22 Most Common Data Entry Mistakes Made by Online Stores in 2023

In what ways might e-commerce websites suffer from data entry errors?

One of the most important parts of managing an online store effectively is having accurate data. The path that goods take to achieve excellence and precision is crucial. You should avoid making certain serious data entry errors when entering product information into your online store since it is a tool for generating sales.

An online store should prioritise high-quality and correct data and do their best to eliminate false information from their system.

Online merchants now pour more resources into building their stores, hiring designers, migrating customer data, etc. They are ignoring the data mistakes for the time being in an effort to conserve money, but they will start to give it some thought when they start receiving more wrong orders and no sales.

  • Can you tell me where the real errors occurred?
  • Does website speed have a role?
  • Could it be through the number of people who visit the website?
  • However, they still require assistance in confirming that there are also substantial errors that could enhance the product data information of their establishments.

Here are some typical data entering mistakes that online retailers should be aware of:

Product Details That Are Wrong

When it comes to online retailers, one of the most serious data input mistakes is publishing the title, description, and specifications incorrectly.

Mistakes in Pricing

You risk losing money or losing customers if you enter the wrong pricing, discounts, or percentages or if you don’t update the prices when sales are running. Verifying and updating the pricing information on a regular basis is crucial.

False Classification

Online stores rely on categories as a navigational backbone and essential component. There could be more than one category for each product in the store. Customers may have trouble finding what they’re looking for if products are placed in the wrong category. Only when managers of competent e-commerce staff have a good grasp of the category structure will this kind of data entry mistake be permanently diminished.

Mistakes with Product Variants 

Listing Every e-commerce platform has its own unique product variety. It is a challenging data entry process to list variants in online stores elegantly and error-free, depending on the product categories or distinct differentiations. They need to be more careful with product selections and variations, regardless of how many qualified and competent individuals they have. Failure to do so will have an impact on the data quality as a whole.

Product Attribute Inconsistency

The attributes of a thing define its qualities and traits. To aid customers in making faster judgements, product features like size, colour, weight, and material are crucial.

1. Incorrect product attribute data entry often results in the following.
2. Usage of contradictory data.
3. Utilise characteristics with erroneous data.
4. Disparity in the data
5. Kindly provide a list of further product features.

Misaligned SEO Data

It is essential to constantly research keywords and adjust product details in order to improve search engine rankings. Titles, descriptions, specs, meta tags, and the rest of the product page should be optimised for the product type and keywords. Data can be retrieved from a wide variety of sources using automation technologies. Data entry procedures, however, do nothing more than boost the reliability of your data and attract customers to your online store.

Shipping Details That Are Wrong

Incorrect shipment information entry (such as weight, size, or shipping class) can result in higher shipping costs, longer processing times, and unhappy customers. In order to ensure a strong and ongoing relationship with customers, it is vital to check shipping details and quality before sending items.

Errors in Grammar and Spelling

A web-based company can suffer a hit if customers find spelling and grammar errors. The store’s professionalism and the trust of its customers will be severely damaged if any information, including product titles and descriptions, is inaccurate. Websites can see a drop in visitors if search engines punish them.

Missing or Wrong Product Measurements

Product dimensions that are either missing or incorrect might throw off inventory management and leave customers bewildered and unhappy.

Names of Products That Need Improvement

Neglecting to include relevant keywords in product titles might cause a drop in search engine rankings and ultimately, lost sales. Customers will also stop buying it because they can’t figure out what it’s good for.

Product Attributes That Are Delayed or Not Complete

Products without all necessary information on dimensions, colour, material, and specs are known as “missing” or “incomplete” characteristics. Customers will have a hard time understanding the goods, lose faith in it, and ultimately decide not to buy it.

Missing chances for upselling and cross-selling

Lost revenue occurs when there aren’t enough chances to cross-sell and upsell; the former involves proposing complementary products to buyers, while the latter encourages them to research better versions of the things they already like.

Lack of Adequate Product Details

Customers lose faith in the product information due to inadequate product specifications, which in turn leads to missed sales chances.

Mistakes in Migrating Data

Starting from 2023 forward, migration-related errors will account for the majority of data errors. Transferring products, whether in small quantities or in bulk, from one e-commerce platform to another is a common goal these days, and everyone is looking for ways to automate the process and save time and effort. Please run some tests, check them, and make sure all of your product data is correctly transferred to your e-commerce site before you commit to working with them. Then, it would be ideal to have a high number of migrated e-commerce products.

Information Mistakes in Web Scraping

The data can be extracted using any one of the numerous web scraping software programs that are currently available. Because it could display mistakes while running, you shouldn’t put your faith in this program either.

For instance:

1. Incorrect product data duplication
2. Excel cells correctly display the listed data.
3. Mistaken Orders
4. Errors related to transposition
5. Boring routines

It is not easy to discover hidden mistakes in such a massive amount of data, thus exercise caution while employing web scraping technologies. To get the job done right, you need to hire a web scraping service that specialises in e-commerce.

Disregarding Data’s Importance

Google suggests original, well-written product descriptions, which are also crucial for search engine optimisation. Nevertheless, it is difficult and expensive to produce completely unique content while leaving no room for plagiarism. Researching the product specifications of competitors and coming up with a new, more effective technique to list your products is the best course of action. So, it’s crucial to teach staff well so they can appreciate data’s worth and input it in accordance with the online store’s strategy. Accurate entries can have a detrimental impact on company growth, thus it’s important for them to grasp this.

For instance, if you sell furniture or lights, it’s likely that the majority of online stores utilise the same manufacturer data. Include as many installation videos, specs, tables, diagrams, and PDFs as feasible based on your investigation of your competitor’s retail store. Include installation instructions as well. Incorporate them into the product description in an appealing way. An essential goal to strive for when working with outsourcing partners is to incorporate five or six distinct qualities. Your review of these items would be greatly appreciated. Blogs can be a great way to provide reviews or other useful content on your website.

Inadequate Product Images

Online shoppers may only get a sense of what they’re buying from the product photos provided. Unlike with brick-and-mortar establishments, one cannot handle the item to examine it up close. To better comprehend if the product is suitable for their needs, images should be used as references.

Therefore, it’s wise to stay away from typical data entering mistakes.

1. Customers will have a better and more detailed picture of the product if the photograph is captured from several perspectives.
2. Include all available colours in the photographs or provide the consumer the ability to change the colour of the current images if the product is offered in more than one colour.
3. Keep the background of your primary product photograph white as much as possible. If your product’s colour matches the room’s, you should hire a professional graphic or web designer to make the background whiter so the main image stands out.
Without hesitation, whip up some all-color product images for your buyers if the manufacturer doesn’t supply any.
4. In our upcoming blog post, we’ll go into more detail on the steps necessary to meticulously produce a product image with high-quality samples.

Poor Product Descriptions

The most typical e-commerce data entry mistake occurs when a customer sells a product without providing a sufficient description. This happens when the customer assumes that the parent company has already written a detailed description of the product and decides to copy and paste it from their website. Sure thing! Where is the risk in that? Sit tight and keep reading.

When you plagiarise by using the parent website’s product descriptions word for word, you are committing non-unique content theft, which search engines despise.

Managing inventories poorly

When running an online store, inventory management is crucial. The technologies necessary for inventory management on e-commerce platforms are readily available nowadays. For online stores, the majority of vendors utilise inventory management software to keep track of products. To prevent needless mistakes in your online stores, it is recommended that you, as a data entry team leader, ensure that the stock level is not overlooked.

Disconnect or inefficient means of communication

Your company is at grave danger if there are communication breakdowns or inefficiencies. Both the project manager and the team leader need to have strong networks, and the project manager needs to be available to clients and hold themselves accountable. Everyone on the team needs to know what the Layout navigation, attributes, options, tags, collection, etc. would entail, therefore leaders should go into detail. Ensure that the designated team is properly trained to assist consumers.

Employee burnout

managers should not put undue pressure on their teams to meet impossible goals; after all, there’s a limit to how much ecommerce data entry work any one individual can accomplish in a day. When the data entry staff is overworked, they get tired and make more mistakes. If there’s additional work to do, the responsibilities should be distributed evenly among the individuals allocated to it.

The majority of internet stores are just too inquisitive to care about the number of things that can be finished in an hour or a day. Is it feasible to finish 5,000 or 10,000 products in a month?

Your questions are well-reasoned and warrant careful consideration. I am certain. It might cause a number of data input mistakes, though, and will have an effect on the reliability of your online store’s product information. Inefficiency results from rushing, and the time and effort put into creating and maintaining an online store might be for nothing.

As a result, an e-commerce shop outsourcing team is a good option for those looking to cut costs. You can save enough money if we do things right. Raising the profile of your online store is a great way to save money and free up office space, both of which can be applied to other areas of your business.

Unpredictable Expenses

As the number of defects increases, so will the associated expenses. It takes a lot of time and effort to track combined data and check running modules. Purchasing extraction software and tools can be quite costly. To keep costs in check, the right strategies need to be in place.

Core competences must be set aside in the event that an in-house team discovers incorrect entries. Additionally, the expenses related to infrastructure and labour need to be covered. Prioritising correct data entry will not be possible till then. On the other hand, outsourcing makes short work of this issue. The leading data outsourcing businesses have all the tools they need to ensure high-quality data and complete entries quickly.