What 56 suppliers taught us about packaging data collection

In our last post, we shared what happened when 65 suppliers were invited to review their packaging data: who signed in, what they changed and where the process stopped.

The take away was simple. Many suppliers were willing to engage, but too few records made it through the full validation pathway.

So we went back through the detail.

Across two recent outreach rounds, we analysed 1,725 SKU validation records from 56 suppliers. We looked at where suppliers stopped, which fields remained incomplete and what support they needed. That review identified 13 platform and process improvements, some immediate and others now part of the product roadmap.

The most useful finding was that many of the barriers had very little to do with packaging knowledge.

Why supplier packaging data collection stalls at login

If a supplier does not sign in, it is tempting to record them as unresponsive and send another reminder.

But some invitations were being caught by spam and phishing filters. In one program, four suppliers never received their invitation links at all. Authentication recovery and invite resending were not clear enough either.

From the customer’s side, every case looks the same: no activity. The cause, however, had us fast track a fix for this critical issue.

Our fix included improving email authentication, consolidating outreach around a recognisable sender and making invite recovery clearer. We are also building an internal early-warning view to distinguish suppliers who have never signed in from those who failed authentication or stalled after starting.

After all, more reminders won't fix an invitation that never arrived.

Which packaging data should suppliers be responsible for?

Another issue we uncovered were two fields that were missing across more than 160 SKUs because we were asking suppliers for information they were not best placed to provide.

For example, a manufacturer may know where a product was made. But they will not necessarily know the end-of-life region, because that depends on where the customer sells it.

What on first inspection looked like incomplete supplier data, ended up being a workflow design issue.

Our response was to move supplier-level information, such as 'manufacturing region' into the supplier profile rather than requesting it for every SKU. We determined that fields that depend on customer knowledge should be removed from the supplier workflow altogether.

Less repetition always helps too. It shortens the task for suppliers and reduces the chance of the same answer being entered differently across hundreds of records.

Why packaging records remain incomplete

As we dug deeper, we found 447 packaging layers stuck because the correct answer was effectively “not applicable” or “no items”. A supplier with no secondary packaging could not complete the record because the workflow still appeared to expect secondary packaging information.

Another 245 SKUs were sitting at three of four completion stages. In many cases, the supplier had done nearly all the work but could not see the single action that remained.

These are small interface problems with a large operational cost.

Our product response was to include a clear “Not applicable / no items” action, pre-populated confirmation where existing data indicates that a packaging layer does not exist, and “one action away” prompts that link directly to the remaining task.

Visible progress, autosave and resumable workflows will make it easier for a supplier to return after an interruption without retracing their steps.

Why supplier data validation cannot depend on one person

Supplier validation also stalled when the nominated contact went on leave or left the business. With access tied to one person, the whole process could stop.

Role-based, multi-user access gives supplier organisations a more durable way to share responsibility. Better duplicate contact reconciliation will also prevent the same business from being treated as several disconnected suppliers.

Language is essential for access as well. For suppliers working in other markets, an English-only interface and English transactional emails add avoidable friction. Simplified Chinese is the first multilingual workflow we have prioritised.

How each validation round improves packaging data collection

These two rounds do not describe every supplier program, but they do give us a concrete basis for improving the workflow.

Our goal is to reserve human intervention for the situations that genuinely need it.

Every record completed without a support email, manual chase or workaround reduces the cost of packaging data collection. Every point of friction we can identify and remove improves the experience for suppliers in the next program.

That is why supplier outreach is such a crucial stream of our product development at Phantm. The platform will continue to improve because we watch what happens when suppliers (and customers) use it.

Planning a supplier packaging data program?

If you recognise any of these failure points in your own supplier packaging data collection, talk to Phantm. We can help you build a validation process that gets easier, and more complete, with every round.