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Issue 043PositionProduct DataRef 138

The hidden cost of letting product data stay messy

Poor product data introduces inefficiencies that erode profitability and hinder growth. Understanding these hidden costs is necessary for strategic investment in effective data management.

Heddwyn Coombs· Creative and Digital Director
4 min readReviewed January 2026
"Poor product data is not merely an inconvenience; it is a direct drain on profitability and a significant barrier to growth."
Written by
Heddwyn Coombs, Creative and Digital Director at iWeb
Heddwyn Coombs
Creative and Digital Director
29 years at iWeb

Heddwyn co-founded iWeb and leads creative and digital direction across the agency. Adobe Commerce architect since the Magento 1 era, he writes the strategy notes on platform choice, headless, agentic checkout, AI for commerce and the trade-offs leadership teams hit when modern tooling meets operational reality. Opinionated about data structure, design systems and catalogue size, cautious about unnecessary frontend complexity, and focused on work that stays commercially manageable over time.

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