31 May 2013

Members of the Standards and Technical Committee work tirelessly behind the scenes to support the organisation.

Welcome to this weeks good news update. In this issue I would like to feature and to thank those members of the Standards and Technical Committee who work tirelessly behind the scenes to support you and your organisation.

Alan Barclay former Chairman of the BOSS Board and Chairman of Vasanta Group once said that "If we did not have a BOSS Standards and Technical Committee then we would have to go out and set one up".

The aim of the BOSS Standards and Technical Committee is to ensure that "data communication standards" including ISPC`s, packs and pers, standard abbreviations for units of measure, dimensions and colour, industry product classification, trade specific universal part numbering system, pack formats, packaging and box formats, pallet specifications, attributes and any other industry standards are classified in a way that makes the Office Products Industry as efficient as possible.

Members of the Committee are drawn from manufacturers, wholesalers, contract stationers, dealer groups  and service providers. The work they do makes the information supplied to you, the production of catalogues, the indexing of products and the ease of access to find products, as well as the classification of new products, as simple and as straightforward as possible for everyone involved in the industry.

In recent months the Committee has been working on product specific attributes and e-commerce data requirement. Chris Anstey, Chair of the BOSS Standards and Technical Committee, said:
 
"Most office products dealers now have an internet site and for many this is now the single most important sales tool. To maximise the effectiveness of an e-commerce site, the product data must be of good quality and work seamlessly with the functionality of the site. The BOSS Standards and Technical Committee have been working to define product data formats and standards that take full account of the requirements of the internet. This will enable data providers and software houses to produce, load and display data in a common format and will make it much easier for smaller e-commerce solution providers to offer an excellent end user experience.

These Standards are being made available to manufacturers, data providers and software houses. You can access this information here. The files are titled : “Sequence for Product Descriptions” and “Product Specific Attributes”. You will also find a document – “E-Commerce Site Dealer Considerations”. This covers everything to consider when choosing or designing an e-commerce solution."
 
The Standards and Technical Committee value your feedback and input to this very important development in our e-commerce offering. If you have any comment to make please feed this into the BOSS Standards and Technical Committee by contacting Chris Anstey on 07872 157719 or [email protected]