IBM yesterday announced the general availability of a content management tool that it says simplifies the way businesses can design, build and manage electronic catalogs. The tool, called Catalog Architect, is designed for developers setting up on-line catalogs. It works by enabling the developers to add as much detail as possible, to each product description, thereby helping on-line shoppers to get a better match between what they require and the relevant products on offer; a process described as personalization.
The software is designed to work in conjunction with IBM Net.Commerce merchant server software server, although the actual catalog is created off-line on an NT server, and the data is periodically published to the commerce server. In the past, the server did offer a cataloging feature, but the amount of data you could store for each product was limited, according to Peter Becker, product manager for Catalog Architect. However, the object oriented archictecture of the new tool enables developers to attach rich data to the product sets, which means users end up receiving information about products that are most suited to them.
Typically, Becker said, companies spend 75% of their e-commerce site resources managing information about the products being sold – their number, price, model number, size and color – than they do creating the graphics and setting up the site. But the labor- intensive process required to manage product data has so far stopped many companies from fully deploying personalization, he said.
Additionally, the Catalog Architect dramatically cuts the time it takes to update or change information about a given product set. For instance, if a merchant sells a cotton shirt in multiple colors and sizes and wants to offer it in a different fabric, today he or she must re-enter all existing product information, and add this new attribute for every new item.
The Catalog Architect tool lets the merchant create these new items for order by entering the new fabric attribute value in only one place, and having it automatically generate and update all the information on each new item. It also enables different departments within companies, for example a manufacturer with distinct inventory systems for raw materials, finished goods and supplies, to publish their product information to a common Net.Commerce server. Catalog Architect is available now and is designed to run on Windows NT platforms. It costs $3,000 per server license.
