Mega Collections: 8,000 GS1 Items Uploaded in One Month

Mega Collections loaded 8,000 garden products into the GS1 datapool in a month. The garden supplier sells to retailers that take the catalogue through that pool, including Intratuin, GRS and Welkoop. The month was a mapping and onboarding job. The upload followed once the items matched the GS1 model.

Why the GS1 model comes first

A retailer on the GS1 datapool cannot list an item it cannot read. The same attributes have to mean the same thing at the supplier and at Intratuin, GRS and Welkoop. The handoff has to use that model. A new product waits until the record is complete enough to send. The GS1 data model is strict. Without a tool that can align a garden catalogue to it, and without people who know the model, those 8,000 items sit in a queue.

Who did the work

Qmica analysed the data, converted it and aligned it to the GS1 standard, so the catalogue could be managed against the model the datapool expects. Master Data Partners knows GS1, Qmica and this kind of data work, and that team ran the onboarding of the 8,000 articles. Qmica, Master Data Partners and PIMvendors offer that split together under the name GS1 Kickstart.

What to copy

If your retailers take the catalogue through the GS1 datapool, budget the month for mapping and enrichment. The upload follows once the items match. GS1, ETIM and ECLASS explains what the GS1 model is for and how a PIM uses it when product data has to be exchanged. Product data quality and governance is the discipline behind an aligned record: complete attributes, one meaning per field, and someone who owns the exceptions. The onboarding layer is why that work often sits in front of the PIM, in a mapping tool and a specialist team, which is the split on this catalogue. What a PIM is is the system of record those 8,000 items have to land in once GS1 can accept them.