Mercado Software Expands Software Offering With UniClass, A New e-Catalog Essential
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts:
Donna Wood
Mercado Software, Inc.
Tel: 510-870-8084
Fax: 510-870-8100
Email: dwood@mercado.com
Nicole Zajack
Sterling Communications, Inc.
Tel: 415-749-6550
Fax: 415-749-6551
Email: nsz@sterlingpr.com
—Groundbreaking Automated Product Classification And Attribute Extraction Solution Cuts Costs To Create Effective e-Catalogs—
FREMONT, Calif. — May 21, 2001 — Mercado™ Software, the leading provider of e-Catalog search solutions for improving online buying and selling, announced today UniClass™, an automated product classification and attribute extraction solution for e-Catalogs. With the introduction of UniClass, Mercado Software broadens its offering of e-Catalog Essentials™ to provide maximum benefit to distributors, shopping portals, e-Procurement sites, e-Marketplaces, and e-Catalog content providers.
UniClass dramatically reduces the cost and time to build e-Catalogs. It meets these challenges with groundbreaking technology that quickly unifies inconsistently identified supplier data into any chosen classification scheme and creates standardized product attributes from text descriptions. In fact, UniClass increases productivity up to 25 times, making it easier to acquire additional suppliers. UniClass produces high-quality, structured catalog data so that multiple catalogs, when combined into one, deliver the highest possible value to businesses and their customers.
"With the advent of e-Catalogs, the ability to quickly and accurately organize data has become a business imperative for distributors, shopping portals and e-procurement sites," said Research Director Robert Dorin, e-Business and Enterprise Applications, Aberdeen Group. "Manual product classification and attribute extraction are two of the most costly and time-consuming processes for e-Catalog administrators, and a function that impacts everything from content aggregation to search. An automated solution that classifies data quickly and accurately will have a major impact in this market."
The highly scalable UniClass quickly and accurately processes hundreds of catalogs with millions of SKUs across multiple product domains. It has the flexibility to support any standard or custom classification scheme. UniClass provides richer content and consistent results—with 99% accuracy.
“For data to be useful, it must be organized. When information comes from many different catalog sources in various formats, aggregation becomes a real challenge,” said Menachem Cohen, president and CEO, Mercado Software. “UniClass automates critical components of this aggregation process, which until now has been a manual process. UniClass provides shopping portals, distributors, and others who aggregate catalogs with a practical and cost-effective way to organize e-Catalog content.”
Key UniClass Advantages
Lowers e-Catalog Implementation And Maintenance Costs
UniClass drives costs down by automatically organizing supplier products into any chosen classification scheme (taxonomy) and by extracting and normalizing appropriate attribute information. This makes a major component of the aggregation process much more productive and efficient.
Creates Richer Content
Because UniClass creates consistent, accurate product classification and attribute information, aggregators can quickly organize and fully utilize all of their suppliers’ content.
Works With Any Classification Scheme
UniClass works with the aggregator’s preferred classification system, whether it is an e-Commerce industry standard (such as UNSPSC, eCl@ss™, or RUS™) or its own custom classification scheme.
Is Highly Scalable
This highly scalable solution processes thousands of products per minute and is designed to handle hundreds of catalogs with millions of products, across multiple product domains. A batch classification mode makes catalog updates easy. UniClass easily supports the acquisition of new catalogs, ongoing changes, and catalog growth.
Accommodates Any e-Catalog
UniClass supports open data and delivery standards. It works with any catalog database and can import and export files in XML or delimited text format. UniClass accommodates any XML format, including e-Commerce industry standard such as xCBL, cXML and ebXML
Provides Faster Time-To-Market
UniClass provides an automated software solution to a process that historically could only be addressed manually, making content preparation faster and more manageable.
Pricing and Availability
UniClass is available immediately through Mercado Software sales channels worldwide. Contact Mercado Software for pricing.
About Mercado Software
Mercado™ Software is the leading provider of e-Catalog Essentials—including search and automated product classification and attribute extraction solutions—designed to improve e-Catalog performance and online buying and selling. The IntuiFind™ Total Search Framework provides online catalogs with an extensive array of intuitive, parametric, and categorical drill-down search and search analysis solutions, all designed specifically to search content rich e-Catalogs. UniClass™ quickly unifies inconsistently identified supplier data into any chosen classification scheme and creates standardized product attributes from text descriptions. Mercado Software’s e-Catalog Essentials give e-Catalogs rich, highly organized data that can be easily accessed, delivering the highest possible value to businesses and their customers. Mercado Software’s major customers include Sears.com, Tower Records, Blockbuster Video, 800.com, Webvan, e-Bags, Hastings, Firmbuy, Outpurchase.com, Caterpillar Corporation, US Office Products, and Quelle. For more information about Mercado, visit www.mercado.com.
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Mercado, IntuiFind, Search That Sells, Total Search, SearchStream Analysis, ParametricPlus, and Finding Is Buying are trademarks of Mercado Software Inc. All other company and product names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective holders.
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