Know If You Have Outgrown Spreadsheets?

Traditionally, eCommerce businesses have relied on classic Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to manage their product information, a practice deeply rooted in the history of online retail. Spreadsheets, including Google Sheets, served as upgrades from traditional ledger books for accounting, offering capabilities for organizing product data. 
Spreadsheet's ability to handle large volumes of data, generate reports, automate tasks, and create visualizations has made it a valuable tool for managing mass data.
 

However, as eCommerce evolves and competition intensifies, Excel's limitations as a product information database become apparent. 
 

Today's markets demand the agility, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness that spreadsheets struggle to provide. Whether you've long depended on spreadsheets or are new to eCommerce, choosing between spreadsheets and alternative solutions is unavoidable. To make an informed decision, it's crucial to understand that while Excel offers affordability and ease, relying solely on it may lead to greater costs and inefficiencies in the long term. This is a risk that eCommerce businesses should be cautious about.
 

Some Indicators That You Have Outgrown Spreadsheets
 

Here are some signs that your organization has outgrown spreadsheets:
 

1) Susceptible to human error
 

Excel is undeniably powerful, but it's not immune to errors. You've probably heard that around 88% of spreadsheets have errors and incorrect data. While this might sound alarming, it's understandable when you consider the repetitive nature of copying and pasting product information into countless Excel cells. With many SKUs, errors are almost inevitable, especially as fatigue sets in. Bulk changes in Excel can also pose challenges, often giving a false sense of security. It's easy to overlook the need to verify whether bulk edits have been executed accurately. We often expect more from this basic spreadsheet software than it can deliver. Thus, you should stop using Excel to avoid errors, as it doesn’t work optimally for product information. 
 

2) Because you are selling on multiple channels 
 

Excel spreadsheets consolidate product information for distribution across various channels, including sales reps, retail partners, eCommerce platforms, and marketplaces. While this broad dissemination expands revenue streams and facilitates scalability, it also presents challenges. The issue arises when it's time to send out the Excel spreadsheet of product information. How do you send one document to multiple endpoints with distinct requirements? Whether it's pricing or formatting standards, the solution to this multi-management challenge is straightforward: duplicate the Excel spreadsheet, customize each for a specific channel, and, in doing so, duplicate the effort.
 

What is Effort Duplication?
 

Repeating the same task multiple times unnecessarily is inefficient and drains valuable time and energy from marketing and product management teams. Duplicating, editing, renaming, and sending files becomes daunting, hindering growth, productivity, and organizational clarity. Updating product information in Excel spreadsheets only adds to the challenge.
 

3) You Face Data Accuracy Challenges
 

Data corruption presents substantial hurdles for businesses, resulting in valuable time being squandered on re-collecting and reconfiguring misplaced product data. This issue drains resources and diminishes productivity, delaying project timelines. In contrast to spreadsheets, employing a specialized product information database with cloud storage eradicates the threat of data corruption. Solutions like Product Information Management provide secure cloud-based data storage with robust backup mechanisms and comprehensive version history, effectively safeguarding against data loss.
 

4) Because you have a big team that accesses the data
 

Another factor contributing to potential product information errors is inadequate data security. Imagine a situation where various teams engage in diverse product aspects—marketing, sales, and logistics. Each team may necessitate distinct data sets, and managing these needs via spreadsheets frequently leads to a convoluted array of files, complicating collaboration.

Furthermore, as data evolves and undergoes alterations, ensuring everyone works with the most recent version becomes a logistical nightmare. This heightens the risk of errors and miscommunication, potentially influencing crucial business decisions. 

Want to know more about PIM? Here is Your Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right PIM
 

5) You Face History and Versioning Challenges

Tracking every change made is essential when managing a document or database containing numerous critical items. Tracking edits in eCommerce product information management contributes to effective data governance. Ideally, you want visibility into who made which edits and precisely when. Access to all product information versions is invaluable when troubleshooting issues, akin to retracing your steps when something is lost. While Excel offers options to redo or undo changes, it fails to identify who made the edits and when. Moreover, it only tracks the history of a specific session and user, which poses limitations. Version control is crucial to any product database, highlighting a significant reason to transition away from Excel. With Product Information Management (PIM), version control becomes simpler as data is centralized. Additionally, version control features extend to information and digital assets, allowing users to monitor real-time edits and updates, tracing back to the content's inception.