Shwetank Singh

GritSetGrow - GSGLearn.com

DATA AND AI

ADVANCED DATA
CLEANING TECHNIQUES
FOR E-COMMERCE
PROJECTS
www.gsglearn.com
Advanced Data Cleaning Techniques for E-
Commerce Data Engineering Projects
Overview:
E-commerce data spans customer profiles, product catalogs, and transactional records
that are both voluminous and heterogeneous. This document details advanced data
cleaning strategies for data engineering projects targeting e-commerce platforms. It
covers end-to-end cleaning steps, from initial profiling and parsing of semi-
structured data to deduplication, normalization, and anomaly detection, along with
performance optimizations and robust monitoring. Advanced SQL examples, including code
snippets for structured and semi-structured data, are provided throughout. This
comprehensive guide is designed to span roughly 20 pages when compiled, making it a
deep dive for advanced data engineers.

Table of Contents
1. Data Profiling and Initial Assessment
2. Advanced Structured Data Cleaning
3. Advanced Semi-Structured Data Cleaning
4. Handling Missing Values at Scale
5. Deduplication and Fuzzy Matching Techniques
6. Data Standardization and Transformation
7. Anomaly Detection and Outlier Handling
8. Data Normalization (Scaling and Structuring)
9. Data Quality Framework and Metrics
10. Metadata Management and Data Lineage
11. Automated Data Cleaning Pipelines
12. Monitoring, Logging, and Auditability
13. Cloud and Distributed Processing Considerations
14. Case Studies and E-Commerce Examples
15. Common Challenges and Advanced Solutions
16. Conclusion and Best Practices

Data Profiling and Initial Assessment

Profiling Objectives:

Understand data distributions, cardinality, and frequency of nulls.

Identify patterns, irregularities, and potential anomalies before
cleaning.
Generate data quality reports to determine the scale of cleaning needed.

Techniques:

Statistical Summaries:
Use SQL aggregations to compute min, max, average, standard deviation:

SELECT MIN(total_amount) AS min_order,

MAX(total_amount) AS max_order,
AVG(total_amount) AS avg_order,
 STDDEV_POP(total_amount) AS stddev_order
FROM orders;

Data Distribution Analysis:

Use histograms or percentiles:

SELECT percentile_cont(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY total_amount) AS

median_order
FROM orders;

Null and Missing Value Assessment:

Count missing values for critical columns:

SELECT COUNT(*) AS missing_emails

FROM customers
WHERE email IS NULL OR email = '';

Outcome:

Create a data quality dashboard with key metrics.

Identify columns with high null percentages, outliers, or inconsistent
formats.

Advanced Structured Data Cleaning

Schema Enforcement and Data Type Correction:

Validate that each field conforms to its expected data type.

Example: Convert text-based dates into proper DATE format:

UPDATE orders
SET order_date = TO_DATE(order_date_text, 'MM/DD/YYYY')
WHERE order_date IS NULL;

Relational Integrity and Foreign Key Validation:

Ensure every record in a fact table has corresponding entries in

dimension tables.
Example: Identify orphaned transactions:

SELECT o.order_id
FROM orders o
LEFT JOIN customers c ON o.customer_id = c.customer_id
WHERE c.customer_id IS NULL;

Constraint Enforcement:

Use CHECK constraints to prevent future data errors.

Example: Ensure non-negative product prices:

ALTER TABLE products

ADD CONSTRAINT chk_price_nonnegative CHECK (price >= 0);
 Advanced Null Handling:

Apply sophisticated imputation techniques:

Median/Mode Imputation: Use aggregate subqueries to replace
missing numeric fields.
Conditional Imputation: For example, impute shipping dates based
on typical processing times.

Transactional Integrity:

Employ stored procedures to validate multi-step transactions.

Log any anomalies for later review.

Advanced Semi-Structured Data Cleaning

Parsing Nested Data Structures:

Use JSON functions to extract and validate nested attributes:

SELECT order_id,
JSON_EXTRACT_PATH_TEXT(order_details, 'product_id') AS
product_id,
JSON_EXTRACT_PATH_TEXT(order_details, 'quantity') AS quantity
FROM orders_json;

Validate that the extracted values conform to expected types and

formats.

Handling Heterogeneous Formats:

Normalize variations in key names or value formats:

Map "color" and "colour" to a single standardized key.
Use SQL CASE statements to transform differing representations.

Dealing with Optional and Dynamic Fields:

Leverage functions such as COALESCE to fill in missing keys with

default values.
Example: Standardizing an optional discount field:

SELECT order_id,
COALESCE(JSON_EXTRACT_PATH_TEXT(order_details, 'discount'), '0')
AS discount
FROM orders_json;

Data Flattening:

Transform nested arrays into relational tables using lateral joins or

unnest functions.
Example: Flatten product reviews embedded in JSON:

SELECT order_id, review.*

FROM orders_json,
LATERAL jsonb_to_recordset(orders_json.review_list) AS
review(review_id INT, rating INT, comment TEXT);
 Schema Evolution Handling:

Create flexible pipelines that can handle schema drift in semi-

structured inputs.
Use versioned parsers to manage changes over time.

Handling Missing Values at Scale

Advanced Missing Value Strategies:

Multi-Column Imputation:
Consider correlations between columns to impute missing values. For
example, if a product's weight is missing, use the average weight for
that category.
Algorithmic Imputation:
Employ statistical or machine learning methods (e.g., regression models)
to predict missing values.
Flagging and Segregation:
Instead of immediately replacing, mark records with missing critical
data and process them in a review pipeline.

SQL Examples:

Window Function Imputation:

UPDATE products p
SET weight = sub.avg_weight
FROM (
SELECT category, AVG(weight) OVER(PARTITION BY category) AS avg_weight
FROM products
WHERE weight IS NOT NULL
) sub
WHERE p.category = sub.category
AND p.weight IS NULL;

Conditional Replacement:

SELECT order_id,
CASE
WHEN delivery_date IS NULL THEN order_date + INTERVAL '5' DAY
ELSE delivery_date
END AS estimated_delivery_date
FROM orders;

Considerations:

Evaluate the impact of imputation on downstream analysis.

Document assumptions behind each imputation rule for auditability.

Deduplication and Fuzzy Matching Techniques

Exact Deduplication:
 Window Functions:
Use ROW_NUMBER() to mark duplicates and keep the most recent record.

WITH RankedCustomers AS (
SELECT customer_id, email, created_at,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY email ORDER BY created_at DESC)
AS rn
FROM customers
)
DELETE FROM customers
WHERE customer_id IN (
SELECT customer_id FROM RankedCustomers WHERE rn > 1
);

Fuzzy Matching:

Phonetic Algorithms:
Apply functions like SOUNDEX to identify similar names.

SELECT a.customer_id, b.customer_id, a.name, b.name

FROM customers a
JOIN customers b ON a.customer_id <> b.customer_id
WHERE SOUNDEX(a.name) = SOUNDEX(b.name);

Levenshtein Distance:
Some SQL engines support UDFs for calculating string similarity.

SELECT a.customer_id, b.customer_id, a.name, b.name

FROM customers a
JOIN customers b ON a.customer_id <> b.customer_id
WHERE LEVENSHTEIN(a.name, b.name) < 3;

Merging Records:

Develop custom logic to merge duplicates, choosing the best available

value for each field.
Example:
Use COALESCE and aggregate functions to merge records:

SELECT email,
MIN(customer_id) AS primary_id,
MAX(name) AS consolidated_name,
MAX(phone) AS consolidated_phone,
MAX(address) AS consolidated_address
FROM customers
GROUP BY email;

Challenges and Solutions:

Handle near-duplicates carefully to avoid false positives.

Integrate manual review processes for borderline cases.
Data Standardization and Transformation
Format Standardization:

Text Normalization:
Convert to lower case, remove extra spaces, and standardize punctuation.

SELECT TRIM(LOWER(name)) AS normalized_name

FROM customers;

Date/Time Normalization:
Convert all date/time values to UTC.

UPDATE orders
SET order_date = CONVERT_TZ(order_date, 'US/Eastern', 'UTC');

Categorical Value Mapping:

Use mapping tables to standardize categorical fields (e.g., mapping

different representations of product categories).

SELECT p.product_id, p.product_name, m.standard_category

FROM products p
LEFT JOIN category_mapping m ON p.category = m.raw_category;

Unit and Currency Conversions:

Convert various units to a common standard (e.g., inches to centimeters,

different currencies to USD).
Example:

UPDATE products
SET weight = CASE
WHEN weight_unit = 'lbs' THEN weight * 0.453592
ELSE weight
END,
weight_unit = 'kg';

Data Transformation Pipelines:

Chain multiple transformations using Common Table Expressions (CTEs) to

maintain clarity.
Example:

WITH CleanedProducts AS (
SELECT product_id,
TRIM(LOWER(product_name)) AS product_name,
CASE
WHEN weight_unit = 'lbs' THEN weight * 0.453592
ELSE weight
END AS weight,
'kg' AS weight_unit
FROM products
 )
SELECT * FROM CleanedProducts;

Handling Special Characters and Encoding:

Remove or replace non-ASCII characters that might interfere with joins

or aggregations.
Utilize regex functions where available to clean text fields.

Anomaly Detection and Outlier Handling

Statistical Outlier Detection:

Standard Deviation:
Flag records that are beyond 3 standard deviations from the mean.

SELECT order_id, total_amount

FROM orders
WHERE total_amount > (
SELECT AVG(total_amount) + 3 * STDDEV_POP(total_amount)
FROM orders
);

Percentile-Based:
Identify orders above the 99th percentile.

SELECT order_id, total_amount

FROM orders
WHERE total_amount > (
SELECT percentile_cont(0.99) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY total_amount)
FROM orders
);

Temporal Anomalies:

Detect sudden spikes in orders or user activity.

SELECT order_time,
COUNT(*) OVER (ORDER BY order_time RANGE INTERVAL '1' HOUR
PRECEDING) AS orders_last_hour
FROM orders;

Trigger alerts if the count exceeds a threshold.

Multi-Dimensional Anomaly Detection:

Combine multiple fields (e.g., order amount, product quantity, and time)
to detect suspicious patterns.
Develop machine learning models offloaded from SQL for complex patterns,
then integrate flagged IDs back into SQL pipelines.

Automated Correction vs. Flagging:

 Decide when to auto-correct anomalies (e.g., a misplaced decimal) or
flag them for manual review.
Maintain a log table for anomalous records.

Data Normalization (Scaling and Structuring)

Numeric Normalization:

Min-Max Scaling:

SELECT product_id,
(price - min_price) / (max_price - min_price) AS price_norm
FROM (
SELECT product_id, price,
MIN(price) OVER() AS min_price,
MAX(price) OVER() AS max_price
FROM products
) sub;

Z-Score Standardization:

SELECT customer_id,
(annual_spend - avg_spend) / stddev_spend AS spend_zscore
FROM (
SELECT customer_id, annual_spend,
AVG(annual_spend) OVER() AS avg_spend,
STDDEV_POP(annual_spend) OVER() AS stddev_spend
FROM customer_stats
) t;

Relative Scaling:
Normalize sales figures as a percentage of total sales.

SELECT product_id, sales,

sales / SUM(sales) OVER() * 100 AS percent_of_total_sales
FROM product_sales;

Database Normalization:

Design relational schemas to reduce redundancy (e.g., separate brand,

category, and supplier information).
Leverage foreign keys to maintain consistency.
Ensure lookup tables are properly indexed for join performance.

Text and Categorical Normalization:

Use normalization functions to ensure uniformity in textual data.

Consolidate similar category labels to avoid fragmentation in analysis.

Data Quality Framework and Metrics

Defining KPIs for Data Quality:
 Completeness: Percentage of non-null values.
Accuracy: Conformance of data values to business rules.
Consistency: Uniformity across different datasets.
Timeliness: Up-to-date information relative to business requirements.
Uniqueness: Degree of deduplication achieved.

Establishing Data Quality Rules:

Create a rules engine (either SQL-based or via a dedicated tool) that

continuously validates data.
Record rule violations and track trends over time.

SQL Example – Quality Check Summary:

SELECT 'orders' AS table_name,

COUNT(*) AS total_records,
SUM(CASE WHEN delivery_date IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS
missing_delivery_dates,
ROUND(SUM(CASE WHEN delivery_date IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) * 100.0 /
COUNT(*), 2) AS pct_missing
FROM orders;

Reporting and Dashboards

Build dashboards using BI tools to visualize data quality metrics.

Schedule periodic reports to stakeholders.

Metadata Management and Data Lineage

Metadata Capture
Track schema changes, data source details, and transformation rules.
Use automated tools to capture metadata during ETL processes.

Data Lineage
Document the flow of data from source systems through cleaning and
transformation stages.
Maintain lineage logs that can trace a record from raw ingestion to final
consumption.

Implementing in SQL
Create audit tables that log changes made during cleaning:

CREATE TABLE data_cleaning_audit (

audit_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
table_name VARCHAR(50),
record_id INT,
change_description TEXT,
 changed_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

Logging During Critical Transformations

Insert logs during critical transformations to maintain data traceability.

Track data modifications for debugging and compliance purposes.

Benefits
Enhanced debugging to identify issues in data processing.
Compliance with regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) through audit
trails.

Automated Data Cleaning Pipelines

Designing Robust ETL/ELT Pipelines
Integrate cleaning steps into data ingestion pipelines to ensure high data
quality.
Automate data quality checks and error handling to minimize manual
intervention.

Scheduling and Orchestration

Use workflow orchestration tools like Apache Airflow, dbt, or cloud-native
services (e.g., AWS Glue, Google Cloud Dataflow) to schedule cleaning jobs.
Define dependencies between cleaning stages to ensure proper execution order.

Automated Testing
Write unit tests for SQL transformations to validate correctness.
Use integration tests to verify data consistency across pipeline stages.

Continuous Integration
Version control SQL scripts and ETL jobs to ensure traceability and rollback
capabilities.
Deploy cleaning processes using CI/CD pipelines to facilitate rapid iteration
and updates.

Monitoring, Logging, and Auditability

Real-Time Monitoring
Set up dashboards to visualize key data quality metrics.
Use alerting systems (e.g., PagerDuty, Slack notifications) to notify teams of
cleaning failures.
Detailed Logging
Log every major cleaning step and transformation for better traceability.
Maintain logs to facilitate debugging and historical analysis.

Auditing
Periodically audit cleaned data against raw data to ensure accuracy.
Use automated scripts to compare key aggregates before and after cleaning.

SQL Example – Logging Update Actions

INSERT INTO data_cleaning_audit (table_name, record_id, change_description)

VALUES ('orders', 12345, 'Imputed missing delivery_date with order_date + 5 days');

Cloud and Distributed Processing

Considerations
Scaling Data Cleaning
Use distributed SQL engines like Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, and
Snowflake to efficiently process large datasets.
Leverage partitioning and clustering to enhance query performance.

Hybrid Architectures
Combine batch processing (for historical data) with real-time cleaning (for
streaming data).
Integrate with cloud-native data lakes and warehouses for scalability.

Cost Optimization
Monitor query performance and optimize SQL queries to reduce compute costs.
Use materialized views or temporary tables to cache intermediate results.

Security and Compliance

Ensure encryption and access control on sensitive data throughout the cleaning
process.
Regularly audit data access logs and enforce least-privilege principles.

Case Studies and E-Commerce Examples

Customer Data Integration
Merge customer profiles from website, mobile app, and third-party sources.
Use advanced deduplication and fuzzy matching to consolidate duplicate customer
records.

Product Catalog Merging

 Combine product data from multiple vendors into a unified catalog.
Standardize attributes, units, and taxonomies for consistent search and
categorization.

Transactional Data Validation

Ensure orders, returns, and payment records are reconciled.
Detect and flag inconsistent financial records for finance team review.

Advanced Use Cases

Implement machine learning models to predict missing values and assess data
reliability.
Leverage real-time streaming processing for fraud detection and anomaly alerts
in transactions.

Common Challenges and Advanced Solutions

Evolving Schemas & Data Drift
Implement schema versioning to handle evolving data structures.
Use automated schema drift detection tools to monitor changes.

Heterogeneous Data Sources

Build source-specific normalization layers to standardize incoming data.
Maintain a central data dictionary and mapping tables for reference.

Data Volume & Performance

Partition large datasets and apply incremental cleaning strategies.
Optimize SQL queries using indexing, query hints, and distributed processing.

Balancing Quality with Data Retention

Develop strategies to flag rather than delete questionable data.
Create separate pipelines for data cleansing and raw data archiving.

Duplicate and Fuzzy Matching Complexity

Combine algorithmic matching with manual review processes.
Leverage external libraries or ML models for improved duplicate detection.

Real-Time vs. Batch Processing Trade-Offs

Design hybrid systems that validate data on ingestion while refining it in
batch processes.
Monitor data processing latency and adjust windowing strategies as needed.

Auditability and Compliance

Regularly review audit logs and conduct reconciliation checks.
Integrate data quality frameworks to meet compliance standards.
Conclusion and Best Practices
Document Everything
Maintain thorough documentation of cleaning rules, transformation logic, and
audit logs.

Iterate and Improve

Data cleaning is an ongoing process—continuously refine pipelines based on
feedback.

Balance Automation with Oversight

Automated pipelines are efficient but require human intervention for complex
cases.

Invest in Tooling
Utilize modern ETL tools, cloud platforms, and machine learning for advanced
cleaning capabilities.

Monitor Continuously
Build dashboards and alerts to detect and resolve data quality issues in real
time.