Photo: Javier Quesada on Unsplash
Adopting new technologies is essential for businesses to survive in vastly growing (e-commerce) markets. According to a study by Zetes, retailers are losing about 35 percent of sales revenue due to the unavailability of products. One of the reasons for stock-outs is incorrect or missing product data. There is an easy fix for that: start using an automated solution for product data management Here are 4 manual product data management tasks that can be automated:
1. Adding new products to retailer’s assortment
The opportunity to grow your assortment at your retail partner is of course good news and vital for your business success. However, this also means performing the time-consuming task of forwarding all required product data to the retailer. Product-related information such as recipes, videos, and product general data are usually stored in different databases. It is easy to make mistakes when collecting all this information manually using the copy-paste method.
Using a centralized database to store all this information can speed up the process and eliminate mistakes. Product data management solutions are built exactly for that.
2. Updating product data and single truth
When the new products have been added to the assortment, you still have to ensure that the product data is up to date, correct, and accurate at all times. Keeping the information consistent can be a struggle when is data is kept in multiple databases. Colleagues may update product data in one, but forget to update in another database, leading to inconsistencies and no knowledge about the actual status or “single truth”.
Central product data management solutions allow each department to be responsible and edit only data relevant to them – but in the same place. For example, the production department would update the ingredients and marketing department would edit descriptions and add photos and media. When the time comes to make a campaign offer to retailer, all data would be up to date and correct and in one single place.
3. Validating data according to the retailer requirements
Product data requirements can vary vastly between retailers. One is using 4 different categories for cheese, while the other uses 6. One is requiring you to fill only 15 different fields about your wine, the other specifies more than a 100 fields to be filled, including “child-labor used: yes/no”. On top of that, most of those fields have specific format and/or parameters you have to use. Trying to comply with all of that manually takes a lot of time.
Most product data management solutions, such as Telema PDS, build retailers’ requirements into the systems and update them regularly. This means that the system can automatically highlight potential problems and discrepancies. After fixing all problems, the user can be sure that the data exported will meet each retailers’ specific requirements.
4. Sending correct product data to retailers on time
Smooth information flow between manufacturers, suppliers and retailers is crucial. Centralized product data management solutions will speed up the process of adding new products to the assortment and updates to product data. This means that data reaches resellers faster and hence the sales of products can start faster. This is valuable to suppliers, retailers and also to the end customer.
The four tasks described above are just some of what Product Data Management solutions can automate. They speed up processes, improve data quality and minimize errors, saving time and money for both big and small companies.
Are you wondering whether using Product Data Management solution is right for you? Try out our Telema PDS savings calculator or book a demo to find out.