I've written many times on this site about the exceptional data-management techniques of Amazon. The company does a remarkable job at managing both its operational and analytical systems. Because of the way that it handles vast troves of information, Amazon can do things that many companies cannot even approach. Yet there's still room for improvement.

Consider the screen shot below from my iPad for Bad Words, the recently released Jason Bateman film about a grown man participating in a spelling bee:

Metadata like the description, cover, release year and duration are all there. You'll also see ostensibly similar movies and TV shows that Amazon customers also watched. But do you notice anything missing? Think about it for a bit.

Yeah, I don't see the date that the title hits Amazon either. This is unfortunate, as I wanted to watch the movie when it became available. I had to go to AppleTV to view that date (July 8th, 2014.) (Note that it's entirely possible that there are different dates for Netflix, Amazon, AppleTV/iTunes, Google Play, etc.)

Amazon doesn't make too many data-related mistakes, but this appears to be one of them. Sure, perhaps the powers-that-be aren't sure about when the movie becomes available. If that is indeed the case, then it's reasonable to expect a simple field for customers to enter their e-mail addresses. After all, isn't there a potential sale to be made here? Isn't Amazon leaving a few bucks on the table? Wouldn't it make sense to tell interested consumers when the flick can be purchased as soon as possible?

It's not like Amazon doesn't face competition in the content business. Some people consider the company a monopoly. Not me. There are plenty of other places from which I can buy or rent movies: Hulu, Netflix, iTunes and Google are just some options for cord-cutting consumers like me.

That's not to say, however, that Amazon doesn't possess a significant lead over other tech behemoths. As Rolfe Winkler writes in a recent WSJ piece:

Many e-commerce experts say Google has a long way to catch up to Amazon when it comes to online-shopping searches. Jeff Jordan, a former eBay executive who is now a partner at venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, contends that Amazon thrives by offering a better shopping experience than Google. He says the formula of selection, price and convenience is "radically in Amazon's favor," with its large network of merchants, consistent low prices, one-click ordering and fast shipping.

I have never bought a movie on Google Plus, but that's not hard to do. Missing a key piece of information may not cause me to abandon Amazon altogether, but it sure makes me consider alternatives and competitors.

Simon says: use data as a customer acquisition and retention tool

You'll never make every customer happy and, to be sure, missing a date field isn't the end of the world. It's not like I bought a $500-item on Amazon and it never arrived. Still, it behooves companies to eliminate the incentive shop elsewhere. Providing timely and useful information and unobtrusive alerts represent just several ways to make your data work for you.

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