Pocketknife PIM for Shopify: A Guide for B2B Wholesalers

From supplier spreadsheets to

Shopify storefront with Pocketknife PIM

PIM Pocketknife: Feature spotlight

For wholesalers and distributors managing thousands of products, supplier spreadsheets are an essential source of product information. Turning that information into useful Shopify product content takes more than uploading a file.

Different suppliers use different column headings. Descriptions may be abbreviated, technical specifications incomplete, and supporting documents supplied separately. Your team needs to bring those details together, check them and prepare them for customers and your storefront.

Pocketknife PIM provides a dedicated workspace for that process, bringing supplier spreadsheets, product descriptions, technical specifications and approvals together while keeping your ERP and Shopify connected.

The workflow follows four stages:

Import → Edit and enrich → Review and approve → Publish to Shopify

1. Import: bring different supplier formats into a consistent structure

One supplier sends “Item Name”, “Details” and “Pack Qty”. Another uses “Product Title”, “Description” and “Units Per Pack”.

Before those records can support a consistent catalogue, your team needs to connect incoming columns to the appropriate product fields.

Pocketknife PIM lets teams import Excel and CSV spreadsheets and map supplier headings to their product structure. Supplier spreadsheets, raw inventory sheets or existing ERP records can be brought into the dedicated staging workspace. Cutomised templates can be created and saved for future.

Mapping establishes where information belongs. Your team still needs to confirm that the values mean what you expect: a carton quantity and a selling pack quantity may describe different things. With imports and bulk updates, teams can update groups of products with less repetitive manual entry.

Mapping columns from spread sheet to Pocketknife PIM field

Pipelabs helped Soundbay move from Commerce Vision to a headless Shopify Plus platform integrated with Pronto ERP, using Pocketknife as the shared integration foundation.

Soundbay is the group behind music retailers including Store DJ and Manny’s Music. Its existing Commerce Vision environment had become a constraint on the flexibility and scalability required for its omnichannel operations.

The business also had a long-standing investment in Pronto and complex retail processes that needed to remain supported.

We worked with Soundbay to deliver a reusable commerce platform that connects those operational requirements with distinct storefront experiences across multiple brands.

The resulting environment supports inventory visibility, omnichannel gift cards and open-box products, with a foundation that can accommodate further brands and capabilities.

Soundbay’s migration shows why the storefront and the systems behind it need to be considered together. The customer experience could evolve while retaining the ERP functionality the business depended on.

2. Edit and enrich: prepare information customers can use

Pocketknife PIM gives teams a place to refine titles, format HTML descriptions, populate custom specifications and attach images and PDFs to the relevant product.

Custom fields allow information to be structured around the merchant’s catalogue requirements. The attributes needed for electrical components may differ considerably from those needed for packaging or building supplies.

Team members can edit product details, review and approve changes

3. Review and approve: control what reaches the storefront

Pocketknife PIM gives contributors and reviewers clear permissions. Reviewers can compare proposed description changes with live records before approving updates for synchronisation with Shopify.

This creates a defined review stage between preparing content and publishing it.

For large catalogues, that control matters: teams need visibility into proposed changes and clear responsibility for approving what customers will see.

4. Publish to Shopify: put approved content into the buying experience

Once reviewed and approved, product details, imagery and custom metafields synchronise with Shopify.

This is where the preparation becomes useful to customers. The Shopify storefront presents the product information they need to assess the range and make purchasing decisions.

Shopify’s own PIM guidance describes how a dedicated PIM can support businesses that need deeper enrichment, supplier workflows and approvals before product information reaches their store.

Pocketknife PIM provides that workspace for organising, enriching and approving content before publication.

Shopify storefront

What this means for wholesalers

Pocketknife PIM helps businesses managing complex catalogues:

Bring different supplier spreadsheet formats into a consistent product structure.
Reduce repetitive data entry through imports and bulk updates.
Keep descriptions, technical attributes, images and documents organised by product.
Give contributors and reviewers clear responsibilities.
Control content changes before they reach the Shopify storefront.

Pocketknife PIM is a separate, optional product alongside Pocketknife Commerce. Merchants can use Pocketknife Commerce without it, connect another existing PIM or manage catalogue details directly in Shopify.

For teams coordinating multiple suppliers, detailed specifications and frequent updates, Pocketknife PIM provides a more manageable process from incoming spreadsheet to approved product content.

For more detail on what PIM is in ecommerce, check out Shopify's recent article.