How jan/san and packaging distributors manage product data

Janitorial and sanitation distributors manage product data in three layers: the ERP item master holds part numbers, units of measure, cost, and price; a PIM or ecommerce platform holds attributes, images, Safety Data Sheets, and certifications; and supplier inputs (manufacturer spreadsheets, GDSN feeds, wholesaler content) fill both. Whether that setup works comes down to a handful of category-specific fields being normalized and kept current: the case pack and unit of measure hierarchy, SDS and dilution data, green certifications, can liner gauge and size, and packaging dimensions and materials.

How jan/san distributors manage product data across ERP, PIM, and supplier feeds

The split between systems is fairly standard. As Snapshot Design describes it, the ERP carries transactional data (part numbers, costs, pricing, inventory, reorder points) while the PIM carries descriptions, attributes, specifications, images, and documents. For a small, stable catalog sold through one channel, the same article notes that ERP item records plus a structured spreadsheet process may be enough.

The inputs come from three places:

• Manufacturers, through line sheets, spec sheets, SDS PDFs, and in some cases GS1 GDSN. The GDSN is a network of interoperable data pools where a supplier publishes item data and a trading partner subscribes to it.
• Wholesalers. Essendant, the company United Stationers renamed itself in June 2015, says it supplies resellers with product content, pricing, availability, order detail and delivery status. In October 2025 it announced it would exit office products to focus on janitorial and sanitation, foodservice, and technology.
• Buying groups. The Strategic Market Alliance co-op adopted a central PIM because more than 100 suppliers sell to member distributors who run separate ecommerce sites, often with different item numbering.

Each feed arrives in its own shape, and the fields below are where most of the normalization goes. For the full attribute list by category, see our jan/san attribute breakdown.

Case pack and unit of measure: the hierarchy that breaks first

Jan/san sells almost everything at more than one level. A toilet tissue SKU is a roll, a case of 96, and a pallet. A floor finish is a gallon, a case of four, and sometimes a 55-gallon drum with its own item number. The ERP needs every level and the conversion factor between each pair, and every level needs its own unit of measure code, dimensions, and weight.

GS1 measurement rules cover every level from the consumer unit up to the case and the packaging levels in between. Height, width, and depth are taken facing the Default Front, defined as the largest side the manufacturer uses to sell the product. That matters because a supplier sheet showing 12 x 10 x 8 without saying which side is the front gives you a box that can be keyed three different ways.

Punchouts are where UOM errors cost money. Procurement systems such as SAP Ariba and Coupa often require a standardized unit system such as UN/CEFACT, and that code list includes CS (glossed as box), CT for carton, PK for package, and EA (glossed as piece). Here is a hypothetical example of how it goes wrong. Your ERP sells a can liner by the case (CS, 250 liners). The punchout catalog maps it to EA because the buyer's system rejects CS. The price stays at the case price, and the buyer's approval workflow now thinks it ordered 10 liners when it ordered 2,500.

Fix this by storing the hierarchy explicitly: sell_uom, uom_qty, inner_pack_qty, case_qty, and a mapped UN/CEFACT code for each channel, instead of letting each integration guess.

SDS and dilution data for cleaning chemicals

Under OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard, distributors must ensure SDSs and updates reach downstream distributors and employers with the initial shipment and the first shipment after an SDS is updated (paragraph (g)(7)(i)), and the SDS follows a fixed 16-section structure, from Identification through Other Information.

So store the SDS as a versioned document tied to the exact SKU and revision date, not one PDF per product family, and pull the fields buyers filter on, such as hazard classification, pH, and flash point, into structured attributes.

Dilution ratio deserves its own field. Green Seal's GS-37 standard for industrial and institutional cleaners requires products to be concentrated to at least 1:32 for general-purpose cleaners and 1:16 for glass, restroom, and carpet cleaners, with exceptions such as toilet bowl and urinal cleaners and carpet spot removers. Cost-per-use is the number a facility buyer compares, and it can only be calculated if dilution is a number rather than a phrase in the description. For illustration: a 2-liter concentrate used at 1:64 makes 130 liters of ready-to-use solution (2 x 65). At a 40 dollar case price for six bottles, that is about 5 cents per liter. None of that can be shown on a product page if dilution_ratio is blank.

Green certifications: Green Seal and EPA Safer Choice

Green procurement specs name a specific certification. Store each certification as its own attribute: program, standard, and the date you last verified it.

• Green Seal. GS-37 covers general-purpose, restroom, glass, and carpet cleaners for industrial and institutional use. Green Seal links a certified product directory from its standards page that you can check against.
• EPA Safer Choice. EPA runs a searchable list of certified products, plus a downloadable spreadsheet on Envirofacts. In August 2024 EPA updated the standard, adding packaging requirements and "Do Not Flush" language for wipes. Disinfectants carry the separate Design for the Environment (DfE) logo, not Safer Choice.

Certifications change, so match your claims against the program's current list on a schedule rather than trusting the supplier sheet from when the item was set up.

Can liner gauge and size

Can liners show why normalization can't be done with find-and-replace. High-density liners are rated in microns and linear low-density in mil, and converting between them misleads because the two resins fail differently. A 12-micron HDPE liner and a 0.5-mil LLDPE liner are not interchangeable on a punctured load. The same guide lists liners by width by length (40 x 46) alongside a gallon range rather than a single exact capacity.

So the attribute set is resin, thickness_value with a separate thickness_unit, width_in, length_in, capacity_gal as a range, color, and count per roll and per case. A catalog that stores "40x46 XH 1.5" in one description field can't be filtered on any of it.

Packaging distributor product data: dimensions, materials, case pack

Packaging distributors run the same ERP-plus-content setup, with stricter dimensional data. Corrugated boxes are specified by inside dimensions in length x width x depth order, where length is the longer side of the opening. A supplier who lists outside dimensions, or lists them in a different order, creates a duplicate SKU that looks like a different box.

Board strength comes in two ratings that measure different things: ECT is edgewise compressive strength in pounds per inch of width, while Mullen burst is the force needed to rupture the face. Store ect_rating and burst_test_lb as separate fields, with flute, wall (single or double), and bundle_qty. Film, stretch wrap, and poly bags have the same gauge and resin problems as can liners, so one thickness model can serve both lines.

Where jan/san product data breaks in ecommerce and punchouts

Field	Usual source	Where it breaks
UOM hierarchy and case pack	ERP, supplier line sheet	Punchout UOM mapping, price per each vs case
Package dimensions and weight	Supplier sheet, GDSN	Freight quotes, unclear Default Front, swapped L and W
SDS	Manufacturer PDF	Stale revision attached to the SKU, family-level PDF
Dilution ratio	Product label, SDS, tech sheet	Left in description text, so no cost-per-use
Certifications	Supplier claim	Lapsed or never verified against program lists
Liner and film gauge	Description text	Mil and micron mixed in one field

Platforms like the one cs.gmbh describes push cXML punchout catalogs to Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer, and Oracle and limit buyers to approved core lists, so a flattened attribute shows up inside a customer's approved assortment.

Is there an ISSA product data standard for distributor catalogs?

We could not find a published ISSA attribute standard for distributor item data. The shared vocabularies jan/san catalogs actually depend on are GS1 identifiers and measurement rules, UN/CEFACT punchout units, OSHA's SDS format, and the certification programs' own lists.

Who does the normalization work

A PIM gives these fields a home, but it doesn't read an SDS or notice when a Safer Choice listing has disappeared. That work usually lands on an internal content team, an offshore data-entry vendor, or nobody. Anglera is built for it: it extracts values from spec sheets, SDSs, and manufacturer sites, scores each value against its source, flags conflicts for review, and writes back to whatever PIM, ERP, or flat file you already run. Because it keeps running, a new attribute such as dilution_ratio can be backfilled across a catalog and then kept current as suppliers revise documents.

If you're scoping this for a jan/san or packaging catalog, start with the UOM hierarchy and SDS revision dates, since errors there reach punchout orders and regulatory paperwork directly. Anglera for jan/san distributors typically goes live in 30 days or less from an ERP export. The jan/san product data guide covers the rest of the category model.