Products are the lifeblood of any commerce operation. Without them, there’s nothing to sell and no reason for customers to interact with a brand. Whether it’s a direct-to-consumer business with a few items or a complex B2B2C model managing millions of products across various vendors, having high-quality product data available, structured, and exposed through fast APIs is essential for success. Product data is a key part of the Aries Composable Confidence Assessment where our professionals will take a deep dive into a specific business. However, here are some high-level items that are consistent across a composable architecture.
The Initial Build
Before products can be sold, they must be designed and built. This often starts in a Product Information Management (PIM) system, either at the manufacturer’s end or within your organization. Product data is then transferred over via Feed, Event, API, or EDI processes to ensure that the initial set of data is complete and accurate.
Merchandising Enrichment
The next critical step is to sync this data from the PIM into the commerce engine. This data is often referred to as base data, as it includes basic product identifiers and specifications but lacks the enriched content needed during the sales cycle. Therefore, a process of merchandising enrichment follows, where product data is enhanced by adding content such as 360-degree images, lifestyle photos, assets, and rich descriptions. Additionally, specific data points like colors may be renamed from their PMS codes to more user-friendly names to enhance engagement and SEO performance.
This enrichment often occurs after syncing to the commerce engine due to different team responsibilities for product design and sales. Efficient workflow management within the commerce engine can greatly streamline this process.
This data is not sent back to the originating system. Instead, products go through a unidirectional flow from system to system. This prevents overwriting data and makes it extremely clear where to look if issues do arise.
Beyond the Commerce Platform
For many companies, the journey might seem complete once the product can be sold. The commerce engine handles functionalities from product discovery to fulfillment. However, for businesses aiming to increase sales, improve customer experiences, or enhance productivity, more targeted solutions come into play.
Product Discovery and Search
Products are often sent to search or broader product discovery services at this stage. These tools provide powerful capabilities for managing search and product listing pages. Leading providers also offer recommendations across the user experience. These services require a subset of the product data. They focus only on attributes relevant to search and discovery to keep the product index efficient and search speeds fast.
Content Management System Integration
A content management system (CMS) may also require product data to embed products on key content pages, such as homepage callouts or related products on blog posts. Rather than syncing a full list of products, a cleaner approach is for the CMS to query the commerce platform or search provider for products. This ensures that content remains current as product information changes.
Data Warehousing for Analytics
Product data is often synchronized to a data warehouse for detailed reporting and analytics. This allows businesses to gain insights into product performance, customer behavior, and other critical metrics to inform strategic decisions.
Order Management and ERP Systems
Finally, product data goes to Order Management Systems (OMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Here, it’s crucial to copy relevant product data and attributes needed for an order rather than just linking back to the main product data. This ensures that order details remain consistent even if products are modified over time, preserving the accuracy of the historical record.
Conclusion
In a robust composable commerce solution, managing the flow of product data is about more than transferring information. It’s about ensuring each component has the right information at the right time. This approach not only enhances the customer experience but also optimizes operations and drives growth in a competitive market. By understanding and supporting the needs of each system component, businesses can maintain the integrity and relevance of product data throughout its journey, setting the stage for success.
Modern MACH companies provide events and APIs streamlining these integrations and making them easy. However, it can feel overwhelming and impossible on older monolithic offerings. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It only means you’ll need to get creative and work with experts. Here at Aries, we have dealt with integrating modern MACH solutions with all sorts of legacy tech, from nightly XML feeds to building new APIs and handling fixed-width data. In the transition from an old to a modern composable solution, it’s typical to have a variety of integrations. This should be expected. The important thing is to keep focus on business value as the transition happens.
Consider going through the Aries Composable Confidence Assessment and getting a personalized plan for more insights into product data.