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Mass actions

Process management1/5/2026Intermediate Level

Mass actions allow users to apply the same changes to multiple products or data entries simultaneously. This feature significantly streamlines data management, improves efficiency, and reduces manual effort in e-commerce and PIM systems.

What is Mass actions? (Definition)

Mass actions are tools in a software system that let you perform the same task on many items at once. In a PIM system, this means you can update hundreds of products with a single click. Instead of editing each item one by one, you select a group and apply the change to all of them. This feature is important for managing large catalogs or making frequent updates. It saves time on repetitive tasks and helps prevent manual errors. Systems like WISEPIM use mass actions to help you keep your product data accurate and up to date. You usually use filters to find specific products, select the ones you need, and then choose an action. For example, you could change the brand name or update the status for an entire product line in seconds.

Why Mass actions is Important for E-commerce

Mass actions are software features that allow you to update large groups of products at the same time. Online stores often manage thousands of SKUs across many different sales channels. Changing prices, descriptions, or stock levels for each item one by one is slow and leads to mistakes. By using mass actions, e-commerce teams can react to market changes instantly. You can launch seasonal sales or update product details across your webshop and marketplaces like Amazon or Bol.com in just a few clicks. This keeps your product information accurate and consistent everywhere. It saves hours of manual work for product managers and marketing teams. This efficiency allows your business to grow without getting stuck in repetitive data entry tasks.

Examples of Mass actions

  • 1Increase prices by 10% for all items in a specific category for a sale.
  • 2Add a 'winter collection' tag to a large group of products at once.
  • 3Mark all discontinued products as 'unpublished' across every sales channel.
  • 4Update the brand logo for all products that belong to a certain brand.
  • 5Add a 'Sustainable materials' attribute to many items and set a standard value for all of them.

How WISEPIM Helps

  • Mass actions in WISEPIM let you update hundreds of products at once. This saves you hours of manual work on data updates.
  • You can keep product info the same across your whole catalog. Applying one change to many items prevents mistakes and keeps data clean.
  • Mass actions help you launch new products faster. You can prepare and send data to all your sales channels in one go.
  • You spend less money on manual data entry. Fewer human errors mean you avoid the high costs of fixing mistakes later.
  • WISEPIM makes it easy to change data for different stores. You can adjust prices or formats for specific marketplaces without editing each item one by one.

Common Mistakes with Mass actions

  • Running large updates without testing them on a small group of products first. This can cause errors across your entire catalog.
  • Using broad filters that include the wrong items. This leads to changes on products you did not mean to edit.
  • Updating data without training your team or setting clear rules. This often causes messy and inconsistent product information.
  • Using bulk tools for complex changes that need a human eye. Some updates are too detailed for mass actions and need individual review.
  • Starting a major update without a backup or a way to undo the changes. You need a plan to restore your data if something goes wrong.

Tips for Mass actions

  • Test mass actions on a few products or in a staging area first. This helps you catch errors before they affect your whole catalog.
  • Use filters in your PIM to select the specific products you want to update. This ensures you only change the items you need to.
  • Set up approval steps for making large changes to your data. This is especially helpful for protecting important details like prices.
  • Review your PIM history logs regularly to track changes. These logs help you find mistakes and see which user performed each action.
  • Use data validation rules to check your work automatically. These rules prevent incorrect information from spreading across your entire product list.

Trends Surrounding Mass actions

  • AI-powered suggestions for mass updates, recommending attribute values or identifying data discrepancies for bulk correction based on product similarity or market trends.
  • Enhanced workflow automation triggering mass actions based on predefined business rules, such as automatically applying seasonal pricing or promotional tags.
  • Predictive analytics integrated into PIM systems, estimating the impact of a mass action before execution and highlighting potential data quality issues or channel-specific errors.
  • Increased use of API-driven mass actions, allowing programmatic execution of complex updates to support headless commerce architectures and custom integrations.
  • Improved audit trails and versioning for mass actions, providing greater transparency and control over bulk changes for compliance and data integrity.

Tools for Mass actions

  • WISEPIM: A robust PIM solution providing extensive mass action capabilities for efficient product data management, enrichment, and channel syndication.
  • Akeneo PIM: Offers powerful bulk editing, automation, and workflow features to manage and enrich product information across large catalogs.
  • Salsify: Provides comprehensive product experience management (PXM) tools, including strong functionalities for mass updating and syndicating product content.
  • Magento Commerce: An e-commerce platform with built-in mass action features for managing products, orders, and customer data efficiently.
  • Shopify Plus: An enterprise e-commerce platform that supports bulk edits for products, inventory, and pricing, enhancing operational efficiency.

Related Terms

product information management pimdata governancedigital asset management dambulk editdata enrichmentdata cleansingbusiness rulesproduct catalog

Also Known As

Bulk editingBatch processingCollective actionsBulk updates