Why a good Omni-channel approach needs great product data

In the consumer journey between discovery and purchase, good product data is critical to all stakeholders, driving increasing sales and conversion rates, with both manufacturers and the final sellers having the all-important role to deliver product data excellence.

Good product and content data is an essential ingredient in enabling customers to identify, find, evaluate, select and ultimately buy a product. Manufacturers and final sellers who can deliver this, and provide a consistent Omni-channel experience will create advantage and minimise lost sales when compared to those that deliver a disparate multi-channel approach.

Why is the Omni-channel approach important? Research indicates that consumers (both b2b and b2c) already do and increasingly will, use a combination of approaches to buying. Outside of a physical store visit, a search for a product or service will typically include a PC and tablet, but increasingly is likely to start with a mobile phone. Each consumer touch point should deliver a consistent seamless experience.

The likelihood is if the consumer experiences either different or conflicting product information, or even cannot easily find and continue their buying experience across channels, they are likely to leave and go elsewhere. Having the capability to deliver consistent content that is optimised for each channel, enhances customer experience and reduces visitor fall-out.

From an ROI perspective, the investment in data can be as important as the investment in the “shop” front end. Choosing a product data management system designed to deliver an Omni-channel experience, combined with enhanced or personalised product content, will enable successful businesses to further differentiate their offer from competition.

The manufacturers role:

From a manufacturers perspective, to invest in the tooling up for a new product is a considerable investment, only made after careful analysis and approval. A core objective of this decision is to maximise sales, ideally to the stage where there is a ready demand for initial stock, and with end customers waiting for it to roll off the line!

In the same way that the manufacturer is taking the time to brand, package and develop the product, equal care and investment should be made to ensure a complete set of marketing and product content collateral is developed and made available. The manufacturer should be looking to ensure the dataset would deliver consistency across all media channels, using the best mix of rich media including images, drawings and particularly video available. This dataset will facilitate final sellers to quickly take on board distribution and start selling – achieving the core objective.

This product data should be used to populate the manufacturers own website, as well as being made available to pre-determined and carefully vetted future resellers and stockists. As a consideration, if the manufacturer has not got significant downstream stocking distribution in place, then a complete set of product data would at least enable marketing and direct sell activity through Amazon (itself a great opportunity for immediate access to market).

While important to all manufacturers (future growth and recognition), their own website data is critical for manufacturers with known brands, where customers are likely to approach their website first – as the definitive source of accurate complete product information, before going on to where can I buy this. (This last element having its own set of problems).

There are other significant benefits to the manufacturer. They are ensuring the best possible quality product data is available and to be made available to re-sellers. This eliminates the chances of data deteriorating through re-creation, potentially by people with lesser knowledge.

It also provides the manufacturer with a value added sell. If the manufacturer is providing perfect quality date, then the distribution supply chain is saving money by not having to replicate, create and distribute the data – a margin upside to the distribution chain. To the manufacturer, margin retention is achieved through only having to pay for the process once – and by eliminating funding requests for final seller data replication.

In conclusion, if the manufacturer can provide quality data, it should be able to be easily uploaded into leading product data management software, (as it is into Amazon), and for a larger manufacturer, the investment in a multi or Omni-channel product data management suite could also offer the benefits of remote access and punch-out support.

The role of the Seller.

The Seller has two objectives and two opportunities to benefit from the great management of product data.

The objectives: To try and capture as many consumers who are searching for the product now stocked or sold, to come to your business and buy, and secondly, for those consumers who are either already customers, in store, or already “on site”, to find and add these products to their basket.

The Seller has a further opportunity to benefit from enhancing their product data – which is by creating value added differentiation. Where several Sellers have access to the same great manufacturers product dataset, differentiating the dataset enhances sales opportunity and can create valuable USP’s. Such differentiation could include additional images or rich media, client photos of product in-situ, in-use, in action; or market sector specific application.

Where a Seller invests in their own product data management system, they have the ability to control their data, enhancing and differentiating where needed, to create advantage. Sellers can add further index and search terms, enhancing the consumer browsing experience, place products in multiple departments in line with other products, and include products within links and alternative suggestions.

Different Sellers operating in different market sectors will also have different focus to bring to the same product – addressing potentially different buyers, utilising reference to appropriate relevant legislation, and identifying specific applications or uses that are pertinent to their specific sector.

Better segregation and management of product data also enables better use of promotional activity, and for new products in particular can work well with manufacturers to increase visibility, advertise, unlock promotional funding, and grow sales. Undoubtedly, the business that invests in improved data can create a competitive gap - to their advantage.

In conclusion, a Seller in control of their own product data has the ability to create differentiation, adding valuable USP’s to increase customer traffic, retention and grow sales. Utilising data provided by trade distributors or channel specific software houses can potentially provide fast access to a wide range of good data, the identical dataset will also be available and used by your competitors – potentially leaving price as the only differentiator.

And finally – how important is mobile? Chances are you may be reading this on mobile. Either way, it’s worth picking up your phone, search for and check out your own website and business and see how it performs. And then we recommend checking your own web stats to see visit by type of device – you may be surprised.

Don’t forget – more consumers used mobile than any other device when visiting websites over this years’ Black Friday, and over 35% of all searches originate from a mobile!

Contact Cygnus Business to help understand and develop product differentiation strategies for your business.

Cygnus Business - working with growing companies to improve business effectiveness and grow sales and profitability. www.cygnusbusiness.com. Are we LinkedIn?