Ok, so you run an e-commerce business! great!
Experts predict that e-commerce retail sales in the US will hit over $560.7 billion in 2019, up from $446.8 billion just two years prior. So yes! E-commerce (or dropshipping, as many prefer to call it), is still a lucrative business.
BUT!
There’s a catch…and the catch is you need to position your products/services in a way that keeps customers hooked onto your offerings, over and again. While most e-commerce businesses see spending top dollars on advertising and marketing as a viable solution to this problem, unfortunately, that is where they get it wrong!
As stats reveal, when it comes to e-commerce business, the number one underlying reason for failed customer loyalty owes itself to poor Data Quality!
Yep! you read it right! Poor Data Quality hurts e-com businesses the MOST!
In an e-commerce business, poor Data Quality can manifest itself in multiple ways but the top 3 ways that impact the bottom line the most are:-
Let’s now try to dissect them one by one.
Bad Product Data:
Imagine that a top retail brand has got the specification of a laptop being displayed on their e-store inconsistent with the actual product. Now imagine that a customer actually goes ahead and makes a purchase only to discover that the laptop delivered to her is not exactly what she had ordered. From the retailer’s perspective, even if this error was unintentional, the customer will still feel duped here. What kind of brand impact will the retailer have on the customer’s mind? Just one example of Product Data gone wrong…and that’s exactly why Product data needs to not only be in its correct, current, complete, and detailed form but also consistent for the customer across all sales channels right up to the delivery.
Bad Customer Data:
Now imagine the same laptop, even if consistent with its online specification, is sold at a price higher than advertised, simply because the system is unable to decide if a buyer is eligible for a discount or not. This could be due to a variety of reasons such as missing or incorrect buyer profile information e.g. incorrect gender, age, country of purchase, or a sheer inability of the system to classify a customer consistently across various business functions.
Let’s cite an example. Multiple companies have different definitions of the word “senior”. While certain companies like McDonald’s and Arby’s consider age 55 as a senior, a few other stick to the Social Security Office’s definition which is 62. Such anomalies and inconsistencies with Customer data often lead to surprises for the buyer, especially if not communicated clearly in advertisements, leaving them in dilemma over a company’s business practices.
Bad Shipping Data:
Research conducted by Loqate, which includes 300 international retailers and over 2,000 global customers, reveals certain previously unknown facts about how bad shipping data can impact the dropshipping business.
Let’s look at some bona-fide stats from this research:-
- 57% of consumers say they won’t use a retailer again if their delivery did not arrive on time.
- 16% will stop shopping with a retailer if they receive an incorrect delivery.
- 40% of consumers raise concerns about a bad experience with a retailer on social media.
- 56% of shoppers are influenced by negative online comments about a retailer.
In a nutshell, one failed delivery is much more than a failed delivery. It has a far-reaching impact on the bottom line of a retailer’s business than one can imagine, which includes tarnished brand reputation and decreased customer loyalty.
The question that remains to be addressed now is what are you doing about Bad Data in your e-com business?
And the answer in our opinion is rather straightforward. You need to have an end-to-end Data governance framework implemented across your organization. Call us out now to know more about how Data Quality experts at DvSum can not just help you keep your drop-shipping business afloat amidst fierce competition, but take it to places with our unique, patented Data Quality management solution.
Happy Dropshipping!
