So-called Cyber Monday – the online equivalent of Black Friday – saw online sales grow 22 per cent to $1.25 billion, according to research firm comScore, to become the biggest online shopping day in history and the second day on record to surpass the billion-dollar threshold. More than $15 billion has already been spent online during this year’s holiday season – a 15-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year.

That’s impressive, but there is evidence that shows it probably could be better if suppliers and retailers provided better data on their ecommerce sites. Shoppers are wary of websites or mobile shopping apps where data is missing, incomplete or inaccurate. The recent GS1 Consumer survey draws a direct link between data quality and online or mobile app sales, concluding that when consumers can’t get data, or feel they cannot trust the data they do get, they don’t buy!

And further research by Cap Gemini shows that the impact of bad data online can go even further than the loss of individual sales opportunities, but can actually damage brand equity. According to Gap Gemini when consumers receive bad data, it represents, at best, a missed opportunity for brand owners to accurately inform consumers about products, but at its worst, it is a direct assault on the integrity of your brands and damages consumer trust, which may be hard if not impossible to regain.

So ask yourself the question is data ready to sell online? – If you don’t know it might be worth doing a bit of work to find out.

I say most don’t know; but to be honest if they were to guess they’d probably say it’s nowhere near ready. Anecdotal evidence of lack of preparedness for GDS in terms of data is backed up by industry studies. In the UK the Data Crunch Project carried out by GS1 in conjunction with some of the country’s largest supermarkets and consumer goods suppliers revealed data being used in the supply chain is inconsistent in well over 80 per cent of instances.

A related study in Australia found remarkably similar results. In order to understand the impact of bad product data, GS1 Australia discussed the findings of the survey with representatives of large retailers and suppliers, who concluded the most likely cost implications of the data misalignment highlighted in the study fell into three main areas: Manual Workarounds four per cent, Administrative Shrinkage 31 per cent and Lost Consumer Sales 65 per cent.

Data quality is always important, but when it comes to collaboration between trading partners and GDS it’s paramount. The growing demand for data to drive e-commerce initiatives, satisfy consumer demand for nutritional information, traceability and product specifications, and to comply with government and regulatory bodies regarding environmental, packaging and legal issues, is further complicating an already complex situation. The problem is obviously significant and growing in significance every day.

So is your data ready for GDS? How would you even begin to find out? The data needed for GDS can come from multiple systems and is provided in different formats leaving data management teams with the unenviable task of tying it all together.

Organizations need an easy way to measure how well their data conforms to GS1 standards, retailer-specific requirements and many other Data Quality rules. That’s why we built the Clavis Data Quality Monitoring Service. By simply uploading their data (from whatever source) to Clavis, suppliers and retailers get access to a comprehensive dashboard of Data Quality reports and scorecards that gives them a realistic understanding of the quality of their trading partner data for the first time. The Clavis reports will tell them if their data is ready for GDS and if not what they have to do to make it so.

Not a bad place to start if you want to get on the GDS train when it arrives at your station.

The fastest way to get your Suppliers to rally round your product data goals is to make data quality one of their key supplier performance indicators. Just as Retailers monitor their Suppliers’ performance against key performance indicators (KPIs) such as On-time Delivery, Order Fulfilment, Packaging and Price Competitiveness they can also measure, monitor and Scorecard them on data quality.

By adding Data Quality as a KPI for Supplier Performance Management Retailers reflect the importance data and information play in supporting supply chain excellence. To achieve this follow these three easy steps:

The solution analyses data attributes in the Data Pool against a defined set of Data Quality Tests and presents the results in a Data Quality Dashboard for each supplier company. The Dashboard is updated on a weekly basis and provides an overall Data Quality Score for each company as well as drill-down reports detailing data quality problems.

The reports enable data managers investigate errors within their own systems and processes to correct the data before it is published to the Data Pool.

For more information download the “Clavis Data Validation Services on-Demand for GS1 Data Pools” data sheet, or see “Suppliers Monitor Data Quality for Supply Chain Efficiency”.

The group, which was formed by GS1 US and GS1 Canada in conjunction with leading brand owners, technology providers, and retailers, aims to identify ways to provide consumers with authoritative product data, while leveraging existing standards based solutions.
You can download the slides presented at Uconnect Live here.

This year the focus is on value chain visibility. In particular how GS1 Standards provide opportunities for companies to reach consumers over new channels and win their confidence and loyalty while improving efficiency and trading partner relationships, which makes it an opportune time for Clavis Technology to attend.

Why? Because value chain visibility is all about how much you can trust your data. You might say information visibility is the foundation on which to build everything else – you need to know how good, bad or indifferent your data is before you can honestly answer deeper questions about supply chain efficiency and oversight.

The state of your data is a leading indicator that points to other problems in the supply chain. If you have an issue with your data you need to know sooner rather than later, because if left unaddressed it will quickly start to cause problems in the supply chain, in warehouses and on retail shelves.

If you have a problem with data you need to know, and if you are about to have a problem with data you need to know. You need visibility to show where poor quality data is causing inefficiencies and breakdowns in the supply chain.

And that’s what our focus is at Clavis Technology – providing the tools that enable suppliers, retailers, distributors and data pools to see just how good or bad their data is in terms of conformance with GS1 data standards, and much more …

Come and visit us at Booth 113 at UConnect Live 2011 to find out more.

GS1 UK, the not-for-profit supply chain standards and solution organisation, has introduced the certification programme in response to requests from its members, which includes leading manufacturers, retailers and distributors in the consumer goods industry, for assistance in developing robust MDM systems based on global GS1 standards. These requests reflect the growing recognition that successful supply chain collaboration is dependent on high quality master data communicated via standards which are globally recognised, understood and adopted.

“Clavis is proud to be the first master data management solution provider to achieve GS1 UK Certified Solution status,” said Garry Moroney, Clavis Technology CEO, “We are totally committed to supporting the adoption and effective use of GS1 standards across our customers’ MDM processes”.

Certified solution partners like Clavis Technology bring industry and functional expertise to support GS1 UK’s members. “The GS1 UK Certified Solution programme demonstrates how GS1 UK can partner with industry experts like Clavis Technology to bring real benefits to our members,” commented Tim Brown, Solution Development Manager at GS1 UK.

The term “looking for a needle in a haystack” comes to mind; some retailers and eCommerce sites have so many products listed it impossible to find, let alone keep track of what they are all saying about your products. Is the product description correct or even close to it? Are the dimensions right? Are all the appropriate nutritional statements or product warnings clear and accurate?

Suppliers put a lot of effort into getting all this information clear and accurate on their product packaging. But online shoppers aren’t able to physically see and hold the products to read packaging information before they buy. The data as presented by the online retailer is their only guide and if some of the data is missing, incomplete or incorrect it can cause problems. Missing or incomplete data is like the online equivalent of a store out-of-stock, resulting in missed sales opportunities. At the same time if the data is incorrect it can lead to an increase in the number of complaints and unwanted returns.

Suppliers really need to think about protecting the integrity of their brands by ensuring their product information in the public domain is based on high quality data. This is one of the ways organizations are using Clavis Data Validations Services. The software as a services solution will check and validate data against hundreds of data quality rules and standards no matter where it is located.

In a recent example Clavis was used to test data integrity on a well know eCommerce site; every page tested was found to have significant data errors. Up to 40 per cent of data fields were incomplete, there were numerous presentation issues identified, and in terms of weights and dimensions accuracy more than half the listings simply weren’t accurate.

eCommerce is no longer a sideshow where any additional sale you get is considered gravy; it is fast becoming the mainstream Main Street. You need know what the world’s eCommerce sites are saying about your products, because if it’s inaccurate or incomplete it could harm your brand and negatively impact online sales.