Welcome to the UK DataSync Community update

House of Fraser launched DataSync to all suppliers and other UK retailers in September this year. The programme was introduced by letter from Colin Porter to all suppliers and followed up by a further letter outlining the required date for product data to be upload to the Inovis DataSync service.

Those letters, along with an explanatory Supplier Pack and Order Forms, have now been sent to every supplier to House of Fraser. If you don't have a copy you might find that someone else in your business has received the relevant information. Do not worry, you can request another copy right here.

Image of Belfast We are continuing to prepare and upload supplier data from well known brands and we are pleased to announce that Paul Smith has now completed their product data upload and that this data is now available for the buyers to see and use.

Pat Wass from Paul Smith says: "Uploading the data was simple. It took just 3 days between sending over our order form and the data being available to the House of Fraser buyers.

Paul Smith joins a large number of very different suppliers in compliance with the mandate sent from House of Fraser. From fashion companies like Playtex, Hugo Boss and Levi's that supply thousands of lines, to homeware companies like Sebo, Grey Technology and Museums & Galleries, that supply just a handful. All are joining the DataSync Community and adding to the 20,000 skus available to House of Fraser already.

Date reminder

House of Fraser has stated that your product data must be uploaded to Inovis in time for the January 09 switch over. This will mean that the buying departments will use the electronic catalogue of product data from January 1st 2009.
The DataSync Team at Inovis are here to help you get your data onto the Catalogue. However it is important that you begin the process before December 2008 so that you are able to meet the deadline. Please contact us now or send your order forms over to start the process. Remember that once your data is up then House of Fraser get an automatic notification of any additions, deletions or changes you may make, so from the day you first upload you will be synchronised.

If you have any questions or queries regarding the DataSync programme please feel free to contact the Sales Team on 01772 646 017 or email

What about other UK retailers?

John King sent a letter to other retail CEO's asking for support in this area and Stephen Jefferies, Director of Retail at Inovis, has been working with those retailers in the past months to establish when they can use the data being uploaded.

Jefferies says: "I'm pleased to say that John Lewis recently sent a letter to John King pledging their support to the project and concept. I will be working with the team there to establish their project start dates and data upload schedule."

Stephen is in detailed senior level discussions with Harvey Nichols, B&Q and Selfridges, and has been invited for similar discussion with retailers such as Argos, Homebase, Debenhams and Arnotts.

"It's a very busy and exciting time for us as we roll out DataSync to the UK with the House of Fraser programme and ready ourselves for the additional programmes from the next retailers. Inovis synchronise data and manage electronic business documents globally with some of the largest retailers in the world, consequently we have the tools to help drive efficiency within any company. The benefits of Inovis managing this environment centrally and efficiently means that joining the community makes sense, and our customers can see that, hence why our catalogue has 115 million product codes already. Our customers aren't just huge multinational fashion brands they are also very small country focused businesses that find it difficult to justify the manual resource when there's an alternative." Jefferies concludes.