Sathish Poonath, Head of Client Services in APAC, took to the Tech Talk stage at Online Retailer in Sydney with Product Data: Lifeblood of eCommerce. 

Key Findings:

Late last year, we did an analysis across all of our retailer’s source data feeds that we worked with and the results we found were incredible:

Product Data Analysis Results:

The product titles are the single most important element of your product data, as this is what will primarily increase visibility and relevancy.

Retailers often struggle with what to include in them as well which order to list them in. There are many options to consider, and the different channels makes this even more confusing. 

Here’s a little help:

Google Shopping:

PRODUCT TITLE:  

IMAGE QUALITY:

COLLOQUIALISMS:

It’s amazing the difference a word makes.  Take the humble pair of thongs:

So even if you are just selling across English Speaking countries, there is still a need to customise and optimise your titles for each market.

EVENT TARGETS:

Events and seasonal terms are another great example of what little things can make a big difference.

Events and Seasonal terms to consider:

DON’T IGNORE THE IN-STORE EXPERIENCE:

If you have physical stores then ensure you use Local Inventory Ads (LIA's) and don’t forget to optimise your content for offline.  It’s not just about online product visibility, it’s about product visibility everywhere.

eBay:

Like Google, title optimisation is the most important element for success on eBay; the longer the title or keywords, the higher chance of sale.

Item specifics are second most important after this – especially the item specifics that have drop-down filters in search such as:

We’re already seeing impressive results for retailers that already have this enabled, ensure you can meet the requirements and get it enabled.

PROMOTED LISTINGS:

Promoted Listings are eBay's equivalent of Google Shopping; increase the visibility of your listings on eBay. The great news is that you don’t pay per click, but only pay when an item sells from a Promoted Listing click through.

BENEFIT OF PROMOTED LISTINGS:

Amazon:

In the US, 60% of product searches start on Amazon, and 48% of ALL purchases occur on Amazon.  So, while it’s had a slow start here it only keeps growing and growing!

HOW IS AMAZON DIFFERENT:

BUY BOX:

Amazon’s Buy Box refers to the box on the right side of the Amazon product detail page, where customers can add items for purchase to their cart.

AMAZON SPONSORED PRODUCTS:

Amazon have recently launched ‘Sponsored Products’ to help sellers feature on the first page of search results.

Assume Nothing!

The key thing to note is to test everything and never assume.  

Run A/B tests on a small percentage of products and draw on your high school science class memories:  

This can be overwhelming at best and plainly avoided at worst but great product data much more likely to convert into a sale.

If you’re struggling, we’re here to help.