Industry Standards for the Retail Industry

[Former Member]

I want to know " SAP recommends which of these Industry Standards for the Retail Industry?

1.GS1

2.ANSI ASC X12

3.eCOM

4.GSMP

5.EPCglobal

6.GDSN

7.GCI

8.VICS

[hnmuralidhara]

Dear Maliheh,

SAP for Retail integrated solutions reduce total cost of ownership by providing best-of-breed business-process support right out of the box, along with adherence to retail industry standards (ARTS and VICS) and IT industry standards (XML).

For more details, check out following link;

http://www.sap.com/industries/retail/large/businessbenefits/index.epx

Regards,

Muralidhara

[Former Member]

SAP has avoided making any recommendations. I specifically asked one of their architects a similar question a couple of weeks ago.

In general the X12 and EDIFACT standards are king within the retail industry. Within the United States X12 has been the default standard for many years and is used by all the giants. Within the European Union EDIFACT is the default standard and is used by the vast majority of retailers. However the UK has a standard which is called Tradacoms. In my experience UK retailers have, when pushed, also offered EDIFACT messaging. It should be noted that these formats are not XML. However many XML convertors exist for them. X12, EDIFACT and Tradacoms are what are commonly referred to as Traditional EDI.

The GS1 standard called eCOM is being increasingly adopted. I do know that Accenture and CapGemini have recently been heavily involved in promoting GS1 and eCOM. This is because eCOM standard is realistically the most heavily backed replacement for the Traditional EDI standards. The several of the largest US and European retailers and manufactures are now throwing their weight behind eCOM.