Despite 98% of UK merchants and manufacturers saying they are confident in their product data, 26 hours per week are spent fixing it.
New data from MRA Research, in partnership with Pimberly, the leading Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) provider for the construction sector, reveals that 34% of UK merchants and manufacturers have lost sales as a direct result of poor product data.
The research surveyed 80 senior decision makers, from 40 merchants and 40 manufacturers, with direct responsibility for the purchasing of IT and technology within their individual organisations.
Product data is all the information that describes a product. The identifiers that are used to manage it across systems, including SKUs, product specifications, digital assets, variants, certifications and specification sheets that go with them.
92% of respondents stated that they face at least one product data challenge, with merchants and manufacturers on average spending 26 hours a week managing and fixing product data issues, close to £50,000 a year in staff time.
Despite that effort, the damage is still being done. 45% have published inconsistent product information across sales channels, 43% have made errors in orders, fulfilment or returns and 41% say it has caused poor customer experience.
What makes this a hard problem to solve is that few businesses see a problem. 98% are confident in the quality of their product data and 96% in its accuracy, yet only 30% manage it centrally and 21% aren't confident it is even complete. In a market increasingly shaped by digital-first buyer behaviour, businesses cannot afford to fall behind.
Failure to provide a ‘central, owned source of accurate, structured product data' will result in a failure to sell in a market led by digital-first buyers. They don't want information at their fingertips, they expect it. The report identifies that those whose product information is optimised to be found across search engines, AI answers and marketplaces will be the winners.
Manufacturers and merchants alike, identify this need and are ready to do something about it. 99% say the buyer journey is already changing, and looking ahead five years, 80% place eCommerce in their top five investment priorities, with product information management close behind on 73%.
The report highlights that these are not two separate priorities but intrinsically linked. You can't sell online effectively without getting the product data right, and 88% agree improved product data quality is a key driver of digital and online revenue.
Martin Balaam, CEO and Founder at Pimberly, said: "Every board I speak to has digital commerce on the agenda; almost none of them talk about the product data it runs on. You can't win at one, without the other.
"Whether you're a merchant or a manufacturer, clean data alone isn't enough – quite frankly that's table stakes. The same data as everybody else wins you nothing. To really get in the race, you need comprehensive data enrichment. We're already seeing the shift in preference to AI as the primary search tool for digital first buyers, and in this new ecosystem the penalty for poor data will be lost sales."
Callum Budd, Research Director at MRA Research, said: "This research is a timely benchmark for a sector facing rapidly changing customer expectations and growing pressure to improve digital capabilities. The finding that 34% of businesses admit to having lost sales directly because of poor product data shows this is no longer simply an operational issue, but a clear commercial risk. The report gives merchants and manufacturers valuable evidence to help make product data a board-level priority."
