Rimi was supposed to open their e-store in Estonia at the end of May. However, the corona crisis speeded up the process and the e-store was launched on April 15. Tallink opened an e-store for food and convenience goods on April 20. Bolt is offering grocery shopping on its app. Many retailers who did not consider e-commerce their priority have now launched online shops or will do so soon.
Opening e-shops means that retailers need more detailed product data. In regular stores, most product information can be found printed on a product’s label, for example ingredients, nutrition data and allergens. As this information is available on labels, there is no need for retailers to keep the same information in their systems. But for e-stores, suppliers must provide this data to retailers and they have to display it to consumers as required by the law.
This is the reason why many retailers have started to require much more data about the products. For example, Rimi in Estonia may require up to 300 data fields to describe a single product. Many suppliers are struggling to meet those requirements for various reasons: they might not have the product data in one system, the data is out of date, faulty or totally missing.
Choosing and implementing the best product data management solution can be quite a challenge. There are many options available, e.g. Synkka, Validoo or Dabas. Telema is widening this selection by developing a new product data management solution specifically for Baltic retail market. Telema PDS (Product Data Sync) will be a solution that allows wholesalers, distributors or manufacturers to create, store and administer all of their product data easily and efficiently in one database, and securely exchange it with retailers.
The development of Telema PDS is supported by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg program.
