The industry firms of PromoStandards, a series of supply chain integration standards aimed at improved efficiencies, announced that they’ve launched important enhancements to the Product Data Integration Standard. The organization says the changes will make sharing product information between suppliers and distributors even more efficient.

Previously, the Product Data service for sharing product information electronically was only available in proprietary and printed forms. The new Product Data 2.0 standard allows suppliers to release product information more quickly to distributors looking to use the data for showcasing products on websites, as well as ERP and order entry systems. The improvements will also allow distributors to launch suppliers’ new products more quickly and send more streamlined orders to suppliers with less friction.

“We asked participants what they would like to see from PromoStandards in 2019,” said Eric Shonebarger, PromoStandards Committee Chairman and Board Member, and chief information officer of Top 40 supplier Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125), in a statement. “The overwhelming response was for concise product data that can be readily consumed for e-commerce. We knew our number-one goal for 2019 was to deliver based on community feedback.”

Key improvements include more detailed pricing and imprint information, including Pantone color references, and readily available product imagery and safety and compliance information.

“This service has been a long time coming and will add immediate value to any distributor or service provider looking for real-time and accurate data to populate websites,” said Jon Norris, vice president of operations for Starline (asi/89320) and chair of PromoStandards. “We were diligent to get the community’s feedback and deliver the right pieces of data that the industry needs to better connect the supply chain. I’m very happy [with] where we ended up. Now it’s go time.”

A list of PromoStandards services with technical specs can be found here. In addition to product data, other areas of the supply chain that PromoStandards addresses includes inventory availability, order status, order shipment notification, product data media content, product pricing and configuration, purchase orders and invoices.