Attributes underpin almost every meaningful ecommerce feature. They drive product feeds, faceted navigation, search filters, schema markup, comparison tables, and bulk-edit workflows. A product taxonomy with thin or inconsistent attributes will produce a thin and inconsistent storefront.
Two common attribute mistakes: putting attribute values in the title (e.g. 'Blue T-Shirt - Large' as a single title with no color/size attributes), and inconsistent values across the catalog (red vs Red vs RED, M vs Medium vs medium). Both make filters and feeds unreliable.
Investing in attribute hygiene early pays dividends — a catalog of 500 products with clean attributes scales to 5,000 with little extra work, while a messy catalog of 500 requires a full re-build to scale.