Summary

Success in e-commerce depends on the execution of Web-based merchandising strategies to expand your customer base, increase sales, and reduce costs—all at the same time. Such strategies depend on highly accurate product data for electronic catalogs and additional information (also called meta-data) required to flexibly merchandise, sell, and support products and services online. Creating and maintaining electronic catalogs gets increasingly challenging as the number of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), product features, and special catalogs increases. There’s a huge volume of data to be managed, and meta-data for products, categories, and customers’ needs to support merchandising. Finally, effective merchandising tactics such as customized sales assistance, parametric search, up- and cross-selling, personalization, and special offers all rely on the ability to link products with other products, selling strategies, or shopper interests.