Product Data Management is important for e-Commerce

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Product Data Management is considered as the most challenging field within Data Quality Management. There are more variables and attributes in Product Data Management, than there is in Customer Data Management.

An example:

Who would think this the same product?  They use different descriptions, measurement and standards.  The examples from e-Commerce are thankfully a little simpler, and would be easier to solve.

If you want to save money in Data Quality Management, Product Data is the area with most potential.  Just by standardize, not cleansing, you have a cost saving potential of 2,5%.

Product Data Management impacts e-Commerce.

Impact on Search Engine Optimazition (SEO)
SEO experts I have talked to tell me that duplicate products and duplicate URL’s are quite common in Webshops.  Duplicate records and URL’s are bad for different reasons:

–          It has negative impact on search rankings

–          It waters out the results in the index

–          If others link to your products, it will be split between the products and the
effect will not be as strong.

Cleansing you Data and URL, will be an effective way to improve your SEO.

Recommendation Engine.
2010 could be the year for the recommendation engine. Amazon has used this for years, and there is a lot of buzz in the market for this feature now.  The increase in Conversion Rate and Page Per Visit is quite amazing.

You will get the best result of you only list the product once; otherwise the recommendations will be spread across several identical products and not be as strong.

Which is most likely to get highest conversion rate?  3 identical products/URL’s with a few recommendations or 1 product with several?

Usability and Image.
How will customers react if they find several entries of the same product?  Maybe the go to the next store, where they only find one entry, to be sure they purchase the right product.

It gives a better impression of your shop if your data is in order. It is a sign that the rest of your business is in order also.

These are just a few examples of impact bad Product Data can have on your web shop, some of the challenges described above can be solved without too much effort, whereas others will be more demanding.  Why don’t you run a test of your data?