What Are the Benefits of Using a Shopping Feed Solution?
Did you know that the number of small businesses in the US is greater than 30 million? In fact, over 99% of the nation’s businesses are small. Additionally, the number of people that small businesses employed, according to statistics from 2019, was over 59 million.
If you’re a business owner of one of the many small businesses in the US, or a marketing executive, you might be feeling stressed about how to make your business more successful with so much competition.
Fortunately, with a shopping feed, you can make more sales. This article will review the benefits of using a shopping feed solution.
Finally, you can experience shopping feed benefits, and your business will be more successful than ever. Read on to learn more.
What Is a Shopping Feed?
A shopping feed is a solution that makes it easier and faster for you to send information covering a large number of products to a site that sells to buyers or consumers. To suppliers, manufacturers, and merchants, shopping feeds facilitate sending accurate and comprehensive product data.
This data can appear anywhere their customers shop online, making shopping feeds more accessible.
How It Works
The shopping feed exists as a structured data file. Usually, this is an XML file. Additionally, it usually functions as a database that includes products that would be on the website of an e-commerce website, and it represents the inventory that’s currently for sale.
A shopping feed usually includes different types of information, including the manufacturer, the manufacturer’s part number, your part number, the product URL, and UPC codes.
It also usually includes the product name, a short description, a long description, the primary image, the price, the dimensions and size, and the weight. Additionally, it might include the following:
- Technical specifications
- The country of origin
- The category
In summary, a shopping feed will include important information regarding each product in the feed. It’s important to refresh this feed or update it once daily at least to get optimal results. By having this feed, you can more easily display your products in search ads, shopping portals, and your website.
The Benefits of a Shopping Feed
There are many benefits you experience when you use a shopping feed. These include greater visibility, a better quality of visibility of the products you offer, data accuracy, and savings when it comes to ad costs. We’ll review each of these now.
Greater Visibility
One of the benefits you experience from using a shopping feed is that you’ll have greater visibility. This is because one of the main shopping feed uses is to put product information on a platform for selling products. Without a shopping feed, you wouldn’t be able to put your products on one of these platforms.
That would mean that you would only be able to sell them to people who went directly to your website to shop.
With a shopping feed, on the other hand, people would be able to come across your products on other shopping platforms. Additionally, when completing a search for a product on a site like Google, they’d more likely find them, too.
Better Quality of Visibility
Another benefit you get from using a shopping feed is that the visibility your products get is better quality. This will be the case if the information you put in your shopping feed is detailed and complete. When people come across your products, they’ll get a large amount of information.
This will be helpful to them because, if it’s the product they’re looking for, they’ll find this out more easily. After all, all the information is there. It’s also good for building customer trust.
After all, if your customers see that you have a lot of information about a product, they’ll likely think it’s a high-quality product. They’ll also see you as being an informative, honest, and trustworthy vendor.
Better quality visibility can also lead to customers being more likely to buy your product as compared to the ones your competitors are selling.
If your listings are of higher quality, customers will be more interested in your products than your competitors. Even if two products are similar, customers will see yours as having more features and so on.
Additionally, when the information you provide is detailed and complete, this will make it more likely that platforms—like Google, for example—will show your products. This will also add to your visibility.
Data Accuracy
When you have a shopping feed, you’ll also experience the benefit of data accuracy when it comes to your products. This is important because you shouldn’t have discrepancies when it comes to the way you list your products on your sales channels as compared to how you list them on your website.
This is because your customers should be accessing information about your products that are accurate. If they don’t, this can cause various problems.
For example, say that a customer comes across an outdated description of a product when they’re doing a search online. They might then click on the product and end up on the product page on your website.
If the product is different from what they expected, they might be frustrated. This could lead to more than just a lost sale. This could lead to a loss of confidence from a potential customer.
If, on the other hand, all your product data matches up everywhere online, someone coming across it and going to your website will be more likely to buy it. Additionally, they’ll more likely trust you as a vendor.
Additionally, an issue with data accuracy could bring about a more serious issue. It could cause your account to end up being suspended on a specific sales platform. This would have a negative impact on your sales.
Savings When It Comes to Ad Costs
Another benefit that comes from a shopping feed is that you’ll save money when it comes to ad costs. By putting in information that’s detailed and complete, your products will show up more often when people searching for a product put related information into a search engine.
Then, when they click on your product, chances are that it will be close to what they’re looking for. As a result, they’ll be likely to buy it.
This means that you’ll be getting a lot of web traffic that then converts into sales.
When you create ads as part of your marketing strategy, on the other hand, you don’t always know whether they’ll be as effective. By using a shopping feed in lieu of or with ads, you won’t have to spend as much on your ad costs.
You Can Set the Right Price
One of the challenges of selling products as an e-commerce business owner is that you don’t always know what the best price is for your products. Fortunately, there’s a solution you can use when you use a shopping feed.
This is a solution called “dynamic pricing,” and it only takes a few steps to do. First, upload one of your products onto a sales platform via a shopping feed.
Second, look at how the price you’ve used compares to the ones your competitors are using for similar products on the platform. Then, you can reset your pricing so that it’s competitive as compared to their prices.
As a result, you’ll be staying ahead of your competition. This can result in higher profit margins.
Considering that Amazon uses dynamic pricing to figure out its costs, you’d be in good company using this strategy.
You Can Sell More With Promotional Codes
In addition to saving money on ad costs, you can drive up how much you sell through your shopping feed by adding promotional codes to products. This is a smart move, given that a conversion rate can go when you use promotional codes. The amount it could go up is by 28%.
When setting up these codes, you can decide on a date when they start and when they end. You can do this for a specific product or products—or all of them!
Want Help With Your Shopping Feed?
Now that you’ve learned about the benefits of a shopping feed, you might want help setting yours up so it can be the best shopping feed. In this case, you should look no further than 46Mile. We’re experts when it comes to shopping feeds.
We also offer a variety of marketing services. These include research, analytics, strategy, branding, creative design, and more. To find out more about how we can help you, contact us today.
