The enclosed document defines the sequence and format for product title descriptions. In the past, BOSS have restricted descriptions to 40 characters as this was the limit on many Systems. This resulted in many abbreviations which may be acceptable on picking notes and invoices but their use on the Internet should be avoided. All the main Software Providers have confirmed that their Systems can now accept longer title descriptions, it is however recommended that these are kept to a maximum of 60 characters.
Download Sequence Product Descriptions
The document also shows the Amazon Product Title sequence which is a little different. There is no overall standard on the Internet and every large Web based retailer defines slightly different requirements. That said, very few major players on the Internet are currently enforcing their standards but we should expect this to change over the next couple of years. In order therefore to "future proof" your data and to be able to output to different standards and sequences, you should be looking to hold product data in a granular format, so each piece of information or attribute is held in a separate data field. It is then comparatively straight forward to rebuild (concatenate) the descriptions in whatever order is required with the minimum of human intervention.
Most importantly, product titles and descriptions, especially when used on the Internet must be totally clear and unambiguous. Does the description inform the customer exactly what is being offered for sale, including the size, colour and quantity?"
- Industry Standard Product Classification (ISPC) The Industry Standard Product Classification has created a common language for classifying office products.
- Standard Abbreviations & the Short Description Standard With increased use of electronic information exchange, consistent, agreed, standard abbreviations are needed to assist searching and data synchronisation.
- Unit of Sale The unit of sale initiative has helped reduce anomalies and discrepancies on units of measure in the different tiers of the industry supply chain.
- Product Setup Form This form is designed to assist manufacturers and suppliers to make their product details available to their customers.
- opXML Best Practice Guide This document is a guide to the use of opXML, a set of standard XML messages developed for the office products industry by a team of experts representing all parties within the industry supply chain.
- EC Commodity Codes Commodity codes classify goods for import and export so you can fill in declarations and other paperwork, check if there's duty or VAT to pay and find out about duty reliefs.
- Stock Feed Format An Industry Standard to delivery stock availability data.
