The Most Common Content Challenges of E-commerce

Shopping online has its advantages. You can browse 24/7. You can quickly compare prices. You can avoid crowds during a pandemic. But all of these conveniences come with a big sacrifice – direct experience with the product before purchasing it.

To make up for this lack of product interaction, brands must use content to convey its value. Detailed photographs, short-form videos, descriptions, and specifications shape the shopper’s perception of the product. And when all of this content is combined, the product becomes information.

Managing all of this content for an entire product inventory is no small task. Let’s take a closer look at some of the common e-commerce content challenges that businesses face.

1. Managing product information at scale

Regardless of your business size, effectively managed product information is critical for retail success. As your business grows, so does your product data...and a number of factors increase in complexity.

No longer confined to physical shelves, you have unlimited space to sell products online. As you compete for more of your customer’s wallet, you may grow your product line. More products mean more information to manage.

The more sophisticated your products are, the more information you’ll need to provide. A shopper needs less information about a t-shirt than electronic products or B2B manufacturing parts. The variety of product attributes can also add to the complexity of your data.

The number of destinations is another factor in scaling your e-commerce business. In addition to your own website, you may sell your products on marketplaces that have different standards for product information. You may also use social media platforms to advertise and sell your products.

2. Sharing consistent product information across teams

Best-selling products usually owe their success to the combined efforts of many different people. Marketing, product development, photography, copywriting, SEO and other technical and creative skills often span teams throughout an organization. Some of these contributors could be remote, or external partners.

Making sure that all of these stakeholders are on the same page and have access to accurate, up-to-date product information in real time is one of the major e-commerce challenges that many retailers face.

3. Product lifecycle inefficiencies

It’s challenging to find a balance between quick production and quality. Developing new products and then creating accurate, attention-grabbing listings takes time, but if you take too long your product has fewer days, weeks, or even months available for purchase. Lost time can add up to a lot of missed revenue. But rushing the process increases the risk of dismal customer satisfaction (and fewer future sales or loyal customers).

4. Reducing cluttered digital assets

It takes a variety of digital assets to attract, convert, and delight customers. Lifestyle photographs, brochures, how-to videos, and diagrams all play a role in communicating the value of your products. Producing a variety of these digital assets can help you quickly adapt to changing consumer trends. While having all of that content at your disposal is essential (and effective) for promoting products, a sea of digital assets scattered across multiple platforms can make it challenging to keep everything organized and quickly accessible for stakeholders to use. To get the most out of your digital assets, it’s imperative to keep everything easily accessible and organized in a logical manner.

5. Importing and exporting data

With a multitude of teams and tools required to create and market products, it’s important to protect the integrity of product information as it is shared across systems. Importing and exporting data can be time-consuming and leave you vulnerable to data-entry errors. Aim to have one source where data is editable, and then sync that data across other systems.

6. Choosing the right e-commerce tech stack

Using the right technology solutions can help retailers address the e-commerce content issues described above — issues that are typically faced on a daily basis. Unfortunately, sifting through the sheer number of tech options available can be an intimidating task in its own right. And you’ve got a business to run! You don’t have unlimited time to invest in carefully exploring all of your options, so it’s important to find partners you can learn from and trust. Finding the right solution to keep your content organized, accessible, and sharable can be the key to your e-commerce business surviving...and thriving.

Looking for the all-inclusive content solution that can take your brand to the next level? Acquia DAM (Widen) offers a combined digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM) solution so you can take the guessing game out of content management. Request, watch, or click through a demo today!

Note: This article was originally published on Widen.com.