What are catalog data standards ?
Catalogs contain product information elements such as taxonomy, descriptions, features, specifications, attributes, price, packaging, shipping, compliances and more.
Catalog data standards specify standard formats and headings for capturing product data in every such element stated above.
In many cases, data standards also specify values for product attribute sets that are prevalent and commonly used in the industry.
What is the need for and benefits of data standards for the furniture industry ?
There are two factors that set the context for this initiative
Furniture shopping is increasingly online and as a result cataloging is increasingly digital. End consumers and supply/distribution channel partners search for product information predominantly through a plethora of web catalogs and apps.
The furniture industry is highly distributed and fragmented with multiple organizations in the ecosystem across multiple geographies. A significant volume of catalog information is exchanged between many participants in the ecosystem.
The need for for standard data formats arises from the fact that organizations across the supply/distribution chain incur recurring operational expenses due to cataloging related chores. Data standards offer
Most companies in the ecosystem received catalog data from different sources and in different formats. They incur significant time and resources in cleaning, restructuring, mapping and distributing to other channels. A standard data format would save significant time and money in these processes.
Catalog management, dynamic content generation and publishing to multiple online channels and marketplaces would be easier.
Companies would have the ability to make quick decisions on cataloging and merchandising due to inherent benefits in analyzing standardized data.
Companies would find it cost-effective to implement data-driven omni-channel shopping experience and visual merchandising strategies with standardized data formats.
What are some of the best practices for creating and implementing data standards ?
Inclusive
The process of standards creation should include views from a diverse mix of participants in the furniture industry ecosystem – designers, manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers – of different sizes.
Reputable industry associations could be critical in initiating change, facilitating collaboration and motivating large scale participation by their members.
Incremental
While the long term benefits of catalog standards outweigh the cost of adopting such standards, companies could face some challenges in the migration to such standards.
Creating all-exhaustive data standards in a single run could be counter productive and actually be a deterrent in adoption, as transformation efforts could be perceived to be more challenging than anticipated.
Hence an incremental, versioned approach to rolling out the standards for easier assimilation by participating companies is recommended. New versions of the standards must be compatible with the old versions.
Interoperable
The data standards should be easily accessible to participants in the industry ecosystem, so that various software platforms and applications (ecommerce, CRM, ERP, billing, shipping etc.) could build plug-ins to easily consume these data formats.
The data standard should be interoperable with other existing standards such as those for shipping, packaging, product safety etc. This would further strengthen the ecosystem through network effects.
Conclusion
The furniture industry, like several others, is grappling with turbulent changes in domestic & global economy, technology and environment. This is an opportune moment for the industry to lay the groundwork for furniture catalog data standards that would help the entire ecosystem to grow in the years to come.
