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Issue 043PositionProduct DataRef 137

Your commerce platform is not the source of truth

Misunderstanding the role of your commerce platform as a data repository creates inefficiencies and limits scalability. We look at why a dedicated Product Information Management (PIM) system is essential for accurate, consistent product data.

Ricki Larkin· AI Solutions Specialist
3 min readReviewed January 2026
"A commerce platform is optimised for selling, not for managing the full lifecycle of complex product data."
Written by
Ricki Larkin, AI Solutions Specialist at iWeb
Ricki Larkin
AI Solutions Specialist
8 years at iWeb

Ricki leads AI implementation across commerce, content and operational workflows at iWeb. He writes about agentic commerce, AI-assisted product enrichment, retrieval quality, governance, and the commercial difference between AI demonstrations and AI systems that survive production use. Consistently focused on practical AI applications with measurable operational payoff.

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