EDATA, the data pool for the UK’s electrotechnical sector, where manufacturers share high quality product data with multiple wholesalers.
Why and how Wholesalers are using EDATA the data pool
Thousands of Product Data Sheets for your contractor customers
Bulk data downloads to drive your business systems and ecommerce
Read how wholesalers are using EDATA the data pool
Mark Ashworth
Director
ABM Electrical Wholesale Ltd, Stockport
A member of The IBA Buying Group
Before EDATA came along it was a headache to find the correct, up to date product data sheets for our customers. It was a case of trawling through websites, scanning catalogue pages and uploading them as PDFs, just going wherever we could to find information. It was all a bit hit and miss, to be honest.
EDATA has been a massive improvement and it is our go-to location for Product Data Sheets. I have EDATA open all the time on a separate tab and ready to upload EDATA Data Sheets into my ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system. Through our ERP system I can produce detailed quotes for my contractor customers. Our philosophy is to provide excellent customer service so every quote we provide is backed up with as much extra information as we can provide – and that includes EDATA Product Data Sheets.
We also help our contractor customers compile their Operation & Maintenance packs which they leave with their customers on completion of a project. Inside is all the documentation related to that job: warranties, policies, our quotation, and EDATA Product Data Sheets.
At the moment I have to manually upload the EDATA Data Sheets to our ERP system. An API link which integrates the latest EDATA information straight into our ERP system would be fantastic but that’s not here yet. EDATA is brilliant but there are limitations, but it is early days and I am sure these upgrades will come in time.
Having said that, an EDATA Data Sheet providing the original source of data is super useful. It shows exactly which products have gone into a project.
I appreciate that for manufacturers getting all your product data sorted isn’t an easy task but it is really worth it. Not only because wholesalers like us need it but also because that same data can drive other activity such as catalogue production, and support materials for a sales team. Just an observation, but I’ll have a meeting with an Area Sales Manager from a Manufacturer that is already in EDATA but the data sheets they show me are not from the data pool. That may mean there is one team working away to create static PDFs of data sheets, which their sales team is using, and another inputting the latest data into EDATA where the data sheet can be automatically generated and is bang up to date.
Mark Dunnington
Technical Support Engineer
AA Jones Electric Ltd, incl. Seltec - part of The IBA Buying Group
In recent months my focus has been developing a new website for AA Jones. Getting the site ready for launch has been a lot of work so we’ve been approaching it one product segment at a time, but I have to say that EDATA has been a wonderful resource and, as we are an EDA wholesaler, there is no cost to access it.
Our objective is to automate the flow of product information from the data pool into our business: we’ve automated as much as we can and we’re now taking the next step and exploring an API link with EDATA.
The EDATA team is open to feedback about where we’d like to see improvements, and also which manufacturers and product ranges we’d like to see represented in EDATA. We’re watching with interest.
We haven’t used the live Product Data Sheet facility yet but we’re starting to look at that for our trade counter team.
I’d encourage anyone that hasn’t logged in to the EDATA portal to do so, there is plenty of detailed technical information in there which wholesalers can really use to their advantage. We appreciate that it is early days for the data pool, but what we’ve seen so far has been great.
Josh Powlett
Purchasing Manager
Hatton Electrical Wholesale Ltd - part of the AWEBB buying group
“The EDATA data pool is fantastic and any wholesaler that is not using it is missing out.
“It used to take me hours to source product data sheets from each of our suppliers separately, but in EDATA they are all there in one hub.”
