Beer Industry Electronic Commerce Coalition working on a Master Product Catalog

A growing challenge across the beer industry is the availability of accurate, up-to-date product information, especially with the continued industry expansion of new and craft beer brands. The Beer Industry Electronic Commerce Coalition (BIECC) and Syndigo, a leading SaaS product information and syndication company, are teaming to create a Master Product Catalog (MPC) that will house basic item information and images for all participating beer brands.

The MPC will aim to be a single source of item information made freely available to retailers, distributors, third-party vendors and other industry stakeholders. It will create a single reference record for beer brands and retailers that can reduce data inconsistency and improve efficiency in data management. 

“Accurate, available, reliable product content is the number one request of every retailer we work with. What the BIECC and Syndigo are doing is a game changer for the beer industry,” remarked Boston Beer Company’s Director of eCommerce, Ethelbert Williams. “The fact that so many craft brewers are now going to have the chance to upload their content once and have it available across the entire industry is such a big deal.”

What breweries can do. Syndigo, along with the BIECC and the three beer trade associations (Brewers Association, National Beer Wholesalers Association and Beer Institute), will begin promoting participation to all brewers. Brewers will have the option to upload the required product information themselves at no cost or work with Syndigo to have their item content professionally produced for a nominal fee.

As an early-adoption incentive, Syndigo is offering to photograph products and create content for the first 5,000 products received from small brewers at no cost – compliments of the BIECC.

“We learned early on in this project how badly retailers need accurate data and just how many different item catalogs there are across the beer industry,” said BIECC Staff Manager Dave Christman. “Whether it’s route accounting companies, mobile apps, eCommerce companies, payment providers or countless other industry stakeholders, they’ve all been trying to build and maintain their own catalogs. If we can get them all to source from the BIECC’s Catalog, not only can we save them a lot of time and energy, but we’ll also increase the reliability and accuracy of data across the board.”

Syndigo is a product content management and distribution platform that gives brands a consistent presence across the retail ecosystem. The company provides descriptive product and nutritional information, images and other digital media powered by deep analytics to create more engaging brand experiences online and in store. 

While providing retailers and distributors with accurate item information has been a primary goal of the MPC, solution providers and vendors to the beer industry have been a focus of the MPC as well.