Note: This post is part of our 4-part series on COVID-19 action items to optimize your ecommerce strategy. To learn more, check out the rest of the series here.
Retailers continue to explore safer in-person shopping in response to COVID-19, but these efforts may never be enough for some customers. In the second week of May alone, ecommerce spending rose 8.4%, signaling that online shopping could become the public’s preference despite the gradual return of brick-and-mortar locations.
To continue this increase, retailers must give customers the information needed to buy with confidence. Accurate, complete, normalized product data provides a superior shopping experience and slashes cart abandonments in a time when every purchase counts.
Checklist for Quality Product Data
Retailers must ensure product data is accurate and complete to answer important questions and simplify comparisons. When they can’t interact with a product, consumers want to know exactly what to expect before buying.
To ensure your product data meets expectations, focus on three steps:
1. Improve Onboarding
Unverified information from data feeds and distributors leads to errors, inconsistencies, and omissions. This means human review and enhancement of all data should be a core component of your onboarding process.
2. Normalize Product Data
All product data must be formatted consistently across categories for units of measure, numerals, spelling, and more. Doing so supports filtering, sorting, and comparisons for effortless shopping.
3. Audit Published Product Data
Some SKUs, like those representing your core assortment, remain online for months or years. Aligning the product data on your site with new standards for accuracy and normalization can help improve existing SKUs’ performance as well.
Product Data and Customer Satisfaction
New attitudes about online shopping linked to COVID-19 have already increased trust in online retail. In fact, the average cart abandonment rate has dropped approximately 11% since the outbreak reached the U.S.
If your cart abandonment rate fails to reflect this decrease, incomplete or inaccurate product data is likely to blame. Bad data often leads to excessive returns as well, with customers disappointed when their orders arrive. When you publish only complete, accurate, normalized data, you’ll see fewer returns and abandoned carts, plus improved customer satisfaction and retention.
Learn More about Optimized Product Data
Retailers manage huge volumes of product data, making it difficult to achieve accuracy and consistency across categories – especially as resources are stretched thin during these unprecedented times. To learn more about product data solutions, schedule a free consultation with Virtucom Group. Our product data specialists have helped countless retailers deliver a better shopping experience with complete, accurate, consistent information.
To learn more, contact us today and remember to visit our blog again next week for part three in our ongoing COVID-19 action items series.
