Learn how SKUtrak can help you harmonise your product data.
SKUtrak's Product Data Management tools help you maintain and manage your product master data and the mappings that exist between the retailer's product codes and your own.
Background
Product codes present a challenge when working with retailer data.
If you want to report performance in a consistent way, uncover brand-level trends, or connect data to internal tools or systems, you will first need to map the retailers' codes to your own.
These mappings aren't provided anywhere and need to be created manually; hours can be lost painstakingly entering the mappings into spreadsheets, only for them to go out of date the second a new product is launched. As with any manual task, the risk of errors is high, and too often, the result is inaccurate or incomplete mappings, misleading analysis, and a loss of trust in the data.
Product Data Management in SKUtrak
SKUtrak has two tools, Product Master and Product Matching, that allow you to break free of cumbersome spreadsheets and help your organisation benefit from accurate, up-to-date product data. With SKUtrak, you benefit from:
- ⚡ Semi-automated matching: SKUtrak uses AI to suggest which of your products is the most likely match for every new product that appears, turning a time-consuming manual search into a single click to confirm.
- 📈 Quality control and alerting: SKUtrak shows you what percentage of your products are mapped and alerts you whenever a new product has appeared and needs to be mapped, helping you to stay in control.
- ✅ Full change history: SKUtrak provides full traceability of every change made to your product data, so you can quickly identify the source of any new issues and feel confident in the accuracy of your data.
💡 What about EANs?
EANs or GTINs (barcodes) serve as a standardised way to identify products, thus addressing a part of the challenge of product mapping. However, these codes are frequently missing from the data feeds retailers provide, and even when present, they can be incomplete or inconsistent. Therefore, an alternative solution based on retailer codes is often required.
Product Master
Product Master allows you to upload and manage your Organisation's product definitions within SKUtrak. To access Product Master, click the Data Management icon in the top menu and select "Product Master" from the drop-down. With Product Master, you can:
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Upload and manage your product definitions
- Create additional attributes to better describe your products
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Increase the quality of your product data with the Action Required view
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Keep a log of all changes to your product definitions with the Changelog
Product Matching
Once you have added your product definitions, you must link them to the retailer definitions in your data feeds. To do this, use Product Matching to 'match' each retailer code to its equivalent. To access Product Matching, click the Data Management icon in the top menu and select "Product Matching" from the drop-down. With Product Master, you can:
- Match new retailer product codes to your internal product definitions
- Edit or delete existing matches
- Exclude products that you don't want appearing in your SKUtrak service
- Keep a log of all changes to your product matches and exclusions
Getting Started
Are you setting up your organisation's product data for the first time?
Take a look at our "Getting Started with Product Data Management" guide to see how to get everything set up, as well as some helpful tips and best practices.
Products already set up, but looking for guidance on using the tools?
Check out our set of how-to guides and videos for common product data management use cases.
Have more questions that haven't been answered?
Product data can get complicated, and we've only scratched the surface here! If you have any further questions, please reach out to our customer success team, who will be happy to help.