The eCatalog Landscape has Changed
Next Generation Standards Announced at AAPEX

On the morning of November 3, a crowd of over 160 gathered in Las Vegas at the AAPEX show. The standing-room-only audience heard something they had waited a long time to hear. Representatives from Activant, Advance Auto, AutoZone and Wrenchead each said, in turn, effectively the same thing – they support the AAIA Catalog Enhanced Standard (ACES) and they all urged their suppliers and business partners to adopt the standard.

This announcement was significant because these parties rarely appear on the same stage together and almost never agree on business practices and technology standards. But, reflecting over three years of carefully coordinated development, the new AAIA standard for the exchange of applications catalog data is something that they can all agree upon. The significance to the industry is that finally, suppliers can organize and code their catalog data to a single standard and send essentially the same file to each of the leading e-catalog companies and retailers in the aftermarket. The savings to suppliers who are in the habit of coding the same data three to five different ways will be significant.