22 Common Data Entry Errors in ecommerce business [2023]

How do data entry errors affect the overall ecommerce website?

Accurate data is one of the most crucial aspects in successfully running any ecommerce store. The way products enter a level of precision and perfection matters a lot. As your online store serves as a sales-generating tool, there are some severe data entry mistakes you should avoid regarding the product.

An e-commerce business should give more importance to data accuracy and quality and minimize inaccurate data from the entire shop.

Today, ecommerce retailers spend more money on online store development, designing, data migration, etc. To save money, they do not care about the data errors, and in the future, when getting more inaccurate orders and no sales, they will restart to think.

• Where are the actual mistakes happened?
• Is it in website speed?
• Is it in website traffic?
• But still, they need help to verify that there are also significant mistakes that could improve the product data information of their stores.

Let us check what are the common data entry errors that ecommerce stores should be aware of

Incorrect Product Information

One of the most critical data entry errors in ecommerce stores is a wrong publication of the title, description, and specification used in online shops.

Pricing Errors

Entering incorrect prices, discounts, and percentages or failing to update prices during sale periods can result in financial losses or customer dissatisfaction. It is essential to double-check and regularly update the pricing information.

Incorrect Categorization

Categories are the fundamental backbone and easy navigation of the e-commerce store. Every product may have a list of more than one category in the store. Placing products in the incorrect category can make it difficult for customers to find what they want. The managing qualified e-commerce employees should have an efficient idea about the category structure; only then can this type of data entry error be reduced forever.

Incorrect Product Variants Errors

Listing Product variation is different in every ecommerce platform. According to the product types or various differentiations, it is a tricky data entry process to list variations beautifully and without error in online stores. No matter how many skilled and trained people may be, they should handle product options and variations more carefully. Otherwise, it will affect the overall data quality.

Inconsistent Product Attribute

Product attributes specify the characteristics and features of a product. Product attributes such as product size, color, weight, and material are integral to helping consumers make decisions more quickly.

Following are common data entry errors in the product attributes.

• Usage of inconsistent data.
• Use inaccurate data in attributes.
• Lack of data uniformity
• List other product attributes carefully.

Unoptimized SEO Information

Always do homework on keywords and tweak the info about your product to climb up in search rankings. The product page includes product titles, descriptions, specifications, meta tags, etc., and needs to be optimized according to the product type and keywords. Automation tools can extract information from various sources. But the data entry processes only improve data accuracy and drive traffic to your ecommerce website.

Incorrect Shipping Information

Entering incorrect shipping details like weight, dimensions, or shipping class can lead to increased shipping costs, additional processing time, and potential customer dissatisfaction. It is essential to quality check and verify shipping details before dispatching goods to guarantee a good and continuous customer relationship.

Spelling and Grammar Mistakes

Spelling and grammatical mistakes can affect an online business. Errors in product titles, descriptions, and all other information will make the store look unprofessional and lose customer's trust. Search engines may penalize websites and reduce traffic.

Insufficient or Inaccurate Product Dimensions

Products with insufficient or inaccurate product dimensions can interrupt inventory management and confuse the customers to make the purchase, leading to dissatisfaction.

Poorly Optimized Product Titles

Product titles without appropriate keywords will lower the search results, which leads to missing sales. Also, customers will be unable to identify its value and drop purchasing.

Missing or Incomplete Product Attributes

Missing or incomplete product attributes mean a product with unclear important information about size, color, material, and specifications. It will make it difficult for customers to understand the product, lack confidence, and avoid purchase.

Lack of Cross-Selling and Upselling Opportunities

Lack of Cross-Selling and Upselling Opportunities leads to missed sales, as cross-selling includes suggesting matching products to customers and upselling inspires customers to study more improved versions of their selected items.

Insufficient Product Specifications

Insufficient product specifications cause customers to have a sense of doubt regarding the product information, ending in missed sales opportunities.

Data Errors in Migration

From 2023 onwards, the most common error found in data is due to Migration. Today, everyone wants to save money and time and find automation and migration tools to migrate small or large-volume products from one ecommerce platform to another. Before committing with them, please do a few samples, verify, and ensure all product data is migrated accurately to your ecommerce website. Then, having a large volume of ecommerce product migration will be better.

Data Errors in Web Scrapping

Many web scrapping software tools are available in the market to extract the data. Refrain from trusting this software as it may also show errors during the process.

For examples

• Duplicate product data errors
• Listing data is correct in Excel cells.
• Incorrect Sequences
• Transposition errors
• Repetitive tasks

Be careful while using web scrapping tools, as finding any hidden errors from the large volume of data is not easy. Hiring a skilled and professional e-commerce web scrapping service provider is the best solution.

Overlooking the importance of Data:

Google always recommends uniquely written product descriptions, which is also imperative for getting SEO favors. However, creating original content with the slightest traces of plagiarism is tricky and costly. So, the best thing to do is to research competitor's product details and finalize a different but more effective strategy to list your products. Therefore, employees must be provided with adequate training to understand the value of data and instructions regarding how the data must be entered according to the online store strategy. They must understand the negative effects imposed by inaccurate entries and how they can hamper business growth.

For Example, If you are a lighting retailer or furniture retailer, most online retailers may use the same manufacturer data. Based on the research done on your competitor's retail store, include as much installation pdfs, spec pdfs, installing videos, tables, and diagrams as possible. Arrange them attractively in the product description. One important thing to try is to include 5-6 unique features with the help of outsourcing partners. If you write something about these products, it would be great. If you are including blogs as reviews or any other relevant information in the website.

Insufficient Product Images:

A consumer can comprehend the nature of the product they're purchasing online only through images displayed on the web. One cannot pick the object and test it like in physical stores. Images should serve as references to help users understand whether the product fits their needs.

Hence it is advisable to avoid common data entry errors.

• The product image should be shot from multiple angles to ensure a better and more detailed view for the customer.
• For a product in more than one color, one must include images of all possible colors available or have an option for the customer to switch the color of current images.
• Try to use at least your main product image background as white. If your product color is the same as that of the room, seek the assistance of an expert graphic or web designer to create a clear and whiter background for the main product image.
• If the manufacturer does not provide all color images of a product, but if you can take photos, unhesitatingly create images for your customers.

We will explain further in our next blog about how much care we should take if we want to prepare a product image with detailed image samples.

Insufficient Product Descriptions:

It is the most common thing seen in ecommerce data entry errors that the customer sells a particular product, and since the parent company has already invested in writing a description and details about the product, the immediate thought popping up in mind is - why not copy the same from their website. Well! What's the harm in that? Wait and read ahead.

Search engines value only new and unique content; copying your product descriptions from the parent website makes you a victim of non-unique plagiarized content. You can get inspired from the content provided on the parent website, but feel free to make some amendments to it, like features, specifications, tables, options information in the description, SKU, warranty, etc., so it becomes unique to your website.

Poor inventory management

Inventory management is one of the most essential parts of an ecommerce business. Today, we have enough inventory management tools for ecommerce platforms. Most use these inventory management tools to update stock levels on ecommerce websites. However, if you have a data entry team, it is good to check the overlooking of the stock level to avoid unnecessary errors in your e-commerce stores.

Lack of communication or ineffective communication channels

Communication gaps or inefficiencies can pose a severe threat to your business. The Project Manager and Team Leader must be well-connected, and the PM should stay accountable and accessible to the client. Team leaders should comprehensively describe what employees would list to Layout navigation, attributes, options, tags, collection, etc. Train assigned team to provide proper assistance to the customers.

Overloading the workforce:

The manager must ensure no pressure on the team to achieve unrealistic targets; a person can only do a limited amount of ecommerce data entry work in a given time. In case of overburdening the staff responsible for data entry, they become exhausted and have more chances of having errors in the data entry area. In case of more work, it should be delegated uniformly among the people assigned to work on it.

Most online retailers are too curious to know how many products can be completed within 1 hour or 1 day. Can you complete 5000 or 10000 products within one month?

It is good to ask these questions; all your questions are very relevant. No doubts. However, it will affect the quality and accuracy of your online store's product data, which may lead to a list of data entry errors. Rushing leads to inefficiency, and all the investments made in building and running an online store may be futile.

Therefore, if you want to save money, you can hire an outsourcing team for ecommerce store. We know to do things correctly, and you can save enough money. Don't waste your office space and enjoy having more time to focus on other aspects of your business while elevating your online store's dignity.

Expenses beyond Control:

More flaws are bound to incur more costs. Tracking consolidated data and checking running modules is a process that is extremely long and time-consuming. It is expensive to spend money on extracting software and tools. Proper plans should be in place to manage the expenses effectively.

In case an in-house team encounters inaccurate entries, the core competencies must be kept aside. The infrastructure and labor costs should be borne as well. Only then can there be a focus on the accuracy of data entries. Outsourcing, however, can tackle this problem with ease. Data outsourcing companies in the lead are armed with all data quality measures to deliver seamless entries in a limited time frame.

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