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Guide

Product data for dealer networks

Complete product data at every dealer and in your B2B portal

How many of your dealers have the current specs online today?

Most teams cannot answer that. The master data is fine, but every dealer holds its own copy, made from a file you sent months ago, in the shape that dealer asked for.

In short

Get the free readiness checkSee where WISEPIM fits

Diego Nijboer · WISEPIMLast updated:

Your product record

Specs, units, images and translations in one place

Brand Portal

Current project data on every visit

Hosted feed

On product change, on a schedule or by hand

File export

A snapshot at the moment of export

Direct sync

About 30 seconds after save with auto-sync, or scheduled

One record, four ways out. Each dealer group gets the route it can take in.

Before you read

Who this guide is for

Teams whose product data does its real work at someone else: a dealer, a reseller, an installer or a buyer who orders from your portal.

This is for you if

  • You deliver product data to 25 or more active dealers, resellers or buyers, or run your own B2B portal.
  • Your catalog has 5,000 to 250,000 SKUs with technical specs, variants, units or standards that dealers need.
  • Your dealers sell in 3 or more languages or countries.
  • Dealers rewrite your content, ask for fresh files every week, or orders come back because a spec was wrong.

Probably not yet if

  • You supply a handful of dealers who take one price list a year. A shared spreadsheet still works for you.
  • You sell only to consumers through your own webshop. Our webshop guides fit you better.

Part of a buying group, or a group with several brands? The same model applies per member or brand. In WISEPIM each one can be its own project in one organisation, with its own roles and permissions and a shared or fixed credit budget. PIM for buying groups

The problem

Why dealer content goes stale

Dealer content rarely fails because the source is wrong. It fails because the copy at the dealer stops following the source.

  • Files leave as snapshots

    A price list or Excel sent in January is still the dealer's truth in June. Every change after the send date is invisible to them until someone sends a new file.

  • Every dealer wants its own shape

    Different columns, units, category trees and languages. Your team rebuilds the same data per dealer by hand, so updates go out to the dealers who shout loudest.

  • Upstream changes don't travel

    A supplier changes a spec or replaces a model. The change reaches your ERP, but not the copies sitting at your dealers.

  • Nobody owns the dealer view

    The product data team owns the master, sales owns the dealer relationship. Nobody checks what a dealer actually shows, so gaps surface as complaints.

  • Languages lag behind

    One language is complete, the others follow months later. Dealers in those markets fill the gaps themselves or leave fields empty.

  • Dealers patch it themselves

    They retype specs, rewrite titles and take images from elsewhere. Their version drifts further from yours, and the errors come back as wrong orders and returns.

Your starting point

Wholesaler, supplier or manufacturer

The dealer problem looks the same from the outside. Where it starts depends on your place in the chain.

Wholesaler

It starts on the inbound side

In what state does supplier data arrive today?

PIM for wholesalers

Supplier

It shows in what buyers adopt

How many buyers use your data as delivered?

PIM for suppliers

Manufacturer

It depends on who owns the spec

Which system holds the spec your dealers should see?

PIM for manufacturers

Formats

The formats dealers ask for

Most networks need three or four of these at once. Plan for all of them from one record instead of one file per dealer.

Excel or CSV product list

Who asks for it
Smaller dealers and resellers, and buyers who load data into their own ERP.
Watch out for
Column names, units and decimal separators differ per dealer. The file is outdated the day it is sent.
In WISEPIM
Dealers download CSV or Excel from a Brand Portal with only the columns you share, or you export a file from WISEPIM.

BMEcat 2005 with ETIM

Who asks for it
Technical wholesale, installers and buying groups in the electrical, sanitary, HVAC and building trades. Common in the DACH region, and with buying groups and larger dealers in the Benelux.
Watch out for
Every article needs an ETIM class to carry ETIM features, and feature values must use ETIM units and value codes.
In WISEPIM
Feed Hub writes a BMEcat 2005 (ETIM) feed with your supplier header (GLN, D-U-N-S or your own code) and reports how many products it skipped because their family has no ETIM class.

The dealer's own XML spec

Who asks for it
Larger dealers, platforms and buyers with their own import.
Watch out for
Element names, nesting, units and required fields are theirs, and they change them.
In WISEPIM
A custom XML feed in Feed Hub with your own field mapping, template strings, unit conversion and fallback values.

A self-service portal

Who asks for it
The long tail of dealers who need data now and then, and new dealers during onboarding.
Watch out for
Who may see which products and which prices. Cost and supplier data must never leak.
In WISEPIM
Brand Portals: a read-only, branded catalog per audience, with an optional password, prices from your portal pricing rules, PDF datasheets and import into the dealer's own WISEPIM project.

Your own B2B shop

Who asks for it
Your own buyers, ordering from your portal on Magento 2, Shopify or WooCommerce.
Watch out for
Customer-specific price lists usually stay in the shop or the ERP. Product content should not.
In WISEPIM
A store connection with opt-in auto-sync, which pushes a saved product about 30 seconds later, or scheduled exports. Shopware and BigCommerce are import-only.

EDI (PRICAT), Datanorm, FAB-DIS, 2BA, GDSN

Who asks for it
Retail chains, the German trades (Datanorm), French building and electrical distribution (FAB-DIS), Dutch installation and building (2BA), and GS1 data pools.
Watch out for
Message standards and certified data pools with their own validation and onboarding.
Not in WISEPIM
WISEPIM does not publish to these pools or write these messages. Keep them with your ERP, EDI provider or data pool supplier, and let WISEPIM keep the ETIM-classified content you deliver to them complete.

Worked example

One SKU, three dealer outputs

Here is one press fitting as your record holds it, and what goes wrong when it leaves as a plain file.

Your record

Illustrative
SKU
PF-CU-22-90
Title
Press elbow 90°, copper, 22 mm
EAN
8712345678906
Order unit
Piece
Pack quantity
10
Price unit
Per 10 pieces
Minimum order
10
Data sheet
PDF
Replaces
PF-CU-22-90-V1
  1. Goes wrong

    Excel to a small dealer

    The price column arrives without the price unit, so the dealer's shop shows the 10-piece price for a single elbow.

  2. Arrives intact

    BMEcat to a buying group

    Order unit, pack quantity, price quantity and minimum order travel in the article's order details, so the dealer's system calculates the right price per piece.

  3. Arrives intact

    Brand Portal for smaller dealers

    The dealer sees price, pack quantity and price unit side by side, as columns you chose, and can save a PDF datasheet per product.

Check this first

If your products have no order unit, pack quantity or price unit attribute, a BMEcat feed falls back to one piece at a price per piece. Add those three attributes to every family before your first feed. The export reads them from attribute codes such as order_unit, pack_size and price_quantity.

Operating model

An operating model in six steps

The order matters. Teams that start with a dealer portal before steps 1 and 2 publish their gaps faster.

  1. 1. Make one record the source of truth

    Write down who owns which data. The ERP keeps price, stock and order data. The product record keeps specs, content, images and translations. Supplier files come in through one door, mapped once, instead of being pasted into a dealer file.

    Done whenNobody edits a dealer file by hand.

    In WISEPIM

    Imports take CSV, Excel, XML and BMEcat, and a saved import template keeps each supplier's column mapping. Supplier stock and price files arrive through supplier sources (upload, link, FTP, SFTP or a per-source email address), with every delivery logged. ERP export files come in through a scheduled import.

  2. 2. Define the dealer core set per product family

    Agree which fields every dealer gets for each product family: identifiers (EAN or GTIN, manufacturer part number), brand, title, description, the specs that drive a buying decision with their units, images, the data sheet and installation manual as PDF, and the commercial units a dealer orders in: order unit, pack quantity, price unit and minimum order quantity. Keep it short enough to complete, and add channel extras on top.

    Done whenEvery family has its required attributes, and the dealer team signed off on them.

    In WISEPIM

    Families set which attributes apply and which are required, and every product gets a completeness score against them. ETIM classes can become families with their features as attributes. EANs get a check digit test. BMEcat feeds write the order unit, pack quantity, price quantity and minimum order from your attributes.

  3. 3. Check readiness per channel before delivery

    A product is ready for a dealer when the core set is complete, the dealer's language is translated and any channel-specific fields are filled. Decide up front what happens to products that are not ready: they stay out of that delivery, or they go with a known gap that someone tracks.

    Done whenNo dealer delivery contains a product nobody checked.

    In WISEPIM

    Required family attributes and the completeness score show which products miss part of the dealer core set. Channel Readiness does the same against marketplace requirements such as Google Shopping or bol. Feed rules can leave out products without images, a price, stock or a value in a chosen field. Quality Guard rules can block or skip failing products on store exports and syncs, from the Business plan.

    Channel Readiness: per marketplace, how many products miss each required field.

  4. 4. Match delivery to the dealer tier

    Sort dealers by what they can take in, not only by revenue. Dealers with an import get a hosted feed on a schedule. The long tail gets a portal they can open any time. Your own B2B shop gets a direct sync. Files are the fallback, not the default.

    Done whenEvery active dealer has one named delivery method and a contact on both sides.

    In WISEPIM

    One project can run several Brand Portals and Feed Hub feeds, each with its own products, columns or mapping, language and pricing rules. Portal and feed pricing rules start at the Business plan.

    Portal, feed, file or sync

    Four ways to get data to a dealer. Most networks use all four, each for a different group.

    • Brand Portal
      Best for
      Many dealers who need data now and then
      How fresh
      Current project data on every visit
      Dealer effort
      Low: browse, filter, download or import
      Your control
      Products, columns, prices and password per portal
    • Hosted feed
      Best for
      Dealers and platforms with their own import
      How fresh
      On product change, on a schedule or by hand
      Dealer effort
      One-time setup on their side
      Your control
      Mapping, filters, language and prices per feed
    • File export
      Best for
      Dealers who only take a spreadsheet
      How fresh
      A snapshot at the moment of export
      Dealer effort
      They load and map it each time
      Your control
      Lowest: gone once it is sent
    • Direct sync
      Best for
      Your own B2B shop
      How fresh
      About 30 seconds after save with auto-sync, or scheduled
      Dealer effort
      None
      Your control
      Full, within what the shop platform accepts

  5. 5. Set an update cadence per data type

    Price and stock change daily, specs change when the product changes, the assortment changes per season. Give each data type its own rhythm, tell dealers what it is, and announce new and discontinued items with a date instead of letting them discover it.

    Done whenA dealer can tell you how old the data they are looking at is.

    In WISEPIM

    Feeds regenerate when a product changes, on a schedule from every few minutes to monthly, or by hand. Portals read live project data on every visit. Automations run imports and exports on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly schedule, from the Business plan.

    Who updates what, and how often

    A starting point to adapt to your sector. What matters is that each row has an owner and the dealers know the rhythm.

    • Price and stock
      Owner
      ERP
      Rhythm
      Daily or several times a day
      In WISEPIM
      Supplier stock and price sync or a scheduled import, then feeds regenerate on change
    • Specs and content
      Owner
      Product data team
      Rhythm
      When the product changes
      In WISEPIM
      Feeds set to regenerate on change, portals show it on the next visit
    • New and discontinued items
      Owner
      Category or range manager
      Rhythm
      Per assortment change, announced with a date
      In WISEPIM
      Feed and portal filters on status, family or category decide what is in scope. A replacement relation links a discontinued item to its successor, and BMEcat feeds carry it as a follow-up reference, with accessories as accessory references
    • Translations
      Owner
      Content team with a reviewer per language
      Rhythm
      Before a dealer in that language goes live, then with every content change
      In WISEPIM
      AI translation into 70+ languages, product filters per language that show what is still untranslated, an export language per feed and a language switcher in portals
    • Full catalog check
      Owner
      Product data lead with the dealer team
      Rhythm
      Every season or quarter
      In WISEPIM
      Quality Guard rule packs, such as B2B data exchange, check the whole catalog, from the Business plan

  6. 6. Measure dealer content completeness

    Measure two things: how complete your source is for each dealer's needs, and how much of it actually reaches the dealer. The first comes from your own data, the second from a spot check at the dealer. Review both on a fixed day, with the dealer team in the room.

    Done whenYou can answer how many dealers show the current specs, with a number and a date.

    In WISEPIM

    Completeness scores, quality analytics over time, per-feed product counts and generation stats, and a view count per portal.

    Seven numbers that show dealer coverage

    Together they tell you whether the network is complete. Set your own targets after the first measurement; a baseline beats a guess.

    • Core set completeness
      What it measures
      Share of products with every required attribute of their family filled
      Where it comes from
      Completeness score per product, tracked over time in quality analytics
    • Ready share per channel
      What it measures
      Products that pass the readiness check for a given channel or feed
      Where it comes from
      Completeness against the family's required attributes, Channel Readiness for marketplaces, and the product count of each feed
    • Language coverage
      What it measures
      Share of the dealer core set translated into each dealer language
      Where it comes from
      Product filters on translation status per language
    • Time to dealer-ready
      What it measures
      Days from the first supplier file to a complete core set for a new item
      Where it comes from
      The date the item was imported, and the dated quality score history on the product
    • Feed freshness
      What it measures
      When each dealer feed last generated, and how many products it holds
      Where it comes from
      Feed Hub: last generated and product count, plus skipped articles for BMEcat
    • Dealer adoption
      What it measures
      Whether dealers actually open the data you give them
      Where it comes from
      View count per Brand Portal. Views count per portal, not per dealer, so give your largest dealers their own portal if you need adoption per dealer, and keep one shared portal for the rest
    • Data-related returns and requests
      What it measures
      Returns on portal orders caused by wrong or missing data, and weekly "can you send me" emails from dealers
      Where it comes from
      Return reasons in your ERP or service desk, and the shared dealer inbox

    The spot check: 20 SKUs, 5 dealers, 5 fields

    1. Pick 20 SKUs that sell well and changed in the past six months: a new spec, a successor model, a new image.
    2. Open them at 5 dealers: your largest, a mid-sized one, one abroad, a new one and your own B2B portal.
    3. Compare 5 fields with your source: title, the key spec, main image, EAN and availability status.
    4. Count the matches out of 100 product pages and write down the date. Repeat every quarter with the same method.

    That number is your answer to "how many dealers have the current specs online?" It takes an afternoon and needs no software.

Checklist

The dealer data checklist

Tick what is already true. The open items are your plan for the next quarter.

0 of 18 in place

Foundation

Dealer needs

Delivery

Rhythm and measurement

18 items still open. Start with the data: the free check shows what one product file is missing.

Your ticks are saved in this browser only.

Get the free readiness check

In WISEPIM

Where WISEPIM fits

WISEPIM sits beside your ERP and your shop, not in place of them. It owns the product record and every delivery that leaves from it.

Supplier sources

Supplier stock and price files arrive by upload, link, FTP, SFTP or a per-source email address, and every delivery is logged. Content imports take CSV, Excel, XML and BMEcat with a saved column mapping per supplier, and the supplier glossary turns abbreviations, brand prefixes and colour codes into readable values.

See product import

Families, ETIM and completeness

Families hold the dealer core set as required attributes and score every product against it. ETIM classes can become families, and an ETIM conformance score checks features, values and units against the class. AI fills empty fields and translates into 70+ languages, with a person reviewing in the Review queue.

See AI enrichment

Channel Readiness and Quality Guard

Channel Readiness shows per marketplace, such as Google Shopping or bol, how many products miss each required field. Quality Guard checks the catalog against rule packs, including B2B data exchange, and can block or skip failing products on store exports and syncs, from the Business plan.

See Quality Guard

Feed Hub

One hosted feed URL per dealer or platform, each with its own mapping, filters, language and schedule. Formats include BMEcat 2005 with ETIM, custom XML, Google Shopping and AI shopping feeds. Pricing rules can apply per feed.

See Feed Hub

Brand Portals

A read-only, branded catalog per audience. You choose the products and the columns, enforced on the server. Dealers search, download CSV or Excel, save PDF datasheets or import into their own WISEPIM project. Add a password and portal pricing rules for trade prices.

See Brand Portals

Your own B2B shop

Connections to Magento 2, Shopify, WooCommerce and other stores. Opt-in auto-sync pushes a saved product about 30 seconds later; automations run scheduled exports. Akeneo is the one PIM WISEPIM connects to directly.

See all connections

Where WISEPIM stops

  • Dealers cannot edit your data. A Brand Portal is read-only; a dealer who imports gets a copy in their own WISEPIM project.
  • No EDI messages, Datanorm, FAB-DIS, and no publishing to 2BA or GDSN data pools. Those stay with your ERP, EDI provider or data pool supplier.
  • No direct ERP connector. ERP data comes in as export files through a scheduled import, or through the public API on the Pro plan.
  • EANs get a check digit test, not a lookup in the GS1 registry.
  • Shopware and BigCommerce are import-only, so a B2B shop on those platforms needs its own export path.

100+ e-commerce teams use WISEPIM, with 26,488 products per customer on average. ProCleanroom, a technical cleanroom supplier, translated 3,100 products and variants into German and British English with it.

Read the ProCleanroom case

Questions about dealer product data

What wholesalers, suppliers and manufacturers ask before they change how dealers get their data.

No. A Brand Portal is a read-only view of your live data. Dealers can search and filter it, download CSV or Excel and save a PDF datasheet per product when you allow export, or import the catalog into their own WISEPIM project. Your record stays the single source; corrections come back to you through your normal channel.

No. When you allow export, a Brand Portal offers the same Excel or CSV download, with the columns you chose, so a dealer who wants a spreadsheet still gets one. The difference is that it is current on the day they download it, and nobody on your team has to build and send it. Dealers with their own import can move to a hosted feed when they are ready.

Yes, per portal or per feed. Create one Brand Portal per audience, switch on portal pricing rules and add a password, so approved dealers see trade prices and nobody else sees the catalog. Feeds can carry their own pricing rules too. Pricing rules start at the Business plan. Customer-specific contract prices usually stay in your ERP or shop.

Yes. Feed Hub has a BMEcat 2005 (ETIM) channel that writes your ETIM classes and features into the BMEcat XML, with your supplier and catalog header. Each run reports how many articles were written and how many were skipped because they had no ETIM class, so you can see what a dealer is missing. Incoming BMEcat files from suppliers can be imported too.

WISEPIM does not write those formats or publish to GDSN data pools. Keep those flows with your ERP or EDI provider, and let WISEPIM supply the complete product content they draw on. Many dealers who ask for a trade format also accept BMEcat, a custom XML or Excel; it is worth asking before you build a separate flow.

No. WISEPIM does not publish to 2BA or other data pools. It can hold your ETIM classes and features per product family and score each product against its class, so what you deliver to the pool and to your dealers comes from one complete record.

No. WISEPIM is the layer beside them. The ERP keeps price, stock and orders; its export files come in through a scheduled import, or data comes through the public API on the Pro plan. Your B2B shop on Magento 2, Shopify or WooCommerce receives products through its connection. If you already run Akeneo, WISEPIM connects to it directly.

Combine what you can see with a spot check. WISEPIM shows the view count per Brand Portal, and the last generation time and product count per feed. What a dealer then shows on its own site you check by hand: 20 SKUs, 5 dealers, 5 fields, every quarter.

Translate the dealer core set first, not the whole catalog. WISEPIM AI translates into 70+ languages and is 95%+ accurate on translation; a reviewer per language checks the result in the Review queue. Each feed has its own export language, product filters per language show what is still untranslated before a feed goes live, and a portal shows a language switcher once you enable more languages.

With one file. Take a supplier file that causes trouble, or the file you send most dealers, and run the free data readiness check. Add a dealer's import template or required-field list, and it shows what your file is missing against it. Then pick one dealer group and run steps 1 to 4 for that group only before you roll out to the rest of the network. For a first call, bring four things: one supplier file that causes trouble, the import template or required-field list of one important dealer, your list of active dealers with the format each one takes, and a sample ERP export. That is enough to map one product family end to end.

Start with one product file

Send one supplier or dealer file for a free data readiness check, or walk through your dealer setup with us in a 30-minute demo.

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