Clavis Study Unearths Serious Flaws in Brand Information on Leading Ecommerce Sites

GS1 Connect, Las Vegas, NV and Dublin. Ireland June 5th, 2012:  An analysis of leading eCommerce websites has found significant problems with the integrity of product information available on all the sites. The Clavis Technology eCommerce Information Insight Survey, which looked at 200 leading brands across 10 of the largest consumer goods eCommerce sites, found that nearly two-thirds of the product pages evaluated suffered from issues with completeness, accuracy or presentation of product information.
 
Our multi-dimensional analysis produced an Information Quality Index Score of just 36 percent for the websites. This means that 64 percent of the 200 products surveyed across the 10 sites had one or more problems with missing, inaccurate or badly presented information. The results show for the first time the extent to which manufacturers could be missing out on sales or jeopardizing brand integrity because of poor quality information on their trading partners’ sites.
 
“Poor quality information on eCommerce sites is a significant problem for manufacturers,” said Garry Moroney, CEO Clavis Technology. “Missing data represents the online equivalent of a product out-of-stock or the loss of a sales opportunity, but inaccurate or badly presented information can have even graver consequences for brand integrity.”

“It’s disappointing to see such high levels of poor quality information in the eCommerce domain. Information integrity is paramount online, and critical to winning the trust of consumers in the digital world,” said Malcolm Bowden, President Global Solutions, GS1. “That’s why we’re working with the industry to enable brand owners to more easily share their digital product information.”
 
The survey was carried out using Clavis’ cloud-based Data Quality Monitoring solution, which automatically monitors product information on leading eCommerce websites. Clavis generates Information Quality Scores for each product, on each site. The Scores are based on standardized measures for Accuracy, Completeness and Presentation of product information.
 
A breakdown of the results shows that 51 percent of the products analyzed were missing some expected piece of information – for example food products missing nutrition panels or ingredients information. There were also presentation issues, such as misspelled brand names or missing graphics, in 38 per cent of cases. Perhaps more worryingly nearly one in ten product pages – nine percent – had information that was inaccurate or suspect, such as suspect claims or weights and dimensions.
 
For a full copy of the for the Clavis Technology eCommerce Information Insight Survey report please go to www.clavistechnology.com/insight
 

Contact Information

Tom Golden

VP Marketing

Clavis Technology

(353) 01 881 8580

tom.golden@clavistechnology.com