Advancements in technology have made it easy for businesses to market their products online. Today, you can advertise and sell your products on various online platforms such as eBay, Amazon, Instagram, Facebook, X, etc.
To boost sales and enhance customer experience, you should provide correct, sufficient, consistent, and up-to-date information about your products across all e-commerce and social media platforms. Manually disseminating standardised, correct, and up-to-date information to all e-commerce sales channels may be very tiring. That’s where product data syndication (PDS) comes in.
Product data syndication is one of the most effective and robust data management solutions that helps businesses automate the distribution of product information across all channels, thus saving time and money.
When you update your product’s information in the main database, the updates automatically reflect in all digital channels, ensuring your product information remains up-to-date and accurate.
Product data syndication also improves customer experience, thus helping to retain your customers. In this article, we will explore how product data syndication enhances customer experience, the most effective product data syndication strategies, and everything else that you need to know about product data syndication.
- Consistent product information
- Reduced misinformation
- Customisation of information for different channels
- Enhanced search engine optimisation
- Enriched product information
Takeaway: Start your product data syndication journey with Starhive
1. Consistent product information
Product data syndication allows you to easily update your products’ essential information, such as specifications, availability, pricing, images, and descriptions, in a central repository. The technology then distributes this data to all your digital channels and ensures the information distributed is the same across the channels.
Product data syndication eliminates any confusion about your products and maintains a cohesive brand image by maintaining data consistency. As a result, your customers trust your products and brand and feel confident about their purchase decisions.
Also read: What is product information management?
2. Reduced misinformation
Product details, such as colour, materials, and specifications, help customers make informed purchasing decisions. These details are critical for businesses that sell their products on e-commerce and social media platforms because they have a direct impact on customers' trust, satisfaction, and brand reputation.
PwC found that 32% of customers stopped doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience.
Your customers may feel angry and disappointed after they buy your products and realise the characteristics don't match what was described in different channels from which they purchased the product. Dissatisfied customers may return your products and leave negative reviews about your brand.
This shows that inaccurate or outdated data can significantly disappoint customers, affect a company's long-term success, and harm a brand's reputation.
To reduce customer dissatisfaction, product data syndication ensures that any changes in product information are updated across all platforms, thus minimising the risk of outdated or incorrect details.
By constantly updating information across all digital channels, product data syndication enables businesses to maintain a trustworthy relationship with their customers, thus boosting customer loyalty, brand integrity, and brand consistency.
3. Customisation of information for different channels
Various platforms have different standards for image sizes, character limits, product descriptions, etc.
For instance, Amazon may require you to include short and precise descriptions of your products, while your website allows you to put as much information as you want to describe your product. Also, product listings on Instagram may focus more on visual appeal and simplicity, while product listings on Zalando may focus on detailed specifications.
To appeal to customers on various platforms, product data syndication allows you to automatically reformat information to meet each platform's guidelines. You can also change measurements to suit a region’s standards and display prices in local currencies with the help of data syndication platforms.
Product data syndication improves customer experience by helping to localise content and providing information in the format that users want.
4. Enhanced search engine optimisation
In modern times, customers can easily find your products with just a few clicks. However, you must make your products easy to search for so that your customers can find them easily.
One of the easiest ways to make it simple for customers to find your products online is by using SEO (search engine optimisation) best practices to improve search engine rankings. SEO algorithms favour recent information and the use of keywords.
Product data syndication platforms allow you to include SEO-friendly keywords in your product descriptions. These keywords ensure your products appear when a potential customer keys in certain words in search engines or online marketplaces.
Data syndication also makes it easy to update information about your products across all platforms, ensuring the information remains relevant and up to date. In addition, product data syndication makes it easy to update seasonal keywords.
Thus, it enhances customer experience by making it easy for customers to find what they are looking for.
5. Enriched product information
One of the downsides of online shopping is that customers cannot touch and feel your product before buying it. This makes many potential customers shy away from shopping online.
Product data syndication makes it easy for businesses to distribute high-quality images across multiple channels. The systems also allow you to include accurate, detailed, and organised specifications about your products.
This helps customers to better understand your product without having to touch or feel it, thus making them more confident about shopping online.
What are the best practices for effective product data syndication?
For product data syndication to be successful, there are steps that you must follow. These include:
Get the right data syndication partner
There are multiple companies offering data syndication services. However, not all of them can deliver the results you want. Always exercise good judgment while selecting a data syndication partner to avoid disappointments that may arise when you choose the wrong data syndication partner.
Before settling for a particular data syndication partner, ensure their system is compatible with your product information management structure to avoid integration issues. Also, confirm whether your partner's system allows data customisation to suit various markets and platforms.
In addition, find out whether the partner offers timely support services. Responsive customer support is important for maintaining smooth operations.
Fortunately, Channable is a great product syndication platform that integrates seamlessly with Starhive as a central repository for your product information.
Also read: 9 things to look for in a data management solution.
Monitor your syndication partner
After choosing the syndication partner that suits your needs and you start working together, ensure you evaluate their performance. Confirm whether the data you provide is consistent across all platforms on which you sell your products.
Check how long it takes to update any changes you make regarding your products’ information. Also, check for any errors during the syndication process. If the error rate is high, you may need to change data syndication partners to get value for your money.
Finally, check the impressions and conversion rates across all platforms to gauge the success of your data syndication campaign.
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Use a standardised data format
You can use standardised data formats such as JSON, CSV, and XLS for data syndication. Using a standardised data format makes it easy for your data syndication partner to understand your product data, reduces the risk of errors, and simplifies the data syndication process.
Validate your product data
Data inconsistencies and errors can negatively affect your brand. To avoid these issues, review your product data to ensure it is up-to-date and error-free before syndicating it.
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Customise data for each sales channel
Rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach, customise your product content for different platforms to make the information resonate with your potential clients. You can focus on items such as metadata, images, and product descriptions. Tailoring these items helps to improve conversion rates and engagement.
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Takeaway: Start your product data syndication journey with Starhive
A positive customer experience plays a vital role in the long-term success of any brand. Happy customers will remain loyal to your products and even introduce new people to your products.
One of the ways you can enhance customer experience is by adopting product data syndication. Product data syndication is an effective marketing tool that improves customer experience by ensuring consistent product information and data accuracy across all ecommerce channels, reducing misinformation, allowing customisation of information for various channels, enhancing search engine optimisation, and enriching your products’ information.
Syndicating accurate product data across numerous platforms can be challenging. However, with the strategies we discussed above, you can get the most out of your data syndication campaign.
Before syndicating your products’ data, you need to consolidate it. That’s where Starhive comes in. Starhive enables you to build no-code apps for data consolidation and content approval processes. Fortunately, you don’t need coding experience to create your custom apps with Starhive.
After creating a central data source, you can use Starhive’s Channels extension to make your product data feeds for automated distribution during product data syndication. Either with a third-party tool like Channable or directly into your sales site. Book a demo today to discover the power of Starhive.
FAQs
Here are the answers to common questions people ask regarding product data syndication:
What is product data syndication?
Product data syndication (PDS) helps to manage and automatically distribute high-quality product data to various channels and marketplaces. It ensures the data distributed is uniform across all channels, thus maintaining brand consistency.
What are the advantages of product syndication?
There are several product data syndication benefits, including:
- Enhanced accuracy of product information
- Faster time-to-market
- Enhanced operational efficiency
- Enhanced customer experience
- Increased product and brand visibility
What is a syndicated data experience?
A syndicated data experience is a structured way for companies and businesses to access and use syndicated data for their own benefit. The syndicated data is collected by third parties, such as research firms.
What is the key difference between PIM (Product Information Management) and syndication?
Product information management (PIM) offers a central repository for product data within an organisation. Advanced PIM solutions centralise data management and data maintenance, thus allowing smooth and efficient syndication. On the other hand, product data syndication involves distributing product data to various online marketplaces and platforms. Great organisations use both practices, starting with PIM and then syndicating their data from their PIM system.
