The two B2B exchanges duelling for dominance in the retail industry
are calling a truce to encourage content providers representing
more than 12,000 manufacturers to adopt a common set of data
standards.
GlobalNetXchange and WorldWide Retail Exchange last week jointly
announced a proposed timetable calling on online catalogue
developers and other aggregators of product information to support
the Global Commerce Initiative's (GCI) business-to-business
standards by mid-2003.
The GCI, a group of large companies and trade associations in the
manufacturing and retail industries, last year released a protocol
setting basic rules for data access and security, message content
and the flow of information between trading partners.
The two retail exchanges said they surveyed content providers that
do work for manufacturers and found that many are already moving
towards compliance with the GCI's standards, including the use of
XML messaging and the data schema defined by the group.
Retailers already use the product data maintained by content and
catalogue developers in their internal systems. The exchanges said
wider adoption of the GCI standards would help improve data
synchronisation between companies and make it easier to share
information electronically.
Bharat Popat, vice-president of product development at
GlobalNetXchange, said he expects product ordering and payment
activities using the common standards to begin taking off late next
year.
Officials at the two retail exchanges are aware of e-commerce
standardisation efforts for different industries, Popat said. But
he deemed those secondary to the retail-specific joint
effort.
Gale Daikoku, an analyst at Gartner's G2 unit, said the retail
exchanges "are having a tough time getting members to adopt [their]
services, so the broader they can make the standards, the better".