Did you know that about 20% of failed online purchases are due to unclear or missing product information? This is not surprising. If someone is considering purchasing a particular product online, and can’t find enough information about the product to decide whether it is good for them, they’re likely to move on.
However, you can stop all those failed purchases and achieve e-commerce success with product information enrichment (also known as product data enrichment).
Product information enrichment is the process of adding additional information to product data to make it more comprehensive and informative. This can help potential customers clearly see why a product is right for them, making them more likely to complete the purchase.
So, how do you enrich product information for e-commerce success? This article will answer this question and more.
The best practices for e-commerce product data enrichment are as follows:
- Understand your audience
- Optimise product titles
- Write compelling product descriptions
- Optimise for search engines
- Include high-quality images and videos
- Incorporate user-generated (UGC) content
- Leverage product information management (PIM) systems
1. Understand your audience
The best product information should speak to the target audience by addressing their pain points. For this reason, product information enrichment should start with understanding your target audience.
Conduct personal interviews, surveys, and market research to gather data about your audience. Analyse customer data to understand their preferences, needs, and pain points.
Next, use customer research insights to create customer personas that represent different segments of your target audience. The customer persona should fully describe the segment of your audience it represents, including the type of information the audience values most and the challenges they face.
With this information, you can create product data that resonates with your audience to increase engagement and conversion rates.
For example, if you find that your audience prefers visual content, you may want to include more product images and videos in enriched product data. Also, if you find that your audience values ease of use, you may want to prioritise your product’s user-friendliness when enriching your e-commerce product data.
2. Optimise product titles
Product titles are often the first part of the product data that potential customers see. Thus, optimised titles can encourage them to explore further.
The first step to optimising a product title is ensuring it includes essential details about the product, such as brand name, product type, and key features (like size, colour, etc.).
Consider the title “Nike Air Max 270 Men’s Running Shoes - Black/White - Size 10.” Notice how it conveys essential information quickly. This contributes to a better shopping experience as customers can quickly understand the product and assess whether it meets their needs.
Another way to optimise product titles is to make them SEO-friendly. This entails including the keywords that customers use when searching for similar products. Titles optimised with relevant keywords are more likely to show up in search results. This means more people will see them.
If a well-structured title also has increased search visibility, the result is enhanced click-through rates. More people seeing the title are encouraged to click on the listing. And this can mean increased sales for an e-commerce business.
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3. Write compelling product descriptions
Product descriptions are arguably the most important aspects of e-commerce product data. Potential customers read product descriptions to know if a product will satisfy their needs. So, underwhelming descriptions or those with incorrect information and missing details will hurt e-commerce success.
For this reason, a best practice for e-commerce product data enrichment is creating compelling product descriptions. This entails:
Being detailed
Ensure your product description is detailed and not lacking essential details that will help your audience understand what the product is and how it can help them.
To create detailed product descriptions, include elements like:
- Materials: Specifying what the product is made from gives insight into its durability and customer experience.
- Features: Explaining key features can help buyers understand the benefits they can derive from it.
- Unique selling points: This can help buyers understand what sets the product apart from the competition.
- Use cases: Offering examples of how the product can be used in everyday life can help customers visualise its practicality.
- Usage instructions: Including clear instructions for using a product can help your audience assess its ease of use.
- Maintenance tips: Including information on how to care for the product can help buyers assess its ease of maintenance.
- Product specification: Including dimensions, weight, and other technical specifications helps potential buyers understand the product’s size and portability. But some e-commerce channels have a separate section for specifications so you need to understand your channels too.
Being clear and concise
While product descriptions should be informative, they should also be easy to read. Use simple language and avoid technical jargon (unless your audience is familiar with it).
Use bullet points to make it easy for readers to scan and grasp the main points.
Using storytelling
Product descriptions work best if they create an emotional connection. Stories evoke emotions, so incorporate storytelling into product descriptions.
Instead of simply listing features or benefits, describe how the product fits into a lifestyle or solves a problem. For example, instead of just stating, “The best waterproof jacket for explorers,” you may say: “Stay dry on your next hike with our waterproof jacket. Designed for explorers who refuse to let rain spoil their adventure.”
This approach can help customers connect with the product on a personal level and make the product more appealing.
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Also read: How to improve your data quality
4. Optimise for search engines
Search engine optimisation (SEO) helps product pages rank higher in search results, which means more potential customers will see the pages. However, if your product descriptions are not optimised for search engines, they will have reduced visibility.
To optimise product descriptions for search engines, do keyword research to identify the keywords customers use when searching for the product. Then, incorporate the relevant keywords naturally in the product description.
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5. Include high-quality images and videos
High-quality product images and videos can help people understand the product better and encourage them to make a purchase.
Top tips for enriching product data with images and videos include:
- High-resolution: Ensure that the images and videos are of the highest quality, so they remain clear when customers zoom in to examine details.
- Multiple angles: Provide different images that showcase the product from various angles.
- Contextual use: Provide images that demonstrate the product in use to help customers visualise it in their lives. For example, if you sell wristwatches, in addition to images of a watch, include images of the watch on a model’s wrist.
- Zoom views: Include close-up images of specific product details to allow customers to examine the product in detail.
- 360-degree views: Allow potential customers to rotate images to get a complete view.
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6. Incorporate user-generated content (UGC)
These days, potential buyers look up reviews from real people like them before making a purchase. People are no longer content with marketing messages from sellers because sellers will always endorse their products. They want to see endorsements from others who have used the product, and UGC provides this. When potential buyers see that users have had a positive experience with a product, they will have more faith in its quality and are more likely to make a purchase.
Customer reviews are the most common UGC for enriching product data. Include a customer review section in your product pages so that customers can share their experiences with the product. And display these reviews prominently.
E-commerce businesses struggling to get customer reviews should consider offering loyalty points or other suitable incentives.
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7. Leverage product information management (PIM) systems
Product information management (PIM) systems provide a platform for managing e-commerce product data throughout its lifecycle. The platform serves as a single source of truth for all product-related information, such as descriptions, specifications, pricing, images, and more. This is especially important when you have an extensive product catalogue and multiple sales channels.
Having all your e-commerce product data stored in one place streamlines the product data enrichment process. It saves you the stress of searching through multiple systems of spreadsheets to find relevant data for updating and enriching product data across your sales channels.
PIM systems also provide a structured format, ensuring product attributes are defined consistently. Automated systems automatically update product data across your channels, reducing the likelihood of human error and minimising discrepancies that can lead to customer confusion.
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Why is product information enrichment important in e-commerce?
Enriching product data offers e-commerce businesses several benefits, which include:
Enhance user experience
Enriched product data with all essential information makes it easier for users to assess a product and determine whether it is what they want. This can make their experience on an e-commerce website more satisfying.
Increase search visibility
Enriching product data is not just about making the content compelling but also about making it SEO-friendly. This can make your product rank higher in search results, increasing its visibility and discoverability.
You may also like: Product syndication strategies to maximise e-commerce reach.
Boosts traffic
Product data enrichment boosts traffic to your product pages in two ways. First, increased visibility for your listings can make more people click through to your e-commerce store. Secondly, optimised titles can encourage people to click to explore the product more.
Boosts conversions
Enriched product data can make you complete more sales. SEO optimisation ensures potential buyers see your product, compelling titles ensure they click through to your page, and compelling product page elements (descriptions, images, etc.) can encourage them to complete the transaction.
Reduces returns
Product data enrichment services ensure essential product information is clearly communicated. Customers will be fully aware of a product’s features and able to make informed purchases, reducing the potential for returns.
Reducing returns is important to e-commerce success because 30% of all products ordered online are returned. So, focusing on making sales is not enough.
Offers competitive advantage
In a crowded marketplace, well-detailed and structured product information can set your offerings apart from the competition. Unique descriptions (especially when they offer value) can attract customers, making them choose your products over similar options.
Build customer trust
Enriching data with user-generated content like reviews and ratings can build trust and credibility. When people see that real users talk about your product positively, they are more likely to feel confident about their purchase.
Common challenges in maintaining data quality in e-commerce product information enrichment
Challenges e-commerce businesses face when enriching product information include:
Inconsistent data
Ecommerce businesses often draw product data from different sources, including manufacturers, suppliers, internal teams, etc. Discrepancies between these sources can result in inconsistencies in product information. Also, using different formats or standards when entering product data can lead to discrepancies that confuse customers.
Data overload
It’s easier to manage product information if your catalogue includes just a handful of products. But with a large product catalogue, you’ll have a ton of e-commerce data, making it more difficult to proofread and cleanse. Therefore, overwhelming data leads to errors and omissions.
Rapidly changing information
Product details often change rapidly. For example, market forces can affect details such as prices and availability, while updates can affect product features and specifications.
Any change in product details can make product information outdated, and keeping up with these changes across sales channels can be challenging. However, customers need accurate and up-to-date product information to make purchasing decisions.
Also read: How product data syndication improves customer experience.
Manual data entry errors
People often make mistakes when they write product descriptions. These range from typographical errors to entering incorrect values. These errors can lead to incorrect product data. And this impacts customer trust and sales.
Poor data quality control
Because errors can slip into product data during entry and updates, it’s important to check data for accuracy and completeness before it goes live. Without a systematic data quality review process, you’ll be unable to catch errors.
Data quality review doesn’t have to be fanciful. You can implement a multi-stage review process in which one team member creates the product data, another reviews it for accuracy, and another reviews and approves it before publishing.
Managing user-generated content
Reviews and ratings are excellent for enriching product data. However, they may introduce misinformation and biased information.
For example, someone may leave a bad rating because the product (though it functioned as intended) did not fit their specific needs. Another may complain about a limitation in an earlier version or lower model, which does not exist in the new or higher model being referenced.
Monitoring and moderating user-generated content is essential to maintain data quality.
Also read: The 9 things to look for in a data management solution.
Takeaway: Streamline product data management and enrichment with Starhive
Product data enrichment can be the difference between e-commerce success and failure. When you create detailed and accurate product information, potential buyers will understand the product better and be more likely to make purchase decisions and less likely to return purchases.
Enriching product data shouldn’t feel like an impossible task. Implement the best practices for e-commerce product data enrichment discussed above, and you’ll significantly enhance your product listings. One of these best practices is leveraging product information management (PIM) systems. This is where Starhive comes in!
Starhive is a no-code platform that lets teams create tools or apps that boosts their productivity. At its core is a flexible data platform that provides a single source of truth for all your product data, streamlining product data enrichment.
Ready to get the best of your product listings? Book a demo and see how Starhive can help you!
FAQs
See some of the most frequently asked questions about e-commerce product data enrichment.
What does product data enrichment mean in the context of e-commerce?
Product data enrichment means making product information more comprehensive and accurate to give customers a clear understanding of products and help them make more informed buying decisions.
Which types of products are most suitable for e-commerce platforms?
There’s a vast array of products you can sell on e-commerce platforms. However, products that tend to do well on these platforms include electronics, home goods and decor items, fashion products and accessories, beauty and personal care products, health and wellness products, pet supplies, hobby and craft supplies, and digital products (like e-books, software, and online courses).
How can you maintain high standards of quality in an e-commerce business?
To maintain high standards of data quality, start by establishing guidelines for data entry. Implement a product information management system to manage all product data in a central place and set up data validation rules to catch and correct errors before going live.
What are the primary sources of big data that support e-commerce?
The main sources of big data to enhance decision-making in e-commerce include website analytics, sales translations, profile information, reviews and ratings, marketing campaign data (like impressions, open rates, and click-through rates), customer support interactions, and competitor analysis.
