Product References and Relationships

Product references and/or relationships provide the opportunity of informing customers about ‘related’ products and are one of the first needs for cross-selling. In doing so, do avoid proliferation. Consult with your marketing department about which relationships are relevant to your products. When a product is phased out, the references and relationships must also be updated.

There are three types of relationship:

• Product to product (P-P)
• Product to item (P-A)
• Item to item (A-A)

In the 2BA search engine Unifeed, product relationships are only displayed at product level on the [Verwant] (Related) tab. Links at item level are not shown but are provided with data. If the software package in which the data is read supports this functionality, references can be consulted.

Product references and/or relationships can be supplied through the exchange format DICO (SALES005), BMEcat 2005 ETIM Guideline V5.0, ETIMxChang or separately through the exchange format Connected table.

Commonly used reference types

• Belongs to (FI2)
  Example: toilet seat -X- belongs to toilet -X-.
• Fits to (FI2)
  Example: toilet seat -X- technically fits toilet -X-.
• Contains (CON)
  When a wholesaler creates a composition of products, they must actually create their own product record.
• Comparable (COM)
  Example: boiler -X- is similar to boiler -Y-. The boilers are not necessarily supplied by the same manufacturer.