A customized e-catalog model and central repository service for small and medium businesses

Abstract

Electronic product catalogs (e-catalogs) are becoming an essential component of Internet and Intranet-based procurement solutions to all businesses as they provide key support at the information-gathering procurement stage. We consider single e-catalog system for small and medium businesses as a part of Government support e-Business plan. We examine existing commercial XML e-catalog standards whether it meets these demands. Many standard XML e-catalog systems (e.g., cXML, xCBL, BMEcat, RosettaNet, etc.) are competing for international de facto standard. These commercial standard e-catalogs have reference sites to show their applicable features to customers. But we can find some shortfalls to accommodate various industrial needs. Those are expressions of multiple classifications and various pricing policies in a e-catalog. Also there are slightly different requirements compared to big size companies. An e-catalog system should be able to express the products in various ways of classification standards - Private, European or American classification standard system - at the same time in accordance with the target market. Also companies want to express their various pricing strategies through e-catalog system: bundling, quantity and promotional pricing are the examples of these various needs. It is difficult for small and medium businesses to have synchronously response e-catalog system that is integrated with back-end system (ERP, SCM, CRM etc.). Unlike conglomerate lead e-commerce circumstance, there is neither dominant standard nor major e-commerce framework. So central e-catalog repository must assume heterogeneous e-commerce atmosphere. In this paper we examine what product information is contained in various commercial XML standards for the exchange of e-catalog data. We make three theoretical e-catalog design concepts through the analysis, and we propose customized e-catalog standard model to solve these requirements. Also we suggest a central e-catalog re...