Solar is one of Europe’s leading sourcing and service companies, managing a vast catalog of 825,000 products across lighting, cables, energy, HVAC, tools, and more.
Solar's extensive product catalog is built on individual supplier data from international partners. Ensuring consistent and structured data across all products while digitizing the catalog was a major challenge.
Previously, the print catalog was the primary sales tool, requiring significant manual effort to align it with the webshop. This made the customer buying experience complex and inefficient.
As part of its e-business transformation, Solar prioritized enhancing product data quality to improve credibility and accuracy, ensuring all product details were reliable and complete for customers.
To achieve data consistency, we implemented an inriver PIM solution that integrates data from various international suppliers, all formatted according to the ETIM industry standard (a classification system for electronic product data exchange).
With PIM in place, Solar now ensures that suppliers deliver structured and standardized data, reducing the need for manual intervention and allowing internal experts to focus on higher-value tasks.
ETIM-compliant product data structures are now presented through a targeted user interface, tailored to different workflows.
This serves as an efficient intermediary between ERP systems and the webshop, enabling seamless integration and real-time synchronization.
Product data is processed through Master Data Management (MDM) before being imported into PIM, where supplier updates are continuously synchronized.
This enables more accurate product categorization without requiring manual intervention. By automating data and translation updates, Solar minimizes manual workload and reduces the risk of errors.
Previously, the webshop was only updated once per day. Now, with real-time synchronization, product data is always up to date, ensuring customers access the latest and most accurate information.
Solar has eliminated its print catalog and fully transitioned sales to the webshop, enabling more dynamic product portfolio management and delivering significant cost savings. Most importantly, customers now enjoy a clearer product overview and a more seamless purchasing experience.
The transition has also created a modern and well-structured product experience.
With inriver PIM, Solar ensures high data quality while supporting ETIM-based workflows.
The PIM solution has enabled navigation restructuring, providing product managers with the right tools to refine product presentation. Solar’s webshop continues to evolve toward greater personalization and search-driven customer interactions.
