What's the Difference Between PIES and a Loadsheet?
If a reseller is requesting our product information in PIES format, what does it mean when I'm also being asked to fill out a loadsheet?
We understand how confusing and frustrating this can be. Loadsheets, that may also be called Merchandiser Sheets, are often used by larger resellers where processing product information through PIES XML datasets by a data team may be separate from the sales and category managers. This occurs when required information is outside the accommodations of the PIES content.
Most common fields outside the Standard include: contracted pricing, hazardous material specifics, market segmentation, battery information, reseller specific SKU reference, etc.
However, the majority of the loadsheet field requirements can be prefilled from product information maintained within the PIES datasets.
We are here to streamline the process of completing a reseller loadsheet for you with these services:
- Preset Loadsheets
SEMA Data currently has mapped PIES data fields to loadsheet templates for all the major resellers in the specialty market, as well as ones for chain stores and marketplaces. If you would like to have a loadsheet template available to you, please let us know which resellers you're working with and we'll enable them as one of your export formats.
You will be able to export your product info, fill in the few reseller specific fields — especially for new items, then send to your category managers, as we continue to distribute full PIES datasets to their data teams to keep products updated.
- Custom Export Builder
Whether the need for loadsheets is for a reseller or your own internal systems or websites, another option available for you is the Custom Export Builder. With this, you can create as many custom loadsheet formats as needed.
With either avenue you choose, you can set them as a Global Export to run them on a schedule or run them on-demand with our Ad-Hoc Exports feature.
As always, we're here to help if you have questions. Contact us at info@semadata.org.
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