Supply chain collaborationVendor data & new item setup for distributors Meet embedded SpicY™ AI

Vendor data & new item setup / Vendor data & new item setup for distributors

Vendor data & new item setup for distributors

SPICE™ gives distributors one governed process to collect, validate and publish item data from the manufacturers they buy from, so the same accurate records support purchasing, branches and customer ordering.

Your catalog is only as good as your suppliers’ data

You buy from hundreds of manufacturers and sell to contractors, businesses and retailers. Every item you stock begins with information from a manufacturer, and every customer order depends on that information being right. When it isn’t, the error travels in both directions: to the supplier PO and to the customer’s order.

Your supply chain is your customer experience, and for a distributor clean product data sits right in the middle of it.

What gets in the way

  • Manufacturer data arrives in every format Some manufacturers send EDI 832s or use a data pool. Many send spreadsheets in their own layout, by email.
  • Item setup can’t keep pace Your master-data team chases missing attributes, re-keys records and maps manufacturer part numbers to your SKUs by hand.
  • Data drifts across branches and regions Item information is maintained in more than one place, and the copies stop matching.
  • Customers order against bad data A wrong pack size or unit of measure becomes a wrong quote, a wrong shipment or a disputed invoice.

Get manufacturer data right once

SPICE Catalog™ is the supplier-facing product-data layer of the SPICE™ Supply Chain Collaboration Platform. You set the attributes, required fields and category rules for each product line. Each manufacturer submits through EDI 832, API, a data pool, a spreadsheet or a web form, so large brands and suppliers not on EDI follow the same process.

SPICE™ validates every submission and sends gaps back to the manufacturer with specific feedback, so corrections happen at the source. Supplier products and GTINs are cross-referenced to your SKUs and item hierarchy, with reusable mapping templates for later submissions. Your team approves the complete record, and SPICE™ publishes it to your ERP, PIM and e-commerce systems.

SPICE Catalog™ works alongside your PIM, MDM or data pool rather than replacing them. It fills the distributor-specific attributes standard data misses.

Use the same records on both sides

Distributors need product data to work for buying and selling at once. With SPICE™, one set of approved records supports both:

SPICE Insight™ shows submission status and flags exceptions by manufacturer, and SPICE Connect™ can run supplier outreach and onboarding for the program.

Built for distributor catalogs

SPICE Catalog™ handles product lines with frequent new items and changing suppliers, and gets item data ready for the customers who see it when you sell online. Read more about vendor data and new item setup or how SPICE™ works for distributors.

What changes

01

Clean data

Item records are validated before they reach the ERP, so product information stays accurate across branches and regions.

02

Perfect order

Accurate item, pack and unit information carries through from supplier PO to customer delivery.

03

More control

You decide what “complete” means for each product line, approve every record and see which manufacturers have outstanding items. Suppliers do the corrections, not your master-data team.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is product data management for distributors?

It's how a distributor collects, checks and maintains the item information it receives from manufacturers and uses to sell. With SPICE™, manufacturers submit data in the formats they already use, SPICE Catalog™ validates it against your rules, suppliers fix gaps at the source and approved records are published to your ERP and other systems.

Can the same item data support our customer ordering?

Yes. SPICE Trade™ uses the approved product information for customer ordering, with account-specific catalogs and contracted pricing, and SPICE Web OMS™, SPICE Trade™ and SPICE Digital Document Service™ check item data against SPICE Catalog™ in real time on both sides.

Many of our manufacturers aren't on EDI. Can they take part?

Yes. Suppliers not on EDI submit through a spreadsheet or a web form, and their data goes through the same validation as an EDI 832, API or data pool submission.

Does SPICE Catalog™ replace our PIM?

No. It works as the supplier-facing layer alongside your PIM, MDM or data pool, gathering and validating manufacturer data before it reaches those systems.

Talk to a platform specialist

Run manufacturer item setup as one governed process

We’ll walk through how SPICE Catalog™ collects and validates item data from your manufacturers, in whatever format they use, so the same records serve purchasing, branches and customer ordering.

Prefer to call or email? Contact SPICE™

A SPICE™ platform specialist will reply within one business day.