Dollars & Sense

Standards Matter

Google, Amazon, and an array of home appliance companies are teaming up to make it easier for you to dim your home’s lights and lock your front doors. They are adopting a standard called Matter that allows devices to communicate and work together, shares The Wall St. Journal. This allows a giant like Amazon, creator of Alexa devices and Ring doorbells, and Tuo, a small home device tech creator, to use the same platform yet keep their internal, proprietary code base. This standard is like a “common language” that saves tech companies time and money on integration initiatives. Matter also helps the customer in a few ways:

• Matter simplifies the buying process because now they can buy a product that works with more devices. It doesn’t lock them into one brand’s proprietary system.
• Matter extends the product’s lifespan. When the customer buys a new device, it doesn’t have to mothball old devices because it doesn’t communicate with the new one. Now the old can communicate with the new. (Matter is a software platform and not hardware-based. This means my seven-year-old lighting system can do a software update and work with a light bulb I bought today.) 

I found this industry adoption inspiring because our retail industry needs help sharing product data. There are more than 3,300 brands in the retail industry, and almost each has its own way of formatting and sharing product data. Since there is no industry standard, a retailer faces 3k+ different ways that it may receive an Excel file. I propose that these 3k brands adopt a standard and make our lives easier.     

Example 
The Ivy House, a premium tabletop retailer in Texas, sells more than 180 brands. These 180 brands send the retailer product data to add to its POS and website in: 180 different ways via Excel files. The store, which has about three people and no full-time tech person, does not have the resources to become proficient in 180 different Excel formats. No brand formats its Excel sheet the same. I believe The Ivy House and thousands of other retailers want their brands to use a Matter-like standard for formatting Excel files. 

How This Would Work for Brands
A brand could still use its own formatting. The brand would add a new, additional choice for downloading or receiving their data. As a reference, Matter does not require Amazon to discard its own software. Matter is a layer inside the Amazon product. Our approach for Excel files will be the same. A store could visit a brand’s website and choose to get the file they need in either the brand’s format or the industry standard format. 

Standards have helped various industries improve. The CAFE Standard, for example, launched in 1975, is a national fuel efficiency standard. This reminded me of our predicament because when we spend time formatting Excel sheets, we are polluting time. Time is our energy. As a tribute, we could call our standards the CAFE Standard: Collaborating at Formatting Excel.

Where Do We Start?
Matter was developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance. We need leaders in our industry to help champion this cause. To help our retail industry get started, Shop Local has set up a page (productshare.org) that shares open standards for formatting Excel sheets. We invite brands to download our sample Excel file, view examples, and collaborate on standards. We invite our industry’s 3k+ brands to use this standard free of charge. 

Matter is already inside Amazon Alexa, Apple HomePod, and Google Nest Smart Speakers that you buy today. This helps jumpstart it. Shop Local has complete product data (40+ variables per product) for 70k products from 115 brand partners, including Juliska, Versace, and Le Creuset. To help jumpstart our industry standard, we’re offering the data for these 70k products in our standard to authorized retailers today. For example, when an authorized retailer downloads Juliska products from Juliska’s Shop Local account, it will receive them in the open standard format. 

Why Should Brands Use the Shop Local Standard?
Retailers will sell more products from a brand due to the standard. The standard makes it easier, faster, and cheaper for retailers of all sizes to receive and display their products in-store at a POS and online on a website. A standard format will save store owners money and make them happier. Sales reps win, too. When stores sell more, they make more. 

Amazon, Google, and Apple have teamed up to accept data sharing standards. It’s time our industry did too. This is something we should seek to "Excel" at. 

To our Team, thank you for getting us to a point where we can help our industry. You're helping set the standard for the industry.

FAQ:
Would a brand have to retire its own internal formatting system?
No. A brand can use its own, existing formatting as well as the standard. 

Why would brands not want to follow a standard?
A brand would need to spend time and money adding the standard to its business practices. Once implemented, there is little ongoing cost to offering it. 

Does using the standard format cost money?
No. The standard is a free and open standard. Brands and retailers can use it for free.

When can a business start using the standard product sharing format?
Today. You’re invited to see the standards at: productshare.org


……………………………

Read The Wall St. Journal about Matter: 
https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/its-finally-time-to-add-some-smart-tech-to-your-dumb-home-192132ac?st=d9f65m9f9ejdurb&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink

 

Tags:
Christopher mims Wall Street journal google Amazon nest matter standard ring doorbell cafe standard product share

View Post on Shop Local

---

---