Another supplier template
A department store has agreed to stock the range. Their onboarding pack includes a spreadsheet with ninety columns per product: barcodes for each size, case quantity, product dimensions and weights, full ingredient list, key ingredients, vegan status, country of origin, shelf life, recycling information, and marketing copy in three lengths. Last month a marketplace wanted most of the same information in a different order, and a spa group wanted it again as a PDF.
Someone spends several days collecting facts from the formula spreadsheet, packaging supplier specifications, the website and the product manager's head, and typing them in.
Product facts live in many places
The information exists, but not in one place, and not in a form that can be poured into a template.
- Ingredient lists are in the artwork or the formula records.
- Dimensions and weights of each pack are in packaging supplier specifications, or have never been measured.
- Barcodes are in a spreadsheet managed by whoever registered them.
- Marketing copy is on the website, written for a different length and tone.
- Every retailer names and orders the fields differently.
What the retyping costs
New stockists wait for your data before they can list you, which delays first orders. Errors creep in, such as a barcode typed wrong or an ingredient list from an old formula, and they are hard to correct once the retailer has loaded the data. Updates are worse: when a formula or pack changes, every retailer needs telling, and nobody has a list of what was sent where.
The requests keep getting longer, too. Retailers increasingly ask for packaging material breakdowns, recyclability details and sustainability information alongside the usual facts, and each new field sends someone back to a supplier or a spec sheet that nobody has filed.
A product data hub
- Each product and size has one record holding the facts retailers ask for, pulled where possible from source: ingredient lists from approved formula records, barcodes from your barcode list, pack sizes and dimensions from packaging records, dates rules from stock records.
- Facts that do not exist anywhere yet, such as outer case dimensions, are listed for someone to measure once.
- Marketing copy is held in the lengths retailers usually ask for, written or approved by you.
- Each retailer's template is mapped once: their column names to your fields, their formats for sizes and weights.
- The hub fills the template, marks any field it could not fill, and produces the file for you to check and send. For marketplaces or retailers with a feed or API, it can send updates directly.
- Every file sent is logged, so when a product changes, you know which retailers need updated data.
| Task | By hand | With the hub |
|---|---|---|
| Collecting facts | From many sources each time | Held once, from source |
| New retailer template | Typed row by row | Mapped once, then filled |
| Gaps | Found by the retailer | Flagged before sending |
| Formula or pack change | Nobody knows who to tell | Retailers who received data listed |
Onboarding without the week of typing
A new retailer's template becomes a mapping job and a check, rather than days of typing. The data is consistent across every retailer, and it matches your current formulas and packaging. When something changes, updating everyone who stocks you is a task with a list, not a memory test. The same data can feed your own website and Shopify listings.
Does this sound familiar?
- Every new stockist means days of filling in spreadsheets.
- Product facts are spread across several people and files.
- Retailers have listed products with wrong details.
- Pack dimensions and case weights have never been measured properly.
- You do not know which retailers hold out-of-date data.