TORONTO - To stay competitive Canadian retailers should be looking at adopting electronic catalogues, according to A Retailer's Guide to Electronic Catalogues. This new report says that the retail industry is currently taking steps to establish a world wide standard that would make for more efficient ordering and communication between trading partners. The Retail Council of Canada, IBM Business Consulting Services, and Industry Canada sponsored the study.

Currently retailers receive product information in a variety of formats including paper catalogues, fact sheets, CD-ROMs, e-mails, and faxes. This supplier information is usually entered into a database manually making the process costly and time-consuming. With an e-catalogue suppliers can store product information and retailers can then access that information over the Internet or through other technology.

The report points out that while most small retailers in Canada are not using e-catalogues, Internet and technology does play an important part in their business. A Canadian Net Impact Study quoted in the report showed that 63.6 per cent of SME retail respondents currently use or have plans to implement an Internet-based system that involves exchanging product information.

"E-catalogues will become increasingly important in the retail industry, as they eliminate the need for retailers to manually re-enter data into their back-end systems, enable merchants and their suppliers to exchange product information in a synchronized manner, and allow retailers and their suppliers to communicate more effectively. All of these things enable retailers to compete on a more cost-effective basis," said Diane J. Brisebois, President and CEO of Retail Council of Canada.

A previous study done in October 2002 by Ernst & Young and Global Commerce Initiative looked at the benefits of e-catalogues. This study found that:

• less time and money was spent on making corrections to information
• employees didn't have to spend as much time on the automation process
• increased customer service due to better sourcing opportunities
• better communication with trade partners
• faster product introduction

Right now the challenge is establishing a single global standard as there are currently several different technology platforms being used to deliver product information. Large retailers, grocery chains in particular, are working towards building a single industry standard. Once this standard is put into place trading partners of any size and technology capability should be able to use e-catalogues without spending a lot of time and money on upgrading their current systems.

The report is available online at www.retailcouncil.org/e-commerce.

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