AI-Powered Product Data Onboarding
AI-Powered Product Data Onboarding
How a furniture distributor cut catalog processing from 6 weeks to under 3 days — processing 25,000 SKUs from 100 suppliers with near-zero errors, and launched their Japan market catalog 4 months ahead of schedule.
About Client
The client is a mid-sized furniture and home goods distributor with operations across Southeast Asia, expanding into the Japanese market. With 100 active supplier relationships and a catalog spanning 25,000 SKUs across furniture, home décor, and lifestyle categories, they had outgrown their manual catalog operations — but hadn’t found a solution that didn’t require disrupting their established supplier network.
Challenges
With supplier data arriving in dozens of formats — from modern Excel files to scanned PDF catalogs from 40-year-old manufacturers — the operations team was spending more time managing data than growing the business. Four core challenges were blocking the client’s ability to scale:
Multiple data formats
Every supplier sent data differently — PDFs, Excel files with non-standard columns, scanned catalogs, proprietary software exports, and legacy format files. No two formats matched.
Inconsistent data structure
Each supplier used different naming conventions, unit systems, and attribute structures — making manual mapping to the internal PIM schema a full-time job.
Heavy manual effort
A single catalog cycle took 6 weeks with 3 dedicated staff. By the time Q1 data was live, Q2 had already started — creating a permanent backlog.
Growth blocked
New suppliers and new markets (especially Japan) were on hold indefinitely because the ops team was at capacity maintaining the existing catalog. Scaling was operationally impossible.
Our Approach
TPS Software deployed AI-Powered Product Data Onboarding — a four-stage pipeline that ingests supplier data in any format, extracts and maps product attributes using AI, and loads clean, structured data directly into the client’s PIM and downstream systems. The system adapts to suppliers — suppliers don’t change anything about how they send data.
Ingest
Accept data from any source — Excel, PDF, scanned docs, images, API feeds. No supplier changes required.
Extract
AI reads product info using OCR, NLP, and entity recognition — even from unstructured text and legacy formats.
Map
Semantic mapping aligns attributes to the client’s PIM schema. Learns conventions, validates rules, flags exceptions.
Load
Clean data pushed to PIM, OMS, storefront, and warehouse. Product images processed in parallel.
Results
After implementing TPS AI Product Data Onboarding, the client’s catalog operations transformed completely — without changing a single supplier relationship or replacing any existing system.
| Metric | Before | After TPS AI |
|---|---|---|
| Full catalog processing | 6 weeks, 3 dedicated staff | Under 3 days, 1 reviewer |
| Error rate per cycle | 0.5–1% (200–400 errors) | Near zero — AI validation |
| New supplier onboarding | Delayed to next quarter | Same week as contract signed |
| Japan market entry | Projected: 6 months | Actual: 7 weeks (4 months early) |
| Supplier changes required | N/A | Zero — AI adapts to suppliers |
| Ops team work focus | 100% manual data entry | Strategy, QA, vendor management |
Business Impact
Faster product onboarding
New suppliers go live in days instead of waiting for the next quarterly cycle. The team onboarded 12 new suppliers in the first quarter post-launch.
Improved data consistency
AI normalization ensures every SKU meets the same quality standard — regardless of supplier format. Customer complaints from catalog errors dropped to near zero.
Scalable for any catalog size
Processing 50,000 SKUs takes the same effort as 5,000 — no additional headcount required. The system scales with the business, not the team.
Reduced manual effort
The ops team shifted from full-time data entry to strategic work — vendor management, catalog strategy, and market expansion planning.
This is the only solution we’ve seen that actually fits how we work. Our suppliers didn’t change a thing — and we launched Japan four months ahead of schedule.
Why Choose Us
Plenty of vendors can build a data pipeline. Here’s what makes TPS the right partner to run product onboarding at scale — especially across the Vietnam and Japan markets.
Proven delivery at scale
300+ projects delivered for 80+ clients worldwide — from fast-growing brands to global enterprises like Toshiba and InComm.
Japan-market expertise
A dedicated Tokyo office and native Japanese, English, and Vietnamese capability — built for cross-border catalog and supplier operations.
Enterprise-grade quality
ISO-certified and CMMI Level 3 assessed processes, so your data pipeline is secure, auditable, and reliable from day one.
We adapt to your stack
We integrate with your existing PIM, OMS, storefront, and WMS — no rip-and-replace, and zero disruption to your suppliers.
AI + e-commerce specialists
Not a generic AI shop. Deep, hands-on expertise in e-commerce data, catalog operations, and production-grade machine learning.
An end-to-end partner
From consulting and build to managed services — one accountable team across the full lifecycle, not a hand-off between vendors.
See it in action with your actual supplier data
We demo with your files, your schema, your suppliers — not generic slides. 30 minutes to see what’s possible.
CONTACT OUR EXPERT TEAMNo commitment required · Results with your actual data
