Consumers are more demanding than ever of accurate, complete, and meaningful product information and a failure to meet this demand can be significantly detrimental to the bottom lines of brands and retailers. This is one of the key learnings from our 2024 survey on The State of Product Content. In this second edition of the report, we expanded our surveyed consumer base beyond the US to include key European markets: France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
In this post, we will talk about a couple of the big takeaways from this year’s survey.
Incomplete Product Information is an E-Commerce Killer
Let’s get to the heart of the matter right away.
An overwhelming majority of consumers indicated their preference for completeness of product information. More than 83% of global consumers express readiness to take their business elsewhere if they can’t find sufficient or satisfactory product information, which could include anything from basic weights and dimensions or ingredients to comprehensive pictures and descriptions. A strong preference for complete product information isn’t surprising, but the intensity of the preference is remarkable.
Interestingly, this preference was even more pronounced in the UK compared to the global average. In the UK, the percentage of customers who indicated that they would go to another site for shopping if they felt unsatisfied by the quality of product information was 89%.
Commercially, this should set off alarm bells for any organization that hasn’t been prioritizing product information as a key pillar of their customer experience strategy, especially online. With the proliferation of brands and a glut of choices, consumers have come to value their time when shopping. If it takes them too long to look for information on the product they’re considering, they will look elsewhere.
This makes accurate product information an exceedingly important aspect of commerce but also something that is easily fixed.
It’s not just about losing the sale; bad product content can hurt your brand
When customers go shopping for a product but find the product information insufficient, it’s clear that the sale is at a huge risk. But the ramifications go beyond the immediate. A clear majority of respondents (73%) have indicated that they would think less of a brand if they didn’t find complete or accurate information about its products online. So the fallout isn’t limited to this sale, it’s possible that the consumer would skip considering a brand in subsequent shopping journeys or even sever their relationship with the brand altogether. Further, the proportion of shoppers who showed this sentiment about accurate product information is almost 18% higher than last year.
As significant as this finding was, what was even more interesting was that this response wasn’t limited to online shopping. Respondents indicated that insufficient product information even when shopping in a store would cause a negative association with the brand, indicating that consumers are expressing a very strong preference for a superior shopping experience overall.
Consumers are putting more and more stock in how well a brand presents its products when determining how much they like and trust that brand, with important long-term implications for first-choice purchases.
Great customer experiences equal repeat customers
In an obvious contrast with the previous observation, it is very clear that better customer experiences leave positive impressions that inspire shoppers to come back for more. This seems especially true for providing readily available product information: a whopping 91% of consumers are more likely to return to a brand and/or retailer if they can efficiently find what they need to know about the products they’re browsing! As particular as consumers are in demanding superior customer experiences, they are just as eager to reward that experience with their wallets.
Click here to read the e-book for more insights on The State of Product Content 2024 including breakdowns on regional variations in these trends.
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