Fix incomplete product listings with ecommerce data enrichment

Ever thought about how bad product listings could hurt your ecommerce business? We know that stock, pricing, product quality, and delivery time make all the difference most of the time. However, poor product listings can affect sales, too. Studies indicate that even a minor error in data can cost a business 12% of revenue. And that’s not a negligible number. 

So, what do brands and retailers do? They do the smart thing. They ensure that product listings are up-to-date with complete, accurate details about the product. It’s not that simple to achieve this, though. But today we have next-level data enrichment capabilities that were once impossible. For example, now we have GenAI to gather data and produce content instantly. We have simplified a crucial step in data enrichment.

In this blog, we will understand data enrichment in detail, discovering how it works in ecommerce and how it fuels the chances of sales.  

What is data enrichment in ecommerce?

Data enrichment means refreshing existing data with the latest, accurate, and complete information. While it has different use cases across industries, in ecommerce, this is a popular and recurring process to maintain product listings. Data enrichment does both – it helps bridge information gaps and update the latest data.

Consider a product listing that has a product title and a few bullet points describing its features, but the description and other attributes, like size, color, or material, are missing. Product enrichment fills these essential gaps in the listing to improve the quality and searchability.

How does data enrichment work?

Here’s a breakdown of how product data enrichment works in ecommerce.

1. Data Collection and Standardization

The data collection process starts with product-matching, where the products to be enriched are accurately matched with manufacturers, retailers, or third-party websites. 

The product data is collected from a selected pool of online sources. These are high-quality, trusted online sources. Additionally, product data can also be collected through open search, where products are matched with the best or closest matching products from any online website. 

2. Data Enhancement

The first step is only about collecting raw data from selected or open sources and putting them into the desired format to make the next step easier. Data enhancement is all about classifying this raw data into attributes and metadata to ensure the raw data makes sense to customers.

Imagine the data for a Samsung phone is collected from a site. So now you have the product name, product details in the form of a paragraph, and other additional information like specifications, color, user manual, and model type. 

The data must be modified to comply with marketplace or channel guidelines. More often, these modifications are made to:

• Product titles and descriptions: Product titles can be optimized and structured based on keywords, along with detailed descriptions and featured bullet points.
• Additional product information: Technical specifications, dimensions, color, material, and other characteristics, depending on the category.
• Metadata: Keywords, product tags, product categories, etc.
• Images and videos: High-quality images that are compliant with the channels’ specifications.
• Product ratings & reviews: Aggregation of the customer ratings and feedback.

3. Data Syndication

The final step in the data enrichment process involves distributing the updated product information and content to different sales channels. The syndication can be done in multiple channel-specific file formats. Automating product data distribution is another option where a PIM system distributes the optimized product data to various channels. 

The entire process hinges on individual key steps that need to be performed with utmost precision to ensure the highest data quality. 

Benefits of data enrichment in ecommerce

The growth of your ecommerce business relies on various factors, and the quality of product listings is at the top of the list. A good product listing does more than drive shoppers towards making the purchase. It also boosts product discoverability, ensuring your products get the spotlight. Let’s see how ecommerce optimization can give you the edge over your competitors.

Win customers with personalization

Shoppers love shopping experiences tailored to match their needs. From customized product recommendations to product content, they appreciate the efforts brands take to strike a chord with them. Data enrichment enables instant content generation and faster sync, cutting costs and the time-to-market.

Zero returns and refunds

One of the most common challenges brands face in ecommerce is product returns. Often, it is attributed to wrong or misleading product information, where the product does not match customer expectations. Regularly checking and optimizing the product information can significantly reduce product returns.

Build brand awareness and trust

Having detailed product information shows that you put effort into creating these listings. Using GenAI, you can craft compelling product content and brand descriptions and immerse shoppers with creative storytelling. This way, you can amplify your brand’s awareness and build customer trust.

Reduce time-to-market

Ecommerce product data enrichment automation can save you a lot of time by making the entire process instantaneous. From data collection to enhancement and distribution, everything is fast-tracked while ensuring accuracy so you can launch and optimize products whenever needed.

Boost your ROI

You can save a lot of money, usually spent on manual or hybrid approaches, which typically do not offer a high data accuracy rate. At the same time, you can improve your sales and, ultimately, your profits by using a data enrichment platform.

Enriching ecommerce listings with ProductiWise 

ProductiWise is a user-first platform that has transformed the product data enrichment process and made it way easier. It offers different modules, each equally critical for your business. From matching products for data collection to enhancing the data with the help of GenAI and syndicating it onto multiple marketplaces, it does everything with minimal human interaction.

The data enrichment platform is perfect for managing extensive product catalogs. It can fix data incompleteness and inconsistencies across platforms in one go. This really makes it quicker for brands to change and manage product listing data on any sales channel.

A leading distributor of industrial supplies leveraged ProductiWise to enrich data for their extensive inventory of four thousand products. Handling a large volume of data can often result in errors, increasing the risk of inaccuracy. Nonetheless, the result for this Canadian brand was shocking. Their sales soared by 35% owing to complete and accurate product catalogs. Learn more here.

Wrapping up

A majority of ecommerce brands from various segments realize the importance of product data enrichment. Not just brands but also other ecommerce businesses like retailers, manufacturers, service providers, and more are automating the ecommerce optimization to ensure accuracy, consistency, and speed. These players are winning their share of the market by investing in what matters – driving great customer experiences. 

So, whether you’re an automotive parts retailer, a fashion brand, or an electronic components manufacturer, enriched product data will make a visible difference for your business. Your competitors are already optimizing their product listings the smart way. Are you? 
Reach out to us for a free demo and see how our ecommerce data enrichment works.