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November 29, 1999

Build The E-Commerce Catalog
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"We require all data in the Ariba Network to be represented in the cXML format, so that buyers and sellers can easily exchange catalog information," says Achim Voermanek, manager of E-commerce at Ariba. The site provides catalog-management service to several major companies, including Dell Computer and Cisco Systems.

In the end, the format that is adopted most often will become the ad hoc industry standard, analysts predict. Further, each vertical industry will need common ways of describing business processes specific to those segments, such as the RosettaNet proposals.

"Standards-based products are very important to getting and normalizing catalog content across different vendors quickly and cost-effectively," says Granada's Byles.

Still, today's products come with different capabilities, and the choice of the right catalog-management tool will depend on what a corporation or marketplace needs. Some products do basic aggregation by mapping catalog items in text and flat files as well as structured databases into Web formats. Others add the ability to create a uniform set of attributes to identify catalog items based on rules. Then there are products that respond to requests for unusual items by pulling or extracting them from other Web sites. A few provide back-end integration with business and financial applications for order entry and procurement.

In many instances, users are starting to combine products from two or more vendors to create comprehensive systems. Defense uses PartNet's products for catalog aggregation and is planning to deploy webMethods' B2B for back-end integration with EMall's suppliers.

W.W. Grainger Inc., a leading maintenance, repair, and operations supplier, is mixing and matching several catalog-management tools to cope with the demands of two extranets and thousands of supplier catalogs. Grainger's extranet comprises 2,000 suppliers offering 210,000 items. In addition, Grainger is one of six suppliers at OrderZone.com, an online-procurement site for office and industrial supplies.

Photo by Jeff Sciortino "We understand that all vendors cannot be all things to all people; this means we have had to use Requisite Technology's product for searching and content normalization; OnDisplay's CenterStage for aggregation and mapping; and webMethods' B2B as a transaction parsing tool to do back-end integration with our ERP system," says Ron Paulson, Grainger's executive director of product information and sourcing.

Profile Systems aggregates and categorizes catalog items, but it does not yet cleanse or normalize data to create a uniform description and associated parameters. CardoNet offers both, using agent technology and a customizable rules engine to map and create a common view of catalog data. Mergent's InfoMaster, which can be deployed on the buy and sell sides, supports a broad spectrum of parameters to define products, and lets data be cached on the fly.

OnDisplay and webMethods provide back-end integration with suppliers' and buyers' enterprise resource planning systems; webMethods offers a more secure and tighter back-end integration, but does not map unstructured data. Poet Software combines a database and catalog-management software.

It's important to note that content-management products from Eprise, InterWoven, and Vignette serve a broader need, providing a way to manage overall content created on the intranets and extranets. Vignette, however, does offer some catalog management, as well.

For the most part, the cost of catalog-management tools varies depending on what they do. Prices can start as low as $5,000 and reach $500,000 or more. But there are other ways to pay for catalog aggregation than making a huge initial investment. Cadabra offers a catalog aggregation and update service for 80 market segments, including home appliances and sporting goods. The company charges 2% to 15% of the total value of a transaction as a commission.

Indeed, several vendors, including Profile Systems and CardoNet, are looking to provide catalog aggregation services in addition to selling software licenses. That should help online marketplaces that need a quick and less expensive ramp up.

The increasing number of vendors, products, and services targeting the catalog aggregation and search market shows that it is a crucial issue for online procurement and marketplace sites. And it is a growing market.

The bottom line: "Catalog management is the Achilles' heel of all E-commerce," says Tim Minahan, research director of E-business at Aberdeen Group, "because you can't buy what you cannot find."

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