If you’re a building materials merchant, the sheer scale of your catalogue, and the product data which accompanies it, must be a constant challenge. Thousands of SKUs. Endless supplier spreadsheets.an array of pack sizes, requirements for compliance, not to forget all that technical documentation. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that many merchants are faced with incoming data which is riddled with gaps and inconsistencies.
The point is these mistakes don’t exist without having consequences. They will actively stymie your digital growth. Why? Three good reasons:
- Customers can’t easily find what they need
- Product pages look incomplete and unprofessional
- Sales teams are wasting their valuable time chasing down missing specs
What’s more, when data is habitually wrong or inconsistent, customer trust erodes fast given your lack of credibility as a merchant.
We’ve used our extensive experience countering these kinds of problems to put together a list of the five most common mistakes building materials suppliers make with product data, and, of course, what you can do to fix them.
Mistake 1: inconsistent product naming and codes
Imagine searching for plasterboard and being faced with half a dozen listings: “12.5mm Board,” “Plaster Bd 12.5,” “STD PB 12.5 mm,” and so on. It’s highly confusing for your customers, frustrating for your sales team, and a complete disaster when search engines are trying to index your site.
How to fix it
You should establish naming conventions and stick to them. Define rules for how sizes, pack quantities, and product types appear in titles. Use a tool like SKULaunch to ensure you’re onboarding supplier data with consistent naming conventions right from the start, because that way, you prevent duplication and confusion.
Mistake 2: missing or incomplete attributes
For customers buying building materials, the devil is in the detail. Whether it’s pack size, compliance certifications, weight, or material type, even one missing attribute slows everything down.
Your customers rely heavily on these attributes to filter products, check compatibility, and make sufficiently informed buying decisions. Without these key pieces of information, you’ll inevitably see more customer queries, higher cart abandonment, and lost sales revenue.
How to fix it
Adopt a PIM (Product Information Management) system because it forces consistency. Create mandatory fields for attributes like size, unit of measure, compliance information, and safety data. Use enrichment services (or AI-powered content tools like Descriptionwise) to quickly fill in gaps, standardise formats, and generate high-quality, compelling product information at scale.
Mistake 3: low-quality or absent images
You won’t find many willing buyers parting with their money for a £1,200 boiler or a bulk order of bricks when the visual information is based on a pixelated thumbnail. But there are still too many building materials sites still relying on these low-quality, often supplier-provided images. Or, even worse, no images at all.
On a channel where physical inspection isn’t possible, these high-quality images are the closest customers can get to actually handling the product. Bad-quality imagery not only undermines confidence and, hence, the chances of conversions – it’s also a flashing red light when it comes to your credibility as a brand.
How to fix it
Once again, it’s about standards. Set them high and clearly for image resolution, file naming, and coverage of variants (such as showing each finish, size, or colour). Use a digital asset management (DAM) tool (which is now integrated with most modern PIM setups) to store, tag, and distribute images consistently across channels.
Mistake 4: datasheets scattered across PDFs
From technical specs to safety data sheets, building materials products habitually generate reams of documentation, which raises the issue of where they are located. In many cases, they’re scattered across shared drives, supplier portals, or email threads, making them impossible to keep track of. This results in inconsistent or missing information for customers (and time-consuming customer queries), wasted time for your teams as they search high and low for missing info, and a much higher risk of publishing outdated or non-compliant information.
How to fix it
Centralise all incoming documentation for each SKU within your PIM or enrichment workflow. You can then link each product directly to the correct datasheet or manual, so customers (as well as your sales team) can always access the latest version. A platform such as SKULaunch can streamline supplier data intake, allowing you to capture documents and metadata at the point of onboarding rather than having to retrofit them later.
Mistake 5: reliance on spreadsheets for enrichment and onboarding
Spreadsheets are all well and good when you have 50 SKUs, but once your growth means scaling up to 5,000 or 50,000. That’s when they become a nightmare. Errors are made, version control collapses, and updating data points manually takes you weeks instead of minutes.
Any self-respecting building materials distributors will be managing hundreds of suppliers and thousands of variants, and under those operating conditions, relying on Excel simply isn’t sustainable.
How to fix it
You can deploy automate enrichment and onboarding. A modern PIM system provides a definitive, single verified version – your ‘single source of truth.’ The PIM enables you to apply validation rules, automated workflows, and bulk editing tools. Augment that with services like SKULaunch for supplier onboarding and Descriptionwise for content enrichment, and your business can eliminate the commercial drag associated with endless spreadsheets. Scaling your offering for growth becomes a far more straightforward proposition.
Building a better product data foundation
Ensuring you use clean, structured product data consistently shouldn’t be seen as just an IT challenge. In fact, it’s the foundation of sustainable growth and long-term profitability. It’s what allows your customers to find the right product at first time of asking, it reduces returns, it powers consistent experiences across every channel you sell through and, most importantly. It establishes you as a reliable and trustworthy brand to purchase from – gold dust in a sector where repeat purchases aren’t just a plus, but what grows a substantial client base.
Get in touch with us at Start with Data. We support building materials suppliers in their quest to turn messy, fragmented data into a tightly-controlled strategic asset. From supplier data onboarding with SKULaunch, to AI-powered content creation and enrichment with Descriptionwise, to a full-scale PIM implementation, our experience in the building materials sector makes sure your product data fuels growth rather than stalling your business at the start line.