Categorization: Categorization is the method of placing items within a logical order, or hierarchy, to enable someone to easily locate them within a catalog, table of contents, or other environment. For example, the item "pencil" may logically be placed within a hierarchy such as: 1) Office equipment and supplies; 2) Office Supplies; 3) Writing utensils; and finally 4) pencils. United Nations and Dun & Bradstreet have developed a universal classification scheme that can be used to classify all products. This classification is called as UNSPSC. This scheme is being updated on an ongoing manner. We get files from E-Commerce customer, which could be an initial file for either a new client or an update file for the existing clients. We go through the product description and match it to one of the classifications under the UNSPSC scheme. The existing customers send update files, which could be any thing from price updates to part updates. The files are appropriately processed and loaded in the specific database format of the E-Commerce customer. Units of Measure (UOM) for the products are properly represented according to ANSI (American National Standards Institute) UOM or EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport) standards depending upon the customer’s requirements.

Normalization and Rationalization: We can also process files according to our customer’s requirements, which may not follow the UNSPSC scheme. In addition, product descriptions will be cleaned so that abbreviations no longer remain. Normalizing content is the process whereby product descriptions are converted to standard terminology, including extending abbreviations to become full words, removing extraneous characters, correcting misspellings, etc., in order to clarify a product’s description so that it may be understood by a lay person. Rationalizing the content is the process whereby the product descriptions are organized in a consistent order so that identical products of all manufacturers are represented in a uniform way so that the searching of a product line can pull similar products from different manufacturers. Categorization, Normalization and Rationalization of Data can be done for Companies with following Product Lines: Electrical, Plumbing, Medical, Chemical, Office Supplies, Computers - Hardware, software and accessories, Mechanical equipment, supplies and accessories, Oil rigging, personal safety, restaurant, apparels, food products, Automotive etc.