My take and thoughts from a post over on the EDI-L Yahoo group about the type of data to provide to a Catalog service.

There’s a lot of “push” these days - and has been for years? - about Electronic Catalogs.   Many of the bigger networks/VANs have a catalog service (Inovis & SPS Commerce come to mind) and there are probably more offered out there by companies - big and small - EDI network or not - that can house that data and provide it to your customer base.

This is where you, as a vendor/supplier/manufacturer, can store your product information data - colors, sizes, UPCs, style numbers, descriptions, and more - that can then be accessed by your buyers - the retailers and resellers - for their systems.  Some of the information is used by the end user and some is not.

Then on the flip side - there’s Me - the retailer.  I subscribe to the catalog service provider (in My case - Inovis) and look to that data for product information.  In our case, we’re pretty much only looking to verify the Style Number and UPC information.  Since we decided LONG AGO to not use the NRF size or color codes, that information is irrelevant to us.  Also, we tend to use our own item description that, again, makes your description somewhat irrelevant.  While some of your description is included in ours, we add extra information that may be related to a season (say, Spring, 2008) and other things that may not be included in your description and is very specific to our way of doing business.

The only thing that you provide to the catalog service that we use is the UPC and your published style number.  One of the reasons we don’t use the NRF color codes is that - well, think about your favorite sports team.  Now, think of their colors.  If you’re a San Francisco 49ers fan - it’s Red and Gold.  Oakland (LA) Raiders?  Silver and Black.  LA Lakers?  Purple and Gold.  Philadelphia Eagles?  Green and White.  LA Dodgers?  Blue and White.  So, pick one..

OK, I will.

Let’s say I’m a T-Shirt maker.  And I’m making a line of sports team T-shirts, those “raglan” style ones, where the body of the shirt is one color and the sleeves are another color and meet at the collar.  I think that they’re called “raglan”…  Oh, and the cuffs and color can contrast to the fabric that they’re attached to.  Think of the baseball style T-shirts you see..  Anyway, I’m getting off topic.

So, I’m making team color t-shirts.  And I’m setting up the one for the SF 49ers.  So I make the body of the shirt red - actually, it’s more of a burgandy - and the sleeves are gold.  So I go to the NRF color code list and - hmm - where do I put this shirt..?  Well, it’s red.  No, it’s DARK RED.  Oh, but here’s a number for Burgandy .. and here’s one that is maroon . . . . .

Or we’ll pick the Philly Eagles.  Green and white.  That’s easy.  Oh, wait - maybe not - is it emerald green?  kelly green?  forest green?  moss green? lime green? avacado, string-bean, sage, eucalyptus, clover…?  ARGH!!!!!  What happened to KEEP IT SIMPLE?!?!?!?

Then we get into the NRF codes for size!!!!  ACK!!!  ARGH!!!  Heart stopping.  Hair ripping..  Head exploding..!  While the size doesn’t have as much “wiggle room” as the colors do, there are still some issues to consider.  For example, we sell ammo for firearms.  And we have the caliber of the ammo as the size.  But what if the ammo provider uses the WEIGHT of the round as their size?

One of the things I’d mentioned in a reply to that post - remember the post I mentioned all the way up there at the beginning? - was that I agreed with another reply - in that he needs to follow any hierarchy set up by the catalog provider and to let the buyer - the retailer - to decide what information they were going to use and what information they’re not going to use.  As I said, we don’t pull down the NRF codes nor the description - we look to the STYLE number and UPC information pretty much only.

So, how do you use catalog information?  And do you push or pull the data - i.e. are you the manufacturer or the retailer?