The Unintended Consequences Of Bad Product Data
Bad product data in retail is epidemic - particularly in a marketplace.
Manufacturers have just enough product data to create assortment plans for retailers to choose from and place their buys. Perhaps material, perhaps country of origin.
Even if those same manufacturers have direct to consumer businesses, do their consumer teams share this product data with their retailers? No. Let the retailer figure it out, we paid for this data. They bought our product; it's their problem now.
Retailers get left with the dregs. They get spreadsheets, PDFs, and directories of images - riddled with holes, discrepancies, and (worse) inaccuracies. Gaps and discrepancies you can at least identify!
What are your product data stories? And don't get me started on marketplaces. Here, product data is weaponized to defeat your competition. Hijacked SKUs, co-mingling, fake reviews, DMCA takedowns, polluted catalogs, bundles upon bundles, etc.
What's worse is there is no willingness to think about the entire supply chain from the efficiency of the consumer point of view. Product Information Management (PIM)?
I think there are about a dozen retailers a year in every country that truly adopt a PIM. It's like an industry embraced the fax machine and never let go of it. The struggle is real.
I ran a PIM/dropship company for about 3 years. It is unbelievable some of the crazy product / supplier onboarding processes I saw that the retailer would not solve. The first answer is to push the problem back on the vendor. Once you realize how bad the vendor data is, you move to #2. The second answer is to push the problem back on your own employees. After your internal employees complain enough.... The third answer is to push the problem to an outsourced SKU creation agency. The fourth answer is to bring that back in-house because the quality of the third answer is too low. ONLY THEN do you think about building software and systems to make the process easier.
Jesse Wragg weighed in with the marketplace perspective, saying “they ALL think that their way is the "best way" and refuse to acknowledge that every retailer is dealing with so many different sales channels, each with totally different rules and wonder why they can't convince retailers to start selling on their ‘exciting new marketplace’”
Andy Row added his thoughts from his 20 years on the distribution side of things:
…distribution struggles every bit as much as retail. I have worked in retail, manufacturing, and distribution, so I have experienced the issue from all 3 sides. As with most problems, we have multiple interwoven challenges. First, it generally falls to Sales & Marketing to communicate this data, however, it is Product Management that is the ultimate key holder. Yet PM typically doesn't get to interact with the customer. The right people need to be involved. Next, the level of sophistication varies greatly. Some want these data points and not those. Some want the data in this format and not that format. Some don't know, or understand, what they want, so they ask for everything they can possibly think of. Next, many understand the need for the data, but don't have the technical wherewithal to process, store, and access. Next, the required data is not consistent. Great example are Prop65 warnings needed exclusively in California. Then you can talk about how some want the data... pounds or kg, inches or cm. Finally, all of the "experts" that have their solution... your 3rd parties... that muddy the water.
I agree 100% with this assessment. Sales and marketing need to communicate but they are never given the tools.
If you’re interested in more granular details, like different types of SKUs in different countries/industries, the comments section of this original post is loaded with interested tidbits from folks around the world and across the sector. Great stuff.
