10 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Product Data 

Product data is one of the most important aspects of your business, directly impacting SEO, product discoverability, sales performance, and overall revenue. Enhanced data quality not only garners favor from marketplaces but also propels your products towards higher search rankings, making them more accessible to your customer base. Over the years, marketplaces have progressively raised the bar for product data quality, introducing a myriad of new fields to capture more comprehensive product information, refining product visibility within specific categories and elevating the overall standard of product data.

This focus on data augmentation serves to improve product classification, optimize search functionalities, and ultimately heighten the customer shopping experience. Marketplaces strictly enforce their stringent data requirements – after a grace period – before enforcing mandatory compliance, with non-conforming products facing the risk of being delisted, hampering sales and revenue. 

To preempt such a drastic setback, sellers must diligently monitor and adhere to evolving marketplace regulations and integrate the requisite fields into their product listings. From changes in variation themes to image specifications, descriptions, custom fields, and pricing, each requirement warrants meticulous attention, as non-compliant listings risk swift removal until rectified. 

Here are 10 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Product Data.

1. Set up variation themes correctly

When listing products on ecommerce platforms like Amazon, Ebay, and Walmart, correctly setting up variation themes is crucial. Whether it’s color, size, or other product attributes, ensuring that your variations are well-defined and structured can significantly improve the visibility of your products. Accurate variation themes not only provide a seamless shopping experience for customers but also enable effective filtering and sorting, leading to increased conversion rates and improved customer satisfaction. Pay attention to specific guidelines provided by each platform to optimize your product’s visibility within their search algorithms.

Additional Resources:-
Variation Theme Override
Shopify Channel Level Variation Theme Override
Etsy Channel Level and Item Level Variation Theme Override

2. Write killer titles and metafields

Titles and descriptions wield immense power in driving product visibility, rivaling even the impact of visual content (images). Prioritize crafting engaging titles rich in relevant keywords, as marketplaces prioritize the title field for initial searches. Be conscious of character limitations (e.g. Amazon’s title field limit is 200 characters, eBay’s is 80 character limits) and weave in comprehensive variation details within these constraints.

Descriptions have a higher character limit – 2,000 for Amazon, 800 for Ebay – and so this is where to include more specific information regarding your product and potentially include SEO information. Familiarize yourself with marketplace-specific rules governing HTML coding;  Amazon restricts it while platforms like eBay, Shopify, Big Commerce, and WooCommerce permit it in varying degrees. Mastery of these regulations serves as a strategic asset, bolstering your product’s overall appeal and discoverability

Note that various marketplaces ban the use of specific characters including all escape characters, special symbols and certain punctuation e.g. °, ¢, £, ¤, ¶, µ, §, @, ®, ©, ±, ™, ¥; ’, :,  ”, /, \, <, >, {, }. Sears, for instance, even prohibits the use of (/) in SKUs, titles and descriptions. 

Additional Resources:-
How to Set Metafield’s Text Type in Shopify Template
Shopify Specific Settings, Send Custom Fields as Shopify Metafields Switch
How to Set List Type Metafields in Shopify Template
How to Map Shopify Metafields on StoreAutomator
Variant Creation on Shopify

3. Ensure compliance with the channel image requirements

Different channels enforce specific image criteria, ranging from minimum pixel dimensions e.g. 500 to higher quality standards. Non-compliance can result in publishing issues and error messages, hindering the visibility of your listings. It’s imperative to understand and meet these prerequisites to ensure seamless publication across platforms.

Ultimately, high-quality images tailored to customer preferences serve as a catalyst for bolstering product sales. By delivering visually appealing content that aligns with customer expectations, you can enhance the overall shopping experience and significantly elevate the likelihood of successful conversions.

Additional Resources:-
6 Ways To Optimize Amazon Listings
Use These Tips to Improve Your Selling Performance
How to Improve Listing Quality on Etsy

4. Provide all data required by the marketplace

Marketplaces are becoming increasingly strict about requiring more basic, discovery, dimensions, fulfillment, compliance and product enrichment information. While some fields are obligatory, others are optional. Failure to provide mandatory information can lead to your listings being sidelined, while voluntary fields can significantly enhance your product’s visibility and SEO  within the marketplace.

Marketplaces use these fields to better classify your products and refine them for customer searches; the outcome is win-win: the customer can find products that are better fit for their needs and sellers can effectively target a more receptive audience, conducive to heightened sales and customer satisfaction.

Additional Resources:-
Walmart Content Requirements
Content Requirements for Amazon

5. Ensure accuracy with UPC/EAN codes and barcodes

Most marketplaces mandate the inclusion of item Barcodes in product feeds. It’s imperative to allocate a unique code to each product, devoid of special or alphanumeric characters. Submission of invalid UPC or EAN codes can lead to upload failures, hampering product visibility. UPC codes are 12 digits, while EAN codes are 13. Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) vary in length, ranging from 8 to 14 digits. The correct Product ID Type (EAN, UPC, GTIN, GCID, etc) must also be correct. Mismatched digit counts between the sent Product ID numbers and the designated digit lengths prompt most channels to reject feeds, generating error codes. Walmart, for instance, does not accept GCID numbers. Consider applying for “unique seller status” with Amazon as this will enable you to enlist your brands in the list of “Brands exempt from barcode”. This exemption negates the need for obtaining individual barcodes for your products, streamlining the listing process.

Additional Resources:-
How to Acquire a GTIN, EAN, UPC, or GLN
Adding UPCs to SKUs on StoreAutomator

6. Use alt SKUs or aliases

Employing alternative SKUs or aliases is a prudent strategy for optimizing product management and streamlining inventory processes. Assign unique identifiers to different product variations or bundles to facilitate efficient tracking and management, especially when dealing with complex product catalogs. Utilize clear and consistent naming conventions for your SKUs or aliases to avoid confusion and ensure accurate inventory synchronization across multiple channels. By adopting this approach, you can minimize errors, enhance operational efficiency, and provide customers with a seamless shopping experience, ultimately leading to increased customer satisfaction and improved sales performance.

Additional Resources:-
Create Alias and Alternate SKU
Alias Creation Bulk Import File
Multi Channel Alias and Alt SKU Bulk Import File
How to Create Alias,Clones and AltSKUs with Bulk File
Create Alias and Alternate SKU

7. Channel tags and descriptions

In the competitive landscape of ecommerce marketplaces, leveraging channel tags and optimizing your product descriptions for search algorithms is indispensable. By incorporating relevant keywords, phrases, and attributes specific to each platform, you can significantly enhance the visibility of your products within internal search results. Craft compelling, SEO-friendly product descriptions that align with the platform’s search criteria, ensuring that your products surface prominently when potential customers are browsing. Implementing effective channel tagging strategies can amplify your product’s reach and ultimately boost your sales performance.

Additional Resources:-
How to Send Shopify Tags to Shopify

8. Pricing & cost data

Maintaining accurate and competitive pricing and cost data is essential for staying ahead in the competitive market. Regularly analyze market trends, competitor pricing strategies, and consumer behavior to adjust your pricing structure accordingly. Additionally, comprehensively incorporate all associated costs, including shipping, handling, and fulfillment, into your product pricing to ensure transparency and avoid unexpected financial discrepancies. Strategic pricing not only helps in maintaining a competitive edge but also establishes trust and reliability among customers, fostering long-term relationships and repeat business.

Additional Resources:-
Static vs. Dynamic Marketplace Pricing – How to Choose
Pricing and Price Rules
The Main Analytics Dashboard
Amazon Business and Volume Pricing
eBay Specific Settings, Enable Strikethrough Pricing Switch
Enable Updates-Price Update
Define Costs

9. Harness the power of description templates

Description templates offer the flexibility to present product descriptions in a variety of different formats, which comes in handy if you want to add text and supplementary fields without altering the core data. Leveraging these templates proves particularly beneficial when customizing product descriptions to meet specific requirements, ultimately amplifying product visibility and appeal. Embrace the versatility of description templates to effectively tailor your product displays, thereby catering to varied customer preferences and enhancing the overall shopping experience.

Additional Resources:-
Introduction to Description Templates

10. List your products under the correct categories

Most marketplaces operate with their own distinct categorization system and mandate sellers to align their products with appropriate classifications. While you can organize your own categorization structure, ensuring alignment with the specific categories and mappings of each channel is paramount. The correct categorization ensures accurate product publication within the channel, facilitating the transmission of essential data fields pertinent to each category’s requirements.

Given that every category comes with its unique set of prerequisites, precise category assignment remains critical. Not only does this practice streamline the listing process, but it also empowers customers to easily locate your products within the appropriate category. Thus, meticulous and accurate category assignment emerges as a pivotal step in optimizing product visibility and enhancing the overall shopping experience for customers.

Additional Resources:-
Mapping Product Categories on eBay with StoreAutomator – YouTube
Map Categories to Amazon Channel Taxonomy

 

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