channels without sacrificing quality. And the MP STUDIO module builds marketplace images, infographics, and PDF catalogs straight from PIM data. In a sense, the printed catalog is back, except now it builds itself.

What This History Teaches

Put the whole history together, and a pattern emerges. The way product information is stored changes every time the place of purchase changes. A paper catalog required one kind of system, a website required another, and now marketplaces are setting their own rules of the game.

• Detailed, accurate product data sells better than a salesperson does. That was true of the Sears catalog, too.
• Excel works for a small assortment. For thousands of SKUs and multiple channels, you need a PIM system.
• Data quality already affects whether shoppers' AI assistants see your products.

Today, any business with a large catalog will find it hard to manage without PIM and DAM. They cover it all: digital product catalogs, images, video, descriptions, bulk processing, and synchronization with sales platforms. Companies that put their data in order now gain a foundation for launching new products quickly and entering new markets.

Try MARKETPROVIDER and see what a single product record for all your channels looks like.