4 Ways Market Share Benchmarking Can Boost Your eCommerce Strategy

Ways Market Share Benchmarking Can Boost Your eCommerce Strategy

Successful eCommerce strategy is based on data — but you can’t just rely on your own data when making decisions. To truly optimize your eCommerce market share potential, marketplaces must understand both their own performance and that of their competitors.

In this light, market share benchmarking becomes crucial for delivering meaningful insights that  guide and enhance your overall strategy so you can build a stronger eCommerce brand.

  1. Understand Historical and Category Performance

Two vital areas of market share benchmarking are historical and category benchmarks. Historical benchmarks look at your own historical performance. For example, how do sales for a particular product line compare to how they sold at this time last year? On the other hand, category benchmarks look at the entire market, and compare your results to the market as a whole.

Performance benchmarks can vary significantly based on product category. For example, while the online shopping conversion rate for luxury handbags is a mere 0.6%, haircare products have a 3.5% conversion rate. Ideally, your own conversion rates should be similar to (or better than) category benchmarks for competitors in your niche.

Market share benchmarking can also help you evaluate your total eCommerce market share, and how it has changed over time. Losing market share to a competitor is a clear indicator that something is amiss with your own product lineup or marketing — or that a new competitor is making an even more appealing offer to potential customers.

Such data can help you optimize your own site, whether that be through improving the quality of product listings or removing declining products that are no longer turning a profit.

  1. Gain Insights Into Consumer Platform Preferences

When looking to expand and sell your product categories through new retailers, understanding where consumers want to shop — and which platforms have the best conversion rates — can help you make better informed expansion decisions.

Market share benchmarking can help you achieve this by identifying brand share changes across multiple marketplaces, so you can more easily identify which categories and SKUs are performing well and which are on the decline.

Geolocation data can lead to even more detailed eCommerce strategy insights. Gaining a regional understanding of shoppers and their behaviors can ensure more targeted decision making when trying to work with a regional marketplace or focus marketing efforts on consumers in a particular geographic location.

By conducting this level of analysis in advance, you can avoid wasting time and money by trying to expand to low-converting marketplaces.

  1. Identify Needed Product Assortment Changes

Which items are your best-sellers? Which are the best sellers on competing marketplaces? How does pricing impact sales? How have these trends changed over time?

Digging deep into this market share benchmarking data can provide valuable insights into changes you may need to make with your own product assortment. For example, you could be losing market share to a competing brand because your own product listing isn’t fully optimized for SEO. Or, other competitors are able to offer lower prices than what you currently offer.

Of course, these insights can go beyond looking at market share for individual items. They can also help you with assortment planning for your entire marketplace. For example, if a competing marketplace has gained significant market share after introducing a new product category, it may be worth considering adding best-selling items from that same category to your own store. 

Frequent market share benchmarking is key to your organization’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to changing trends fueled by customer preferences and competitor actions.

  1. Adapt Marketing

Yes, market share benchmarking can also offer insights into the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. Linking historical market share data with your marketing campaigns can help you better gauge a particular campaign’s effect on web traffic levels and conversions.

Using this data can help you dig deeper into the reasons why a particular marketing campaign worked (or didn’t work) at enhancing your market share. Perhaps it was the type of messaging the campaign used, or a specific promotional offer. Market share growth could even be linked to the method you used to target customers, such as email, paid search ads, or social media ads.

By using market share benchmarking to correlate sales outcomes with ad campaigns, you can fine-tune future campaigns so they continue to focus on the elements that drove sales with previous marketing efforts. This will allow you to continue to grow your market share with messaging that is better tailored to the target audience for each product category.

Improve Your Market Share Benchmarking With Cluster

Quality data can make all the difference in achieving marketplace success — and Cluster can help. With a full range of data-driven solutions for marketplaces, Cluster can help eCommerce businesses and marketplaces better track and understand drivers of market share, and how they change over time.

By using market share benchmarking to fine-tune your eCommerce strategy, you will be better positioned to implement effective changes with your product lineup that drive sales and boost your digital reputation.

11 Common eCommerce Product Catalog Management Mistakes You Should Avoid At All Costs

Common eCommerce Product Catalog Management Mistakes You Should Avoid At All Costs

eCommerce catalog management is one of the most important aspects of any digital marketplace. Without quality product catalog management, your customers will have a much harder time finding the products they’re looking for — and so will search engines.

You would hardly be alone in making eCommerce product catalog management mistakes that hurt your bottom line. In fact, it is estimated that of the 12 to 24 million eCommerce sites on the web, fewer than one million make over $1,000 per year.

By overcoming the following common online catalog management mistakes, you can help your marketplace stand out and start generating meaningful revenue.

11 Common eCommerce Product Catalog Mistakes to Avoid

  1. Confusing Navigation

If your online catalog makes it hard for site visitors to find what they’re looking for, it’s not doing its job. Too many menu navigation options can make your site harder to browse, and customers will be more likely to leave in frustration. Instead, use a concise navigation bar with fewer visuals. Making the top-level category collapsible will help keep navigation menus from looking cluttered once users go into secondary categories.

  1. Inaccurate Product Tagging

Product tagging has a direct impact on the discoverability of your products. Proper tagging ensures that what shows up in search results will match what the customer typed. On the other hand, inaccurate tagging can cause many catalogs to remain completely undiscovered. This often occurs when you rely on manual tagging for large catalog sizes. Automated tagging will eliminate such errors and simplify product catalog optimization.

  1. Delayed Product Onboarding

Just like manual tagging can make some products undiscoverable, manually digitizing and creating metadata for new products can result in a lengthy process to get a new catalog item to market. Once again, automated tagging provides a more flexible and agile process so that new items can be made available to customers in as little time as possible. The ability to be “first to market” with a popular new item can provide a major advantage over the competition.

  1. Inaccurate, Non-Persuasive Product Descriptions

The average eCommerce return rate is 20.8% — and quite often, inaccurate product descriptions are to blame. Compelling images and helpful, descriptive product descriptions make it easier for buyers to decide if an item is relevant and useful to them. This information should be accurate, though still persuasively written to get customers to buy. Quality information and pictures will boost sales and reduce returns.

  1. No Real-Time Market Visibility

Without real-time visibility into your own data — or the market as a whole — it can be difficult to manage inventory, forecast sales, or identify new items that should be added to your eCommerce catalog. Using product catalog API tools that gather real-time data from across the web will provide accurate insights that help you make smarter eCommerce catalog management decisions. Quality product performance data helps you allocate resources properly to keep operational costs down while also improving sales.

  1. Poor Inventory Tracking

Without automated tracking systems, it can become nearly impossible to accurately track eCommerce inventory across thousands of products. Without inventory alerts, it becomes all too easy for items to slip through the cracks. Inventory tracking and monitoring tools are crucial to prevent supply chain inefficiencies that could lead to shipping delays or popular items being out of stock for extended periods of time. 

  1. Inadequate SEO

If your product listings aren’t optimized for SEO, they likely won’t appear in Google Search — which 49% of shoppers use to find new products. Relevant keywords must be used in title tags, meta descriptions, product descriptions, headers, and even the URL. Tags should be as specific as possible, highlighting the product brand and other differentiating features a consumer might type in for their search.

  1. Outdated Lists

A core aspect of product catalog management is ensuring that catalog lists are fully up to date at all times. Customers don’t want to add an item to their shopping cart, only to discover it is out of stock when they go to check out. Updated product lists help customers know if an item is in stock, coming soon, or on back order. Integrating with ERP software can enable automatic updates based on inventory levels to provide accurate information so that customers don’t experience any unpleasant surprises when trying to complete a purchase.

  1. Not Accounting For Channel Differences

As we’ve written previously, eCommerce sellers must account for differences between sales channels like Amazon, eBay, Instagram, and so on. Each channel displays product details differently — even something as simple as one channel using “M” and another using “medium” for clothing sizes can impact whether a listing is displayed properly. Tailoring lists for each sales channel you use will facilitate smoother product updates and better performance with potential customers.

  1. Irrelevant Product Recommendations

Amazon has made upselling and cross-selling of related products the norm for online shoppers. But if your marketplace recommends irrelevant products, you’ll have a hard time maximizing your sales potential. Upselling and cross-selling is most successful when recommendations are based on a user’s browsing history or what other customers have purchased along with an item. It can also be more effective when customers are only given a few options that are well-reviewed or top sellers.

  1. No Competitor Pricing Analysis

eCommerce prices are constantly changing. With so much competition, you must be fully aware of what others are charging for items that are similar (or the same) as what you sell through your marketplace. Gathering pricing data from across the web will help you set competitive prices that drive sales while still enabling you to turn a profit. This data could also be used to help you time sales and promotional events based on competitor activities.

Make Product Catalog Optimization a Priority

While these eCommerce catalog management mistakes can significantly hurt your marketplace, leaning into product catalog optimization can give you a major advantage over the competition.

Cluster’s Catalog Enhancement solution can help. With quality data, you can clean and enhance your canonical catalog, increasing revenue as you get the right listings in front of the right shoppers at the right time. With a wide host of solutions for eCommerce marketplaces, Cluster helps you shift your focus to winning the basket. Book a meeting today to learn how we can help improve your product catalog data.

3 Product Page Data Enhancements to Win More Traffic

Product Page Data Enhancements

The eCommerce market is expected to surpass $52 trillion by 2027. That’s nearly 4 times as large as its 2021 value.

More customers mean more competitors. While eBay and then Amazon long dominated the eCommerce scene, the pandemic created a shift. With more time spent at home, consumers had more time to shop around.

Because of that, smaller eCommerce sites have more opportunities to make their mark. How can an online marketplace stand out amongst the growing competition?

The first step is retaining customers. The number one way to do that is product page enhancements.

That’s right, it’s not all about SEO! There’s no point ranking highly on a search engine if customers abandon or don’t even fill their carts. For long-lasting success, your product pages have to convert browsers through to purchase.

Then your site traffic and search engine rankings will organically increase. And your product pages will be optimized enough to sustain your success.

Here’s our guide to specific product page enhancements every marketplace should be making and why.

Improve Loading Speeds

As basic as it sounds, loading speeds can make or break organic traffic generation. If your site or your product images take a few moments to load, it can put users off completely. In fact, 53% of people expect a web page to load within 3 seconds. 

If it loads too slowly, the same survey found that nearly half of customers will be dissatisfied. And if they click away from your site that quickly, it hurts your traffic substantially.

Buyers want a swift, painless experience. Don’t give them time to second-guess their purchase or your professionalism! 

Accurate Product Information

The best product page enhancements are all about product information. Product data enhancement is the key to winning more site traffic. Attention to detail at this stage is the number one way to push customers through to purchase.

eCommerce product data includes written information, as well as images and other details. We’ve broken down how to improve each area.

Product Descriptions

Product data is everything. Potential buyers want to know every detail about your products. Data-driven product catalog management should be central to your strategy.

That goes beyond dimensions and delivery dates. An eCommerce product description should be as thorough as seeing it in person.

In a brick-and-mortar store, shoppers can pick up the product. They can feel its weight, gauge its size, and read more information on the package.

eCommerce marketplaces can combat these challenges by providing just as much information.

If any product information is missing, consumers won’t have the confidence to buy. Or they may return the product.

For online purchases, the average return rate is a staggering 20%. The problem is not just lost revenue, it’s a loss of confidence in your marketplace.

If your product descriptions do not accurately represent the product, they won’t just return it – they won’t come back. That is less site traffic from repeat customers, which leads to less organic traffic generation.

Clearly, an accurate product description is key to repeat customers, which drives organic traffic.

Accurate product data also helps your product get identified by search engines. Besides a clear description, search engines respond well to these details:

  • Global trade item numbers
  • Manufacturer part numbers
  • Brand names
  • Stock keeping unit numbers

Consistently structured product data is also helpful for both search engines and consumers. On every product page, data should appear in the same order and in the same places, so people know where to look. 

This is especially important if several stocked products are relatively similar. Their differences and unique identifiers should be clear enough that customers and search engines can distinguish between them.

High-Quality Images

Good images are just as important to consumers as good data. Bad images, or worse, none at all, reflect badly on your business. If you can’t provide several high-quality images from a variety of angles, buyers jump to questioning your authenticity.

Your goal should be to provide enough images that users feel they’ve seen the product in person. That will give them the confidence to buy and come back in the future.

Visible Product Reviews

Reviews add to your site’s verifiability. In fact, nearly 90% of customers surveyed said that they read reviews before purchasing a product online. The same survey found that even more than 90% of people trust reviews as much as recommendations from people they know.

Make sure it’s easy to leave a review so that previous buyers do so.

Include an image option with reviews so that buyers can upload images alongside them. These candid review images add to buyer confidence even more than professional ones.

Buyers are also interested in your responses to reviews. If any customer leaves a negative review with a complaint, you may want to respond to save face.

According to the survey mentioned earlier, these business responses are read by and are important to nearly 60% of customers. Make sure you represent your business well and respond in the most considerate way possible.

Product Page Enhancements for Your Online Marketplace

Putting these enhancement tips into practice will win you more traffic. But working with us gets that number even higher.

Our solutions for marketplaces go beyond product data enhancements. They win more traffic by fixing attribution, removing duplicates, forecasting demand, ensuring accurate taxonomy, and creating an optimal shopper experience.

Don’t struggle through manually improving product pages in-house. Instead, let us go through your marketplace with a fine-toothed comb and find every optimization opportunity.

Book a demo with us today to learn how.

10 eCommerce Payment and Fraud Protection Strategies You Should Follow In 2023

10 eCommerce Payment and Fraud Protection Strategies You Should Follow In 2023

Just because people can’t physically steal from online retailers doesn’t mean they can’t invade your business through fraudulent activities. In fact, about $20 billion in eCommerce losses were reported in the US — in 2021 alone.

If you manage or own an eCommerce marketplace, it’s absolutely crucial that you secure your business against online criminals with eCommerce fraud protection.

In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about eCommerce fraud prevention and 10 strategies that will keep your business safe.

What is eCommerce Fraud?

eCommerce fraud refers to when online hackers and scammers block and intercept transactions that happen in an online store. They can do this through a variety of methods that can steal money from either the merchant, the customer, or both. 

As the world becomes more and more reliant on online transactions, scammers are finding new and creative ways to hijack customer data and commit fraud.

eCommerce fraud mitigation is not a one-time event. You must continually be vigilant and update your online platform’s security to keep up.

10 eCommerce Fraud Protection Strategies

Many business owners don’t begin implementing fraud protection for eCommerce until it’s too late. It’s always better to start being prepared and aware of different signs of fraud.

Let’s take a look at 10 different strategies that you can use for your online marketplace today.

1. Review Abnormal and Risky Orders

If you receive orders that seem odd or risky, it’s best to reach out to the customer to prove their legitimacy. Some examples of red flags include:

  • Low-value orders from unusual IP locations
  • Several orders placed in a row
  • Different billing and shipping addresses
  • Obscure shipping locations
  • Abnormally large orders

If the customer doesn’t reply to your inquiry, there’s a good chance that the order was made from stolen data. You can also take a look at the customer’s order history to see if there are any odd patterns. 

2. Limit Order Quantity

Orders that involve a high quantity of products can also be a red flag for scammers. You can up your eCommerce payment protection by limiting the number of products a customer can buy in a single day. 

To do this, go back through your purchase data to determine the average number of products you typically sell. Then, set a limit to the number that can be sold at a single time based on this number.

3. Clearly State Your Business Policies On Your Website

It’s not only important to clearly state your policies for your customers to understand your business practices, but it’s also a way to help customers understand how to prevent fraud. 

Some things your business should include are:

  • A strong password policy to prevent scammers from hacking into customer accounts
  • A return policy to clarify chargebacks and refunds
  • Promotion and rewards policies to prevent fraud that may happen during promotions

The clearer you can make your policy, the better you’ll protect yourself against future fraudulent activity.

4. Use Address Verification Service (AVS)

Address verification system (AVS) helps verify your customer’s billing address with the card that they are purchasing with. This can help detect any suspicious transactions that happen in real time and increase price anomalies mitigation. 

5. Require Card Verification Value (CVV) for Purchases

Requiring a card verification value (CVV) for purchases requires customers to add the three-to-four digit number as a required field. This adds an extra layer of security so that fraudsters can’t make purchases with just the front of a credit card.

This is one of the most popular forms of payment and fraud protection.

6. Use Other Verification Software

Although AVS and CVV are two of the most popular verification software out there, there are several others that you can use to enhance your eCommerce fraud management.

Some verification systems include:

  • Email verification
  • Customer Order History 
  • 3-D secure authentication
  • Telephone number verification
  • Postal Address Validation Services
  • Blacklists
  • Payment protection

These extra steps can help you secure your platform against fraud.

7. Conduct Regular Site Security Audits

Make sure to conduct audits on your website regularly. Go through all of your plugins and make sure they are updated to the latest version. Here’s an example of an audit checklist:

  • Check if shopping-cart software is up-to-date
  • Check if your SSL certificate is working correctly
  • Check how often you are backing up your store data
  • Remove any inactive plugins
  • Update strong passwords for every account
  • Regularly scan for malware

There are also several eCommerce fraud protection services available that can help take care of everything for you. Things are constantly changing in the online world. It’s important to keep up.

8. Avoid Collecting Too Much Customer Data

One general rule of thumb is to never collect more customer data than you actually need to run your business efficiently. If there is ever a data breach in your store, hackers will only be able to take the data that is there, so the less, the better. 

Avoid collecting any sensitive data like Social Security numbers, birth dates, and more.

9. Use Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS)

HTTP is the main protocol used to send data between a web browser and your store. HTTPS is the more secure version of it. It encrypts data which can protect sensitive information from hackers. Use HTTPS by purchasing an SSL certificate.

10. Avoid Non-Physical Shipping Addresses

Fraudsters often use PO boxes or other anonymous locations to avoid being detected or having their physical address found. Avoid shipping any orders to PO boxes or other virtual addresses to avoid any fraudulent activity.

Take Control of Your Marketplace

eCommerce fraud protection is an ongoing process that never ends. As long as you’re selling products on the internet and there’s money involved, hackers will try to find new and innovative ways to invade your store’s data.

If you’re an online marketplace looking to identify reputable sellers, detect fraudulent prices and remove suspicious listings before customers get to payment, book a free demo today!

From the Tech Trenches: 5 Questions with Cluster Chief Technology Officer

When the company was first launched in 2016, the mission for Algopix was seemingly simple, “To make eCommerce marketplace data more accessible and usable so online brands can make informed decisions.” It was able to aggregate marketplace data in real-time to help sellers research, source and launch their online businesses. 

Fast-forward to today (and throwing a global pandemic into the mix), eCommerce has been thrust into the spotlight – as a survival mechanism for brick-and-mortar and even restaurants, to accommodate social distancing mandates, and to get essential goods and services to those in unprecedented circumstances. 

Whatever the reason to shift to eCommerce, Algopix also began its own shift. As more and more enterprises and big brands started to pique their interest into learning more about what real-time data can do for their online marketplaces, we also had to pivot and create new products and services for a broader audience. 

And while the only certainty in eCommerce is change, we also know that: 

1. eCommerce/online shopping is here to stay (now that we’ve figured out how to buy groceries online, why would we want to go back?), and 

2. Data, analytics and technology can’t be static in a constantly changing world. 

So, here we went right into the trenches and caught up with our Chief Technology Officer Yaniv Cohen, with five top-of-mind questions to see what advice he uses to thrive and what technologies to watch going into 2022 and beyond:  

 

Q: What did you learn along your career path that you still use today?

COHEN: First, when you get the chance to build something from scratch, make sure you get it right the first time. This ensures you won’t face any issues with systems that someone else has built (especially if they didn’t do it right). 

Next, even if someone else is to blame, don’t use that as an excuse to report failure. Make it work by doing everything possible to get things moving in the right direction until it gets done. Try to help others around you become better at what they do, you’d be surprised how much improvement you’ll see in their performance. The most talented people I’ve had the pleasure to work with during my career are not those who have the best looking CVs.

Finally, leadership is never given by authority. Leadership is given to those who take care of others around them. 

 

Q: If you could go back and give yourself advice when you first started your career, what would that advice be?

COHEN: As a software engineer, you should have a very solid knowledge of the basics (data collections, algorithms and even design patterns). They apply to almost every development language you will use.

Additionally, make sure to surround yourself with highly professional and GOOD people. It will make you a better professional and a better person.

I started out in the industry when XML became all the hype and JSON hadn’t been thought of yet. Today, nobody would use XML if they can avoid it, so if I could go back to when I first started, I’d say, “Use JSON, not XML!”

 

Q: What advice would you give to any entry-level business/tech person today?

COHEN: What you do at the beginning of your journey will most likely lead to what you’re doing for the rest of your career. So, choose your first role carefully.

The majority of interesting, challenging and innovative positions are usually not found in high profile, large companies. It is usually at the smaller or digitally born organizations that are trying to build something new and innovative using the latest technologies.

 

Q: What resources do you use for continuing your education or learnings as technology continues to evolve and change.

COHEN: Online blog posts and technology-centered websites. But above all, I look to my colleagues and peers who I’ve become to know well during my career. I get to discuss new technologies with them especially if they’ve had experience with them already.

 

Q: What is the greatest piece of technology to watch?

COHEN: I think that quantum computers are going to change everything. Programming languages are going to change considerably in order to support this new technology.

 

Benefits To Using an API-First Strategy

Over the past few years, eCommerce businesses have had to deploy new digital technologies to better serve their customers and stay one step ahead of their competitors.

As such, many eCommerce providers have adopted application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate their software with such shopping platforms as Shopify, Magento, eBay, Amazon, and more. This eCommerce API integration works as a data transfer bridge between the eCommerce shopping platforms and the eCommerce tools, enabling the vendors to provide their customers with the functionality of their platforms.

An API is a set of functions that lets an application interact with operating systems, microservices, external applications, or data. Put simply, APIs allow software to “talk to” and interact with each other. An API for an eCommerce website connects consumers and eCommerce companies by transforming data into valuable business information.

Participating in the API economy is critical to the long-term success of eCommerce vendors as it allows them to connect to tools that help them as well as their customers operate more efficiently. The key to this, however, is using an API-first strategy. 

 

Benefits of an API-first strategy

Generally, software vendors add APIs on top of their platforms, allowing customers to access some of their software’s underlying functionality but not all the functionality. The API-first strategy makes system integration easier. 

An API-first strategy ensures that customers can access all of the functionality of the vendors’ software through the APIs. This API-first strategy enables eCommerce vendors to create and extend the solution they need to develop to meet their needs as well as the needs of their customers. Not only does the API-first approach improve the development of a solution, it also makes the development process more agile.

Today, applications must not only be well-designed but they have to be on the market within six months. Another benefit of an API-first strategy is that it allows companies to get their products to market faster and it enables customers to derive value more quickly from those products. 

And an API-first model allows developers to customize the features of their solutions according to the business needs of their clients. API-first also makes it easier for developers to make improvements and adjustments to the solutions without having to re-architect the entire system to meet the ever-changing business needs of their customers

The following are benefits of an API-first strategy for eCommerce vendors:

  • Saves time and money on developing applications and rolling out updates. 
  • Changes to the API happen simultaneously across all applications. 
  • Enables automation, which accelerates production.
  • Developers don’t have to build new programs for each application.

Benefits of an API-first approach for eCommerce companies:

  • Lets teams identify design or programming flaws before rolling out applications to customers. 
  • User-facing information looks the same across all platforms. 
  • Website content can be customized to meet the needs of returning customers and website visitors.
  • Improves user experience, as APIs let companies offer customers more services in less time.
 

Importance of a product price API strategy 

Price monitoring software enables eCommerce companies to monitor the changes in their competitors’ prices in real time. It also gives them real-time insights into stock availability, promotions, and other information eCommerce companies can use to optimize their pricing strategies on the fly.

It’s important for eCommerce companies to use price-monitoring APIs that provide up-to-date eCommerce data that collects information from large retailers and eCommerce marketplaces. This includes information about the top-selling products, product availability, shipping costs, and more. 

Price monitoring APIs also allow eCommerce retailers to trace the pricing history of any product for a specific time period. In addition, the automated price tracing capabilities help organizations save time and money on competitive analysis.

Conclusion

By adopting an API-first development strategy, eCommerce vendors will have agility to meet ever-changing customer expectations and remain competitive in the market. An API-first strategy gives online retailers more control over the selling experience and offers them more options when it comes to scaling up and improving services. APIs also help online retailers get more insight into their customers so they can offer them products customized to meet their needs.

API tools enable online retailers to build more scalable and robust eCommerce platforms that are critical in today’s business climate.

The Importance of Detailed Product Attributes in eCommerce

We all know that as people we have characteristics that set us apart from one another and make us unique. But the products customers buy on eCommerce websites also have attributes that define them — attributes that affect consumer decisions about which products they purchase.

Put simply, eCommerce product-related attributes are specific product characteristics that define a particular product or group of products. However, these aren’t just general descriptions of a product but rather they point to the value of a product and detail what makes it unique. 

There are two types of product attributes:

  • Tangible attributes: these are the physical characteristics of a product, such as size, height, weight, material, smell, quantity, color, that customers care about when they’re searching for or purchasing a product.

  • Intangible attributes: these are the characteristics that customers can’t physically touch or see, such as the quality, reliability, and aesthetics of a product. However, intangible attributes still help buyers decide if a particular product is right for them or if they should look for something else.

Although eCommerce product attributes don’t change, the attributes sellers choose to show consumers will change based on a particular marketing campaign, the brand, and/or the customer.

Product attributes are important because they give buyers extensive information about your product. And the more detailed you make your product attributes, the better chance you’ll have of convincing consumers to purchase your product. 

Product information management (PIM) systems enable you to collect, store, and manage all the attribute data about your product that you need to sell online. A PIM tool lets you centralize all the product information and digital assets in one place that can then be distributed through various sales channels.

Why Product Attributes Are Important

Good eCommerce product attributes can help you increase your sales by helping you:

Set Your Product Apart From Competitors’ Products

If people view your product’s attributes as unique, they will serve as distinguishing characteristics that will set your product apart from your competitors’ products. When consumers see the information that you’ve provided and understand the value that it offers, those individuals will likely become buyers. 

If you want to be a smart seller in today’s digital world, then you must provide consumers with a top-notch digital experience and that includes giving them the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions. 

Since buyers do most of their product research online, they need accurate, comprehensive information at their fingertips — information that they can find easily. That means you must tell them what your product is, offer information about its qualities and features, any details about its suitability for specific occasions, e.g., birthdays or anniversaries, and why shoppers should buy your product. 

Enhance Your Recommendations

In eCommerce, personalization has to do with matching potential buyers with products that trigger positive responses. Typically, that revolves around sending consumers product recommendations in emails or in ads in sales channels. However, those recommendations are really not very specific. For example, some recommendations might be based on similar items, e.g., showing more pants to a person who has purchased pants in the past or maybe recommending shirts to someone who has purchased pants.

However, if you bring together an in-depth knowledge of eCommerce product attributes with an understanding of the way customers behave and then use data science to figure out what drives your customers, you could make more personalized and smarter recommendations. For example, you could make recommendations based on such factors as particular size or color preferences. And more personalized recommendations will likely result in more sales.

Reduce Returns

Product attributes let consumers find, understand, and compare products. When you sell online not only do you have to offer the best product, but you also have to provide the best descriptive information you can about your product. Offering customers accurate attribute data about your product means they’ll be less likely to return their purchases. And that’s good for you as well as for the environment as shipping items back and forth creates additional greenhouse gas emissions. And fewer returns mean fewer products that end up in landfills.

Use Real-Time Data To Help You Win the Order

To be successful, you must understand the relationship between your customers and your product. PIM systems synchronize data in real-time to ensure all the data is up to date and consistent across channels. Having in-depth knowledge of your customer data and your product attribute data will enable you to serve your ideal customer, deliver better customer experiences, and generate more revenue by increasing conversion rates, the size of customers’ orders, and customer lifetime value.

Conclusion

Providing consumers with detailed eCommerce product attributes enables them to better understand your product, making them much more likely to purchase from you. And having accurate product attributes in place can give you exactly the boost in sales that you’re after.