HP Products Increases Data Integrity With Product Data Enrichment
Kirsten DeHaai, Director of eCommerce Marketing for HP Products, led a strategic initiative to improve the customer experience on two major fronts: upgrading their web platform and improving the content of their online catalog. She was faced with finding a way to ensure that the information on 20,000 SKUs across a diverse line of products ranging from Janitorial to Safety, Lighting, and Textiles, was complete and accurate.
Challenges
There were three main objectives related to the product data featured on their website:
- Increase Data Integrity: Offer consistent, accurate, and complete basic product information.
- Enrich Product Content: Deliver detailed and useful information to help customers find solutions to their business problems.
- Product Reviews to Improve SEO: Provide consumers with the manufacturer’s descriptions, not the buyer’s abbreviated descriptions.
“It’s surprising how many products are provided to us without complete information,” DeHaai explained. “Things as basic as images are missing. This makes it tough to convert a sale for that product; people aren’t likely to buy an item that’s missing an image or other key attributes.”
After estimating that it would take at least two years to gather complete product data from over 700 suppliers, it was clear that updating all the products manually was overwhelming and unmanageable.
DeHaai evaluated alternatives, which included hiring more people and outsourcing the process of matching data to products. She determined that these options were error-prone, time-consuming, and couldn’t be sustained over time. The immediate challenge for the team at HP Products was to find a way to:
- Automate the process of gathering data across multiple resources.
- Eliminate discrepancies between product attribute labels and reconcile them.
- Ensure the correct data was being collected.
Solutions
DeHaai knew she found the right solution when she saw Wiser. Wiser is a retail data services provider with the capability to automate the way information is gathered and give customers control of the data from beginning to end. Wiser creates a profile of the existing catalog which exposes missing information and then suggests sources from which the data can be harvested.
Wiser can collect information from any type of data source and then compile, organize, and integrate the data into whatever format a business requires.
PRODUCTS USED:
It’s really a remarkable process and Wiser did a great job of showing us how to write the recipes (descriptions of the content desired) so we would collect exactly the information we needed. They scaled the project into manageable milestones, and we were fully using the product after training and guidance.
Kirsten DeHaai
Director of eCommerce Marketing
Results
Within a few months, HP Products started to see a noticeable improvement in data integrity and they are closing the gap on missing information. They’ve been able to update thousands of products within a fraction of the time it would have taken using any other method. The trends for conversion and average order value are positive.
DeHaai cited the following four key points as benefits of Wiser. First was increasing the robustness of the content. Her team can add product attributes and detailed specifications that are not part of the manufacturer data feed.
Then comes the integrity of data, specifically the ability to have consistent ways of describing items and the same information available for all products. There is also the streamlined workflow: Time is valuable and Wiser made it possible to manage 20,000 products with two people.
The final key point is improved SEO. HP Products can add content that matches what consumers are searching for to drive more qualified traffic. People search on the manufacturer’s description, not the buyer’s abbreviated version.
Gain a Partner in Wiser
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Knock that next merchandising campaign out of the park. Win market share from your competition with price optimization. Understand shopper insights to create better messaging. No matter your goals, Wiser is here to help.
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