How can product data from different suppliers with different quality levels be brought online automatically? This e-commerce infrastructure makes it possible.
The management of Building Materials Suisse (BMS), the largest trader of building materials in the field of shell construction and interior finishing in Switzerland, has addressed this question. Well-known brands such as Baubedarf, Richner, Gétaz, Miauton and Regusci Reco are sold under the BMS umbrella brand. Well anchored locally, these brands have become an integral part of the Swiss construction industry. Due to company acquisitions and the consistent multi-brand strategy, various online shops based on different technologies, such as desktop publishing (DTP) systems with low scalability, have been created over time.
In order to achieve the declared goal of being able to offer the main part of the product range online on a common database, BMS was looking for strong technology partners who could support the replacement of the existing infrastructure with a modern and future-oriented e-commerce strategy.
For BMS, a future-oriented e-commerce infrastructure is the use of a modern PIM, where all webshop-relevant product data can be stored centrally and, on the other hand, the possibility to quickly and easily upload product data from different data sources, namely from suppliers and internal catalogue systems.
With the introduction of a PIM, the additional question arose of how product data can be optimally modelled so that they can not only be found quickly in the online shop, but can also be compared with other products. In addition, the products should also be described in such an informative way that they also fulfil the data requirements of other sales channels.
With a clear goal, strong technology partners and a coherent strategy, BMS has succeeded in building an e-commerce infrastructure in which products can be automatically on-boarded and stored in a central location in the appropriate e-commerce quality. This means that products can be displayed and updated in the online shop more quickly.
To ensure that the data in the PIM is available in the desired quality, a clear, structured onboarding process was implemented with the core steps of product categorisation and assignment of the supplier attributes to the BMS attributes. The artificial intelligence of the Onedot platform automatically generated categorisation suggestions for the products, which could be checked by the user and overridden if necessary. This feedback helped to further train the AI and thus to further increase the accuracy of future categorisation suggestions. Parallel to the onboarding, the product data model (PDM) of the BMS was also expanded, specifically the category tree and the product attributes per category including value lists. The categorisation and mapping suggestions of the Onedot software helped to identify gaps and to point out non-mappable supplier attributes to the user. In this way, the product data model could be further expanded and professionalised with each onboarding.
With this onboarding process, more than 400,000 SKUs have already been created or enriched in the PIM via the Onedot platform. In addition to individual suppliers, the large data catalogue of the Swiss Wholesale Association of the Sanitary Industry (SGVSB) was also imported into the new PIM via the Onedot product data platform. In the future, other product catalogues are to be connected automatically.
Today, BMS has a modern, powerful and flexible e-commerce infrastructure that allows it to continue to compete successfully in the national market and to flexibly expand or adapt its diverse product range.
