DIAMOND BAR, Calif. – The SEMA Data Co-op is now helping more than 600 automotive specialty equipment suppliers and re-sellers around the world standardize and manage their parts data to improve efficiency and increase sales. This is a 300 percent increase from August last year, according to SEMA.
The association says the SEMA Data Co-op (SDC) has seen unprecedented growth following a strong formal launch of its Product Information Management System (PIMS) in May 2013 along with the announcement of free product data exports to SEMA members.
The SDC is an industry-owned and operated initiative designed to bring full product data management capabilities to participating suppliers, and to deliver clean, customized data exports to receivers at the lowest possible cost. Features include a secure, industry standards-based centralized data repository, extensive on-boarding tools, expert live training and technical assistance, and unlimited standard or fully customized data exports.
"The reception we are receiving in the industry is just fantastic," said Jim Graven, director of Membership of the SDC. "In particular, we are seeing very strong interest from the re-seller community, who obviously have a very strong pent-up demand for quality, affordable product data. As we continue to build this momentum with these data receivers, more and more manufacturers are coming our way to utilize the SDC as a central point for easy management, storage, validation and distribution of their data. We are even seeing significant interest from the replacement parts side of the business, and we welcome any manufacturers in that marketplace to check us out."
Jon Wyly, CEO of the SDC, commented, "Successful distribution of product data across the industry is critical to powering business systems of all types, ranging from internal shipping and category management needs at the distribution level, to the mandatory availability of product information to grow business and close sales in brick and mortar and e-commerce retail environments. It feels great to have made such significant progress in this arguably very challenging endeavor."
To learn more about the SEMA Data Co-op, visit www.SemaDataCoop.org.
