PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
December, 2006
PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
Doug Ayers
WPC Technical Sales
Kimberly Simms
WPC Services Solution Management
Geoff Bernard
WPC Tech Sales
PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
CONTENTS
1
Solution Overview ................................................................................................... 3
2
Business Problem ................................................................................................... 3
3
Value Proposition .................................................................................................... 5
4
High Level Systems Architecture............................................................................ 6
5
Solution components............................................................................................... 7
5.1
Data Modeling ............................................................................................. 7
5.2
Business Processes .................................................................................. 11
5.3
Integrations ................................................................................................ 13
5.4
Other.......................................................................................................... 15
6
Implementation Approach & Methodology............................................................ 16
7
Other Considerations & Best Practice.................................................................. 18
8
Appendix................................................................................................................ 19
8.1
Definitions and Acronyms ......................................................................... 19
ii
PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
1
Solution Overview
The WebSphere Product Center (currently at Version 5.3.1) PIM for eCommerce
solution enables businesses to more effectively and efficiently manage information
about the products offered on their business to consumer (B2C) online stores. The
solution provides capabilities, which simplify and improve the process for
authoring, enriching, consolidating, and validating product information. The
solution is an essential tool for those businesses looking to ensure potential
eCommerce customers see only accurate, complete, and compelling product
information. In addition to customer facing sites, this solution can also be used to
support business to business (B2B) sites and even internal help sites.
Though this solution is applicable across a broad range of industries, the
numerous successful deployments by retailers and distributors demonstrate an
especially good fit for those segments. Leveraging that experience, IBM has
developed a repeatable framework that incorporates learned best practices.
The following paper describes at a high level the business problem companies
face, the value they can achieve from deploying the PIM for eCommerce solution,
and also the solution’s components.
2
Business Problem
Companies that use WebSphere Product Center frequently select it to solve the
problem of managing content which is displayed on their internal or customer Web
sites. The problems they have presented include:
• Product information managed via manual, paper processes: Manual
paper processes lack structure and validation logic which result in slow time
to market for product information, as well as poor data quality.
•
Product information for Web sites stored in multiple solutions: This
type of scenario leaves business users with no single place to review and
approve what data will be published to a Web site, resulting in process
inefficiencies, poor data quality, lack of data ownership, and high system
maintenance costs.
•
Poor data quality: Many legacy systems and/or processes lack the ability
to validate and structure product data to meet Web site requirements. In
some cases, Web sites will not allow data to be published unless it meets a
certain level of validation which could decrease sales opportunities. In
cases where poor product data is published, the result can be even worse -
PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
•
overall customer confusion, which could result in costly product returns or a
missed sales opportunity all together due to customer frustration.
Limited ability to author and maintain rich product information: Many
existing legacy systems lack the ability to expand their data model to
support rich attributes which can provide a more complete, overall product
definition on a Web site. Customers whom are unable to obtain all the
information they require to make a Web site purchase may shop elsewhere.
This type of problem also prevents companies from responding to neverending changing market demands and standards.
•
Limited ability to support seasonal requirements: Product information is
often seasonal in nature, or may need to be customized when different
market segments are being targeted. Many legacy systems lack the ability
to manage these types of requirements, which could result in “out of
season” items being published on Web sites, or invalid information causing
customer confusion. For example, it would not make sense for Halloween
items to be showing up on a customer Web site during Easter.
•
Inability to support the relationship of unstructured to structured
content: Many customer systems lack the ability to cleanly associate
product information to images, PDF files, and reference documentation,
which is key to providing a customer with the appropriate information to
support a product sale.
The following real world company scenarios support the overall business problem
statement for PIM for eCommerce solutions:
• A mid-size retailer, which owns and operates seven separate, home
centered retail businesses had been dependent on manual, spreadsheetbased processes to produce their seasonal catalogs which were published
on their customer Web site. Each business unit produced 12-20 distinct
catalogs per year, and on average, 40-70% of the offerings changed
between seasons. All of this data was manually updated to their customer
Web site.
Because the retailer was unable to respond to market demands fast
enough, and data quality was becoming an issue, the retailer realized their
product information would need to be consolidated into a centralized,
controlled repository to support the quick publication of new and modified
content to their commerce site.
The company selected WebSphere Product Center to support the collection
and management of product information in order to decrease their time to
market of product information, as well as decrease their dependency on IT
to make product changes on their commerce Web site. Through the
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PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
deployment of a consolidated product information repository, use of
workflow, automated publication, and integration with a custom content
management solution, this company was able to achieve their objectives.
•
One of the world’s largest business-to-business suppliers of essential office
and computer products faced multiple problems surrounding inaccurate
data managed by an internally developed, access database solution. The
legacy, home-built system was unable to produce clean, quality product
data to their commerce site and external third parties, resulting in many
missed sales opportunities.
The company selected WebSphere Product Center to support the collection
and enrichment of rich product information to support their customer Web
site. The solution implemented in production included validation logic
across all data created and maintained which helped to ensure that all
product data met the quality criteria for publication, maximizing their sales
potential, achieving one of their primary objectives.
3
Value Proposition
By deploying the WebSphere Product Center PIM for eCommerce solution,
businesses can realize tangible benefits and deliver real business value. Typical
metrics for measuring that return on investment include:
• Increased Revenue by providing rich content to commerce Web sites
which has a direct impact on the commerce sales channel, and reducing
time to market of new products.
o By presenting rich, compelling product information to potential
customers at the time they are making their buying decisions,
businesses can convert a higher percentage of browsers into
shoppers.
o Introducing products through a web channel quickly maximizes a
company’s revenue opportunity. If the product isn’t available on-line
when the customer expects it to be, the customer could shop
elsewhere. This also has an impact on future sales opportunities as
well.
• Increased Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty by improving the end
customer’s shopping experience.
o Consolidating all of the information and assets related to a
commerce item, including detailed descriptions, images, music,
video, and manuals help customers know ahead of time they’ll be
getting exactly what they want or need.
o As items in the product assortment can be organized for easy
navigation, shoppers can more easily and readily find the items they
want to purchase.
5
PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
•
4
o Happier customers are more loyal customers and are less likely to
frequent competitor’s sites.
Reduced Costs by improving productivity and reducing returns.
o Inefficient processes take longer and require more effort to execute.
Simplifying and automating (where applicable) the process of
publishing product information to the commerce web site can reduce
costs. Cumbersome manual processes are replaced by streamlined
workflow, automating steps where applicable, to orchestrate the
collaboration of creators and approvers across organizational
boundaries.
o When customers know ahead of time they are purchasing exactly
product they want or need, they are much less likely to return that
product. Fewer returns mean lower processing costs and higher
profits.
o Accurate product information on the Web site minimizes ordering
and invoice errors that are costly to correct and harm customer
satisfaction.
o Exchanging information with vendors is simplified as inbound data
can be validated for format and content. The need for manual review
can be limited to solely the exceptions.
High Level Systems Architecture
The following figure depicts typical solution architecture. The specific components
of this architecture are described in the Integration Solution Components Section.
6
PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
Possibly, an
internally
developed
product and
information
system.
Item Master
For example,
applications
such as
eCommerce
WebSphere
Solution
Commerce,
and ATG.
EAI
WebSphere
Product Center
EAI
Content
Management
/ Image
Repository
EAI
For example,
applications
such as IBM
Content
Manager, and
Documentum.
Operational
Systems could
include data
warehouse,
Operational
Systems
and ERP.
Other
Item Content
Feeds
5
5.1
Solution components
Data Modeling
The solution data model includes five major components:
§ Product entities and their attributes
§ Vendor entity & vendor/item relationships
§ Web merchandising/navigation hierarchy (for example, the arrangement
of product categories and their associated attributes.)
§ Relationship modeling
§ Users & roles modeling
The descriptions of these components can be found in the table below.
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PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
Data Modeling Solution Components
Solution Component
Solution Description
Product Entity
The Product (or Item) Entity - This most fundamental
component of the data model, contains all attributes
needed to describe the product to potential
customers. The number of attributes varies from 150
to 200, but typically can be broken up into the
following categories:
• Identifying attributes – SKU number, UPC, and
so. Note: identifying attributes and even the
basic product definition varies from industry to
industry. For example, in the grocery industry,
a SKU number may completely identify a
product, whereas in fashion/clothing a product
may be defined by a particular SKU/Color/Size
combination.
• Descriptions – short descriptions (for example,
an invoice), full descriptions with all features
and options completely described and so on.
• Images – for example, thumbnail images, high
resolution images, images showing product
variations (for example, different colors,
configurations), images showing different
perspectives and so on. Note: The best
practice is for images to continue to be stored
and managed in a separate image or content
management system. The PIM for eCommerce
solution manages the relationship of the image
to the product and the context of that
relationship (for example, “x00123.jpg” is the
thumbnail for SKU 039920.)
• Promotional Copy – bulleted lists of features
and benefits.
• “Category-Specific” Attributes – different types
of products naturally require different, specific
sets of attributes to describe them (for example
attributes such as color, size, style, and fabric
for clothing and attributes such as aperture,
shutter speed, lens specifications for cameras).
These category-specific attributes vary not only
from industry to industry, but also potentially
from product type to product type for any
particular business.
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PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
The Product Entity typically does not include price
attributes (except perhaps for the product’s list price).
The actual selling price is determined dynamically by
the commerce engine or external pricing tool, which is
better suited to consider factors such as order size,
customer contracts and so on.
Vendor Entity &
Vendor/Item
Relationships
Web
merchandising/navigation
hierarchy
Particularly when a distributor or reseller hosts the
commerce site, attributes may need to be maintained
about the vendor or manufacturer of the items.
Typically, this is a small set of fifteen to twenty
attributes and includes attributes such as vendor
name, address, and contact information (mostly for
internal use). This is done largely to support
customers browsing the Web site whom may want to
know the identity of the product manufacturer or
vendor so the data model needs to capture that
relationship.
Vendors can be modeled using a Vendor Hierarchy or
as a Vendor Catalog (with link attributes on the
product pointing to the correct vendor.)
The Web Merchandising/Navigation hierarchy mirrors
the product categories and sub-categories a shopper
clicks through when visiting the commerce site. To
simplify the shopping experience, this hierarchy is
generally relatively flat, that is no more than two or
perhaps three levels deep. Since customers may
intuitively search for items in different ways, products
or even product categories may be attached to this
hierarchy in multiple places.
For example, a Web hierarchy could have the
following categories:
-Electronics
-Televisions
-Flat Screen Televisions
Categories themselves often have attributes, such as:
• Features/Benefits – When the same features
and benefits apply to all products within a
product category, these attributes can be more
easily maintained at the category level.
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PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
Item-Relationships
Users/Roles
Consider, for example, labels for laser printers
– the fact that they are attractive and easy to
peel from the backing applies regardless of
variations in labels/sheet or sheets/box.
• Images – In commerce sites, product
categories often have their own featured page,
displaying not only features and benefits, but
also images.
• Organizational Attributes – Organizational
attributes, such as a department codes or
responsibility, may also be maintained at the
category level, not for the purpose of displaying
on the commerce site, but rather for internal
tracking and accounting.
An effective commerce web site must also be able to
identify and manage the relationships between
products, for example:
• Cross-sell and up-sell products can be
identified in order to encourage shoppers to
purchase additional or higher margin products.
• Bundles and kits: stores may wish to sell
certain items in combination (for example, a
“birthday kit” that includes matching greeting
cards, paper plates, napkins, and wrapping
paper) for a single price, or under special terms
and policies.
• Replacement Products: Web sites might want
to offer a replacement product if one is
currently out of stock.
These relationships can be modeled as either
relationship attributes or link attributes.
The following are user roles that most industries
usually require:
• Category Manager or Item Specialists responsible for a category of data (or multiple),
managing item relationships, such as crosssells and up-sells, proper categorization of data
into a Web merchandising hierarchy, and core
product information.
• Creative Content Contributor – responsible for
authoring the rich product descriptions, bulleted
lists of features and benefits, promotional copy,
and so on.
• Photostudio Contributor – responsible for
10
PIM for eCommerce
Solution Definition
•
5.2
creating and/or assigning appropriate images
and other digital assets to be displayed on the
commerce site
Buyers/Merchandise Managers/Marketing
Manager – those with the knowledge to
properly review the product information and the
authority to approve it prior to publication to the
commerce site
Business Processes
The most common business processes implemented in the PIM for eCommerce
Solution include the New Commerce Item Enrichment Workflow and the Existing
Commerce Item Maintenance Workflow. Details of these processes can be found
in the table, below:
Business Process Solution Components
Solution Component
Solution Description
New Commerce Item
Generally, supplemental product information, beyond
Enrichment Workflow
the basic codes and descriptions, is needed for
effective selling through a Web commerce store. This
process manages the creation, review, and approval
of that information. Though they are sometimes
combined or ordered differently, typical steps in this
workflow process include:
• Import Items: This process is most often
triggered by a new item import. These items
are loaded with only a subset of attributes
populated, usually only the codes,
abbreviations, and short descriptions required
by other applications. See notes on Item
Master Import, below, for additional comments.
The information source (for example, an Excel
spreadsheet, a particular legacy or third party
application and so on) should be captured and
recorded in this step.
Note: In cases where WPC is positioned as the
item master for all product information, core
attributes may also be defined at this stage in
which this turns into more of a New Product
Introduction type workflow with commerce
enrichment capabilities.
• Classify Items: If the proper data is provided
upon import, then automated classification is
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Solution Definition
•
•
•
•
Existing Commerce Item
Maintenance Workflow
the most desired. If not, the manual
classification of items takes place in this step to
the Web/merchandising hierarchy.
Add Commerce Attributes: Promotional copy,
bulleted lists of features and benefits, and other
similar item attributes are populated.
Associate Digital Assets: Various images (for
example, thumbnails, high resolution photos,
and views from multiple orientations), sound
clips, or other digital are associated with the
product. This step can include integration with
other content management systems either
directly or using IBM’s Single View of Product
Solution.
Manage Relationships: Item to item
relationships, such as cross-sell,up-sell,
substitutes, bundles, kits, and so on, are
established.
Review and Approve Enrichment: After item
enrichments are reviewed for consistency,
accuracy, and effectiveness, those with
appropriate responsibility can accept or reject
the changes.
Even after the completion of the initial product
enrichment, it’s often desirable to implement a
structured change process for modifying that
information. Though they are sometimes combined or
ordered differently, typical steps in this workflow
process include:
• Modify Commerce Attributes: Promotional
copy, bulleted lists of features and benefits,
and other similar attributes are modified as
needed.
• Associate Digital Assets: Various images (for
example, thumbnails, high resolution photos,
and views from multiple orientations), sound
clips, or other digital associated with the
product are changed as needed. This step can
include integration with other content
management systems either directly or using
IBM’s Single View of Product Solution.
• Manage Relationships: Item to item
relationships, such as cross-sell, up-sell,
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Solution Definition
•
•
5.3
substitutes, bundles, kits and so on are
reviewed and modified as needed.
Item Classification: Items are optionally reclassified according to the Web merchandising
/navigation and vendor hierarchies.
Review and Approve Enrichment: After item
modifications are reviewed for consistency,
accuracy, and effectiveness, those with
appropriate responsibility can accept or reject
the changes.
Integrations
The PIM for eCommerce Solution consumes and supplies data to/from internal
and external systems and applications. In WPC, these operations are typically
done through import and export scripts, leveraging various types of transport
mechanisms including ftp, mq, jms, http, jdbc (only outbound data), and Web
services. The use of an EAI solution helps to alleviate the amount of exports
scripts required to be written in WPC, and should be considered a best practice for
controlling the flow of information.
The following integration touch points can be expected in a PIM for eCommerce
solution, and are detailed in the table below:
Solution Component
Item Master Import
Integration Solution Components
Solution Description
As a best practice, introduction of new products into
an organization should take place in one system to
avoid unnecessary integration and synchronization.
This solution acts as the system of record for
commerce but not necessarily the entire enterprise.
Therefore, items should be imported into this solution
from the external system acting as the overall product
master. An example of this is an ERP application.
However, since many businesses are still relying on
manual systems to maintain or enrich their product
information, item information is sometimes imported
from Excel spreadsheets. These spreadsheets may
be maintained internally or received from vendors.
To support the initial deployment of the solution, a
complete import of all product records is required.
After that, however, successive imports generally
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Solution Definition
contain only changed items. For example, added,
updated, or deleted items. Usually, the Item Master
Import is scheduled to run daily.
Marketing Data Import
Note: In cases where WPC is also acting as the
source of record for all product data, not just
commerce data, the Item Master import would not be
necessary, and would most likely be modified to be an
import of vendor data either from a portal, GDS, or
manual spreadsheet upload.
Additional marketing or merchandising information or
artifacts, such as images for example, may also need
to be imported from external systems.
For example, manually maintained merchandising
information may be imported directly from
spreadsheets. A feed from a content management
system may be required to update the associations of
items and images or other digital assets.
Commerce Export
Data Warehouse Export
As with the Item Master Import, a full import is
required for the initial deployment while successive
imports need only include changes. Usually, the
Marketing Data Import is scheduled to run daily.
Product information is exported from the solution in
order to feed the commerce application. Any export
format can be accommodated for example. CSV or
XML, however the format selected has to take into
account any constraints the commerce application
imposes.
Typically, this is not a full catalog export, but rather
one that extracts only products that have been
changed (for example, updated, inserted, or deleted)
since the last export. Depending on how frequently
the product information changes and how quickly that
information needs to be pushed to the commerce site,
this export may be scheduled to run at regular
intervals throughout the day.
Product information may also be exported to populate
a data warehouse. Again, any export format required
by the target data warehouse application can be
accommodated, but typically some flat, character
delimited format such as CSV suffices.
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Solution Definition
Vendor Portal
This export may be scheduled to run at regular
intervals as needed. For example, daily or often even
weekly or monthly.
When product information must be obtained directly
from vendors, the time and effort needed to process
transmitted files in numerous, varied formats can be
excessive. An optional component of the PIM for
eCommerce Solution is a vendor portal application
that can potentially eliminate the effort to manually
enter supplier data. Rather than sending files,
vendors would log into the application across the
internet and manually enter (or possibly upload in a
prescribed format) their own product information.
The application itself would be implemented as a set
portlets to be deployed in a portal server, such as
IBM’s WebSphere Portal Server. Proper security
insures that vendors can see and update only their
products.
5.4
Other
The following table describes additional functionality typically modeled in a PIM for
eCommerce Solution:
Solution Component
Item Preview Capability
Other Solution Components
Solution Description
An item preview capability can be provided as an
optional component of this solution allowing the
person creating or updating the product information to
see how the commerce site shows the product
(that’s always a primary concern, because that’s
where customers ultimately can see the product).
The item preview eliminates the need for multiple
iterations of incremental updates from the PIM to the
eCommerce systems.
This preview requires integration with the eCommerce
application so that users can invoke relevant
commerce screens from within the PIM environment
and be presented with the item information they’ve
just updated. Typically, this page preview tool is
implemented in WebSphere Product Center as an
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Solution Definition
Support for Seasonality
entry preview script.
In some cases, customers may wish to control
releases to a Web site by season or promotion. When
this is the case, the majority of the functionality
required will be the same, however additional
requirements to archive old seasons or promotional
data may be required, as well as to reuse or “clone”
old data for new seasons or promotions may be
required.
The requirements to archive data can be
accomplished by the use of mass update scripts to
change flags to recognize seasonal or promotional
data preventing publication, and data can be stored in
a separate catalog or external database as usage
requirements will dictate. In addition, the use of
effective dates on items can control publication and
archiving.
The requirements to reuse or “clone” data can be
done through the use of “clone” functionality, or by
leveraging the WPC scripting framework.
6
Implementation Approach & Methodology
The implementation approach and methodology needs to take into consideration
several key factors.
Proceed Before, During, or After Commerce Implementation? Be aware of
projects attempting to implement the PIM and the commerce solution, in parallel.
Two moving targets require significant project synchronization with respect to
requirements, priorities, and strong governance capability in the organization.
However, when the commerce implementation occurs before or rather
independent of, the PIM solution, there is a tendency is to include too much PIMlike functionality in the original scope of the commerce project. An appropriate
balance must be achieved. By considering the whole scope ahead of time, each
tool (for example, the PIM and commerce solutions), can be leveraged for those
requirements for which they’re best suited. However, during the actual
implementation, dependencies between the two projects should be minimized.
Project Phasing Strategies: As with any large scale project, incremental,
iterative releases are generally less risky than the “big bang” deployment. Having
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Solution Definition
a well-planned and appropriate phasing strategy can be the key to success. Three
potential phasing strategies are discussed, below:
Phasing By Functionality
With this approach, all of the data is be loaded for the initial implementation phase,
but not all of the functionality is delivered. Incremental function can be added with
each successive deployment. With this approach, the data model, the item
imports, and commerce export are all completed in phase I. Certain workflows,
custom tools, and non-commerce integration points, however, could be deferred to
later phases.
By phasing the delivery of the new functionality, you minimize the risk of
introducing too much change into an organization, too quickly. Introducing or
changing too many workflow processes, at once, for example, can be
overwhelming.
Phasing By Data
In this case, all of the functionality (for example, workflow processes, integrations,
and custom tools) is delivered in the first phase, but not all of the data is loaded.
For example, the first release might include products from only a handful of
specified product categories. Additional product categories are added with
successive releases until all of the data is fully loaded.
With this approach, even though more change is introduced at one time, the
number of users who are impacted is reduced. This makes it easier to manage
that change, as a smaller number of impacted users can be more easily trained
and mentored. Another benefit of this approach is that these “early adopters”
become experienced users who can mentor those impacted by successive
phases.
For this approach to be viable, however, the legacy systems must continue to feed
product information to the Web site until all categories have been loaded into the
new solution.
Phasing By Brand/Banner
This is a variation of the “Phasing By Data” approach described, above. However,
instead of phasing the loading of the data by category, the phasing is done by
brand or by store banner. Hence, the same general limitations and benefits apply.
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7
Other Considerations & Best Practice
Keep the PIM and Commerce Systems Loosely Coupled: When possible,
utilize a generic format for the PIM to Commerce data feeds. Not only does this
decrease the implementation effort, it can also simplify the ongoing system
maintenance and enhancements. Data model requirements for both PIM and
Commerce continue to evolve, and the goal should be to minimize the
dependencies that can impact an organization’s ability to respond, quickly. Many
commerce systems provide or can leverage external data integration capabilities.
Examine the options before deciding to standardize on a proprietary commerce
data format.
Decide What Does Not Belong In the PIM: Although the PIM system does act
as the system of record for the commerce site and provide a single point of control
for product information, not every piece of information needs to pass through the
PIM system. For example, the PIM system probably should not be used to
manage pricing even so something like “list price” may be included. When a
customer actually purchases an item, the price can depend on depend on multiple
factors, such as order quantity, the customer’s identity and negotiated contracts,
shipping location and so on. Most businesses already have other systems to
manage this. Leverage those rather than trying to replicate those rules and
agreements in the PIM.
Leverage Core Strengths of Other Software Solutions Where Appropriate:
The PIM and commerce solutions offer strong, complementary capabilities for
enabling customer facing, eCommerce sites. However, other software applications
with relevant, niche capabilities may also be leveraged in the overall solution,
particularly when an organization has already made an investment in those
technologies. Two classes of applications that should be looked at in particular are
enterprise integration and image/content management solutions. The integration
software can extract and transform data from other enterprise applications before
it’s consolidated in the PIM solution. Also, as mentioned, it can also be used to
transform a generic data feed from the PIM solution into a proprietary format used
by the commerce application. As for image/content management applications,
these remain very appropriate technologies for storing and managing the large
number of digital assets containing product information. The PIM solution is ideal
for managing the context of those assets (for example, is this a thumbnail image
for a Web site display or a high resolution image for a product promotion?) and
making all of the proper associations to actual products.
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8
8.1
Appendix
Definitions and Acronyms
Acronym
CPG
GDS
IBM
NPI
DW
PIM
UI
WPC
Definition
Consumer Packaged Goods
Global Data Synchronization
International Business Machines
New Product Introduction
Data Warehouse
Product Information Management
User Interface
WebSphere Product Center
19
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