Catalog
Overview
The Catalog Maintenance message type, defines the data structures required to support the synchronization of product & price information, between business units. This message set is used in both initial synchronization and delta synchronization scenarios.
Product vs Item
A product is an abstract concept, generally expressed down to a retail unit. e.g. revlon super lustrous lipstick pink
A product has a brand, recommended tax treatment, recommended price, recommended display.
Product data is generally subjective, and provided as a perspective, usually based around human validation, manufacturer/importer input, & supplier voting schemes.
An item is a product in a purchaseable form, e.g. “revlon lipstick pink (4 shelf-pack)”:
It gains a reference id used for purchasing (pde/plu/sku), pack size, minimum order quantity rules, lead time etc.
Item data is not subjective, it is owned by a single organisation, e.g. a retail store can label products however they wish, depending on field widths, and practical constraints on label real-estate.
A product may be linked to several items;
e.g. different wholesalers and suppliers could sell the same pink revlon super lustrous lipstick.
within a supplier, they may sell it in several forms (4-pack, 6-pack, 8-pack), theoretically they may sell the exact same item, in the same pack-size, at different prices based on lead-time.
Therefor from a high level:
A product master, is an accumulated data set of retail items sourced from many manufacturers, importers & suppliers.
Product masters is generally used by head offices, pos vendors, and datawarehouses.
An item master, is a list of products that are in a form that could be sold.
A suppliers item master is generally held inside their ERP (Enterprise Resource Planner) or PIM (Product Information System)
A retailer will also have an item master generally kept inside their POS, or ERP.
When recieving messages from different parties, it is important to take into consideration the relationship between the two organisations; e.g. a pharmacy is a “buyer” with respect to a supplier, but a pharmacy is a “seller” with respect to a consumer marketplace or nearby aged care facility.
Maintenance Suffix
The Catalog Maintenance area, makes heavy use of the “Maintenance” Suffix. This suffix indicates that this is an object that is being maintained (which is different to say a transaction which is final), as such it has a StatusCode; generally active, discontinued, suppy-stopped etc. It also allows synchronization requests via this status code method.