Esschert Design develops and sells a unique, proprietary range of garden and nature-related products. The company offers over 3,000 different items to business customers in the garden and DIY sector. As an international wholesaler, the company supplies nearly 70 different countries.

Until recently, Esschert Design managed its product data in AFAS (ERP system). However, the demand for specific product information went beyond the possibilities offered by AFAS. Time for change.

Innovadis guided the company in its search for a suitable solution. With the implementation of a new PIM system, Esschert Design now has a future-proof digital landscape.

Esthèl Knikhuis is Product Information Manager at Esschert Design. "We have a very extensive and diverse product range. Besides general, generic characteristics such as dimensions and color, each product group has its own set of features. With flower pots, for example, think about a drainage hole and with candles about the burning time. As a result, we have a total of about 700 different characteristics in maintenance. Our assortment is also very changeable. Every year about 250 new products are added and about the same number of products leave the assortment. Creating and managing all this product data is a huge job."

"In addition, our customers are asking for more and more comprehensive product data. In addition, every customer wants something slightly different, so we had to collect data again in a spreadsheet for every customer request. This was very time-consuming, error-prone and created inconsistent information."

With a Product Information Management (PIM) system, Esschert Design now has 1 central place for all its product data. Moreover, the data is now available in 4 languages. The company can use this data for all channels, such as the website, webshop and customer-specific exports. It is even possible to automatically generate product catalogs.

To link with GS1, data must meet very specific requirements. Every quarter, GS1 also launches updates that may require a company to submit its product data differently. If the data does not meet the requirements, the product will not be included in GS1's data pool. As a result, customers who use GS1 can no longer sell Esschert Design's products.

Esthèl: "For example, if a field is allowed to contain a maximum of 35 characters and you supply 40 characters, this will result in an error message. Or have you distinguished between lilac and eggplant in terms of colors in your PIM system, then GS1 may only recognize purple."

For a smooth transfer of data from inriver to GS1, Innovadis recommended Qmica. With this addition, Esschert Design now has a tool to map features and options from its PIM system to GS1's standard.

Esschert Design now has much more specific product data available, for its own channels and for its customers. In addition, the company can offer that data to GS1's data pool.

Esthèl: "This fulfills the wish of our large customers, which is commercially very important. Moreover, we now save a lot of time ourselves because we only record the data in 1 place. And that prevents inconsistency, errors and complaints."