In the past decade, data has grown to become the most valuable resource in the world, and many businesses and organizations now generate and receive a massive amount of data on a daily basis.
To input and process this data, organizations nowadays need to spend a significant amount of their resources: time, money, and manpower, and this has grown to become a great challenge in many businesses. As a result, many enterprises have turned to outsource their data entry processes to third-party service providers.
The eCommerce industry, on the other hand, is a niche that naturally involves a lot of data entry processes: from updating product descriptions to uploading optimized images to integrating new products to the store. This is why the eCommerce industry is among one of the top sectors in which outsourcing data entry is really beneficial.
Here, we will discuss how to choose your provider for outsourcing eCommerce data entry, but let us begin by discussing the data entry process in a typical eCommerce business.
eCommerce Data Entry: Why Is It Challenging?
While data entry might sound simple at a first glance, in an eCommerce environment data entry can be quite challenging and might require professional expertise.
In eCommerce, data can come in various different forms from product names, customer names, addresses, purchase records, and others. In a functional eCommerce store, the following data entry process must be performed regularly:
- Uploading new product details
- Updating data regarding product stocks, shipment schedules, return policies, and other administrative data
- Developing, formatting, and inputting optimized product descriptions
- Managing product classifications
- Updating all essential information related to the product (SKU, title, images, specifications, features, dimensions, etc.)
- Posting and optimizing photos of products
- Creating engaging titles and taglines to attract more potential buyers
As you can see, eCommerce data entry can be a complex and time-consuming process, and even worse, you’ll need to do these regularly. This is where outsourcing the eCommerce data entry process can be beneficial for your business.
Not only outsourcing the data entry process can translate into freeing up your team’s valuable time so they can focus on core business tasks to help achieve your organizational objectives, many data entry service providers also provide the option to outsource to experts located in countries with lower labor costs. Thus, outsourcing your data entry process can be more cost-efficient rather than hiring your own in-house data entry team, designers, copywriter, and other employees.
Also, with the expertise provided by the data entry service, you can also ensure an error-free data entry with a faster turnaround time.
Important Considerations When Choosing an eCommerce Data Entry Outsourcing Company
Cost-Effectiveness
For most eCommerce businesses looking to outsource their data entry processes, the objective is to save more money (and time), and thus weighing the cost-efficiency of a data entry service provider is essential.
Now, ‘cost-effective’ is obviously a relative term depending on your needs. If a data entry service provider is very affordable but cannot cater to your data entry needs, then it is probably not cost-effective.
Also consider the fact that as your business grows in the future, more data volume would be required, and so the services would require scaling up. You should also weigh the cost of scaling up your data entry service for each potential service provider.
Versatility
Every eCommerce store is unique, and thus a certain level of personalization is always needed. You can check this factor by checking the clientele of the service provider and check the variety of niches of these clients. The more versatile the service provider is, the better. Oworkers, for example, has handled data entry services since 2013 and can manage data outsourcing operations in more than 20 languages.
Expertise and Quality of Service
Check the qualification of the service staff and technological infrastructure of the service provider. Some data entry operations might need a specific software (i.e. OCR) to ensure a more efficient data entry process, so make sure to evaluate this factor if your company has any specific needs.
Cybersecurity
As an eCommerce company, you might handle a lot of sensitive data, both your own and your customers’. When your service provider’s security is compromised, then there’s a probability that your data is also compromised.
Data security is important not only for your business’s reputation but also from the legal perspective. Check the cybersecurity policies undertaken by the data entry service provider, and check whether they’ve performed cybersecurity best practices that will help protect your data’s integrity.
Additional steps you might need to monitor include whether the service provider maintains a policy of signing NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement) with employees and whether it also employs security best practices in its physical location (i.e. installing CCTV, checking employees’ activities, etc.). You should definitely choose a service provider that is committed to protecting your data security and integrity.
Scalability
In this age of agile business, we have to always be adaptable to changes, and an ideal outsourcing partner should be able to ‘follow’ you as you undergo these changes and/or scale your business. This requires the service provider to have the necessary infrastructure and experienced employees for expansion and scaling.
24/7 Service
It is recommended to partner up with service providers that offer 24/7 services, which will not only provide more flexibility when you need emergency help but typically will also result in shorter turnaround times.
Monitoring
Apart from their effectiveness in executing your data entry processes, it’s also important that the service provider offers a mechanism to monitor and evaluate these services. This can help you in maintaining more control over the data entry processes.
Conclusion
When picking an eCommerce data entry service provider, it’s very important to check the service’s experience and ensure the data entry service has handled comparable projects to your own in the past. Oworkers, for example, has handled data entry services since 2013 and can manage data outsourcing operations in more than 20 languages.
