While it seems second nature in a world that is increasingly digital-first, managing your business across the ecommerce landscape is still a huge endeavor. An online presence is undoubtedly worth the uphill battle, as you become recognizable among a wider set of your target customers who wouldn’t easily access your physical stores otherwise. However, as much as the web connects your business to millions of users, it also requires you to deal with huge volumes of data – from maintaining your product inventory to delivering the product straight to your customer’s doorstep. Handling such diverse data across your operations, from various sources and platforms is a vexing task.
This brings in the need for good product data syndication systems to efficiently synchronize and leverage your scattered data for success. Let’s explore how data synchronization can make or break your ecommerce business if not carried out strategically.
The power of data synchronization in omnichannel ecommerce
Data plays a significant role in all walks of your ecommerce business. You have to deal with data for a) conducting regular research, like timely analysis of market and customer data insights, b) product inventory optimization, c) competitive cost setting, d) stock clearance and updation, e) product catalog management, f) online reputation management, and various other processes.
However, ecommerce businesses have data scattered across various sources and in differing formats. In 2024, 95% of businesses struggle to manage unstructured data. What use is your data if it is not organized, consistent, and credible?
Efficient product data syndication or synchronization strategies can help you avoid siloes across your organization. Data synchronization consolidates your data scattered across sources under a single system while checking for errors, duplications, and privacy breaches. Further, it enables consistent data integration across ecommerce platforms, reflecting any changes made to the data. This ensures brand consistency and strengthens customer loyalty.
Productsup’s Retail PX streamlines data syndication, ensuring real-time, accurate product information across all sales channels. Using automation and integrations, you can update your data more efficiently to maintain consistency and enhance the customer experience.
Source : grazitti.com
How can poor data synchronization affect your ecommerce business?
Just how valuable is data synchronization for your data management strategy? Let’s look at some of the challenges you may face without a strong data synchronization system or strategy.
1. Inconsistent product content across ecommerce websites and marketplaces
Almost 75% of today’s ecommerce shoppers choose brands and businesses that provide a consistent shopping experience no matter where they come across them online. This includes uniform and credible product information, like product descriptions, images, prices, how-to videos, customer feedback, etc. Now, for businesses managing huge, complex product catalogs, manually entering data for each product or service across various ecommerce websites and marketplaces is time-consuming and error-prone.
If your product feed is not synchronized uniformly, then your listings and ads might vary across customer touchpoints, creating an unpleasant experience for the audience.
2. Poorly maintained product inventory
Product inventory data needs constant attention. You’re either launching new products, updating stock, or clearing stock. Without data synchronization, changes made to your stock levels could fail to be reflected accurately in your product inventory, which is linked to the ecommerce platforms you sell on. Imagine a customer adds an item to their cart, but comes to find out at checkout that the item isn’t available. They’re left feeling confused and disappointed, and are more likely to shop with a competitor next time.
Failure to sync inventory data can also lead to issues with channel compliance. Ecommerce marketplaces, like Amazon and Walmart, keep a strict track record of your order defect rates (ODR), which monitor the negative reviews, returns, and cancellations that your customers make. Once you exceed the set ODR, they limit the visibility of your brand and products to your relevant customers. To avoid this, it is necessary to maintain accuracy in your stock availability across the web.
3. Lack of integrations with third-party ecommerce platforms
There are more than 150 ecommerce marketplaces globally. Typically, 3P marketplaces require you to use specific integration software or systems to onboard and manage your products on their platform. If your data synchronization strategy doesn’t support these integration systems, you limit your online presence, hence affecting your ecommerce sales.
4. Failure to adhere to ecommerce platform guidelines
Every channel has its own set of guidelines and formats in which it accepts your product data. For instance, their requirements may differ in character count for product descriptions or image dimensions. Manually updating each of these details as required by each platform is an impossible task. Data synchronization is needed to adjust product content quickly and make updates across channels. Otherwise, you run the risk of products getting rejected from certain platforms.
5. Long processing times
Depending on the size of your product catalog and scale of your ecommerce business, you could be dealing with a massive amount of data. Yet, there will be many instances when you only need to make changes or update information for just a handful of products. If you’re relying on a data synchronization system that requires you to upload your entire product catalog every time you need to make an edit or update, you’ll have to wait for lengthy processing times to see the change reflected across all platforms. Not only does this slow down workflows, but it also impacts your go-to-market.
4 steps to implement data synchronization into your data management strategy
When looking for a data synchronization solution to streamline how you manage data across the ecommerce ecosystem, here are four necessary steps:
1. Set clear objectives aligned with business goals
Define your data synchronization objectives in line with your overall business strategy. Are you looking to expand into new markets, enhance your localization efforts, or reach new customer segments? Clarifying these goals will guide your data synchronization efforts and ensure they support your broader business aims.
Read More: Is your product data AI-ready?
2. Map out all data sources
Identify all of the locations your product data resides within your organization and across the ecommerce ecosystem. This includes databases, CRM systems, inventory management tools, and external data sources. By mapping out these sources, you can work towards integrating them and breaking down data silos to create a unified data flow.
3. Analyze data quality
Before synchronization, it's crucial to audit your data for inconsistencies, errors, or gaps. Evaluate the data to identify outdated or incorrect information and ensure all necessary data points are complete and accurate. This process not only improves data quality but also ensures that synchronized data is reliable and actionable.
4. Identify data distribution endpoints
Determine the final destinations for your synchronized data. This could include various sales or distribution channels, marketing platforms, or internal systems. Additionally, establish a system for ongoing data maintenance to ensure that the information remains up-to-date and consistent across all channels. This step is vital for maintaining the integrity of your product information and ensuring a seamless customer experience.
The right data synchronization strategy can boost efficiency for your team and the performance of your online presence. Discover how Productsup helps companies synchronize their data management through automated solutions like product content syndication.