Retail Industry Collaborates on Guideline to Provide Consumers with Richer Product Details and to Power Unified Shopping Experiences

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J., Aug. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- GS1 US® collaborated with retailers, manufacturers, brand owners, suppliers and solution providers to launch the GS1 US Best Practice Guideline for Exchanging Product Images and Attributes, Release 3.0. The guideline, originally introduced in 2012, has been significantly enhanced to help trading partners provide digitally-savvy consumers with richer product information and a unified cross-channel and cross-device browsing, searching, discovery and online shopping experience.

Today, 77 percent of shoppers use mobile devices in-store, and 87 percent rate product content as very important to their purchase decisions, according to Salsify. To address the industry need, members of the GS1 US Apparel and General Merchandise Initiative collaborated to define a total of 193 product attributes (including product characteristics such as "handmade," "reversible," and "dishwasher safe") and best practices for presenting montage and 360° images online. This information extends beyond the traditional supply chain information already exchanged between retail buyers and sellers, and supports a consistent consumer experience across all sales channels. Using GS1 Standards as a common foundation, the guideline also helps trading partners automate and streamline business processes leading to operational cost savings.

"Retailers and their trading partners face unprecedented pressure to deliver enhanced, convenient and digitally-capable shopping experiences," said Michelle Covey, vice president of retail apparel and general merchandise, GS1 US. "The authors of the document gave careful consideration to the impact of their recommendations and focused on providing a comprehensive resource for essential digital images and product attributes." 

A free webinar on the guideline will be held on September 28, 2017 at 2:00 PM ET for brands, retailers and other trading partners in the apparel and general merchandise industry working in supply chain, marketing, product maintenance, item setup, e-commerce and merchandising roles. Through the webinar, attendees can further educate themselves on how to use the new industry guidance to eliminate existing manual or labor-intensive processes and enhance speed-to-market product availability.

For more information about the guideline, please visit www.gs1us.org/ApparelGM.

About the GS1 US Apparel and General Merchandise Initiative
The GS1 US Apparel and General Merchandise Initiative is a retail industry group that is committed to defining business challenges and opportunities and organizing members to explore solutions and create adoption plans. More than 115 retailers, marketplaces, brand owners, manufacturers, solution providers, and other retail industry stakeholders are participating members in Initiative activities, focused on improving inventory accuracy, exchanging standardized product data and achieving traceability with GS1 Standards. More information about the GS1 US Apparel and General Merchandise Initiative is available at www.gs1us.org/ApparelGM.

About GS1 US
GS1 US®, a member of GS1® global, is a not-for-profit information standards organization that facilitates industry collaboration to help improve supply chain visibility and efficiency through the use of GS1 Standards, the most widely-used supply chain standards system in the world. Nearly 300,000 businesses in 25 industries rely on GS1 US for trading partner collaboration that optimizes their supply chains, drives cost performance and revenue growth while also enabling regulatory compliance. They achieve these benefits through solutions based on GS1 global unique numbering and identification systems, barcodes, Electronic Product Code-based RFID, data synchronization, and electronic information exchange. GS1 US also manages the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code® (UNSPSC®). www.gs1us.org

SOURCE GS1 US

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