The benchmarking system is designed to assess the quality of an online retailer’s evergreen primary content – the core pre-purchase content that aims to convert a captive browser into a buyer at the point of purchase. It gives the retailer a clear sense of any weaknesses in this critical layer of content that may be hindering their website conversion rates, search engine traffic and other key performance metrics.  The Quill Quality Score allows benchmarking of ecommerce businesses’ primary content – typically product descriptions, category descriptions, how-to/buying guides and, where appropriate, the extent of content localisation – against the best-in-class standard to enable clients to better understand how their content performs against competitors’ and identify key areas for improvement. The process involves selection of a randomised sample of a website’s primary content, including product descriptions, category descriptions and guides, and evaluation of this content against a set of key criteria, based on factors that are a known influence on customer behaviour and search visibility.

The score is derived from Quill Content’s proprietary benchmarking system – created from consumer research and aggregated performance data, drawn from the tens of thousands of pieces of primary content created by Quill Content across the ecommerce sector.  Coincident with the launch, Quill Content has completed an analysis of 90 leading fashion brands’ primary content, highlighting large disparities in quality. For instance, looking at scores for product descriptions – one key facet of primary content – indicates that, while many retailers have incomplete and unhelpful product descriptions, some are getting it right. US sportswear giant Nike is at the top of the list, with Dutch clothing company G-Star Raw, UK fashion e-tailer Boden and outdoor wear specialists Timberland all scoring highly.  Ed Bussey, founder and CEO at Quill Content, said, “Many retailers are creating award-winning creative campaigns and investing millions in intelligently-targeted media buying, only to fall at the final hurdle because they treat Primary Content as an afterthought. Getting the basics right should be non-negotiable.”  “After all, there’s little point driving traffic to your website, only for the website itself to put customers off at the point of purchase. Where the money is really made is in high volume, evergreen, informative and compelling Primary Content at the end of the purchase funnel,” Bussey added. Each primary content type is assessed according to bespoke criteria. For example, product descriptions are assessed for their impact on conversion rates, category descriptions are assessed for their impact on organic search traffic, while how-to and buying guides are assessed for their impact on cross/up-selling.  The Quill Quality Score reveals that even though 98 per cent of consumers cite inaccurate or incomplete content as the reason for failing to make a purchase, a remarkable 71 per cent of online apparel retailers don’t even provide essential information on how a garment will fit in their product descriptions.