New product introduction without the new line form chase

New product introduction breaks down at the handover between supplier and retailer. SKULaunch replaces the emailed new line form with a structured submission that suppliers complete against your category requirements, so new lines arrive complete and go live without rekeying.

The problem

Most new product introduction still runs on a new line form. A spreadsheet goes out to the supplier, comes back half filled, and someone in the buying or data team rekeys it into the ERP and the website. Every handover loses data. Mandatory fields come back blank, units land in the wrong column, and images arrive as attachments a week later. The launch date does not move, so the product goes live thin and gets fixed afterwards, if at all.

Before and after

An illustrative example from an outdoor lighting range.

Before: what the new line form sends back

Outdoor wall light, black, LED, see datasheet. Price TBC. Images to follow.

After: what goes live from SKULaunch

• Category: Outdoor wall lights
• Colour: Black
• Lamp type: Integrated LED
• IP rating: IP44, taken from the supplier datasheet
• Colour temperature: 3000K
• Images: three, uploaded by the supplier
• Status: Approved

How it works in SKULaunch

1. Set what each category needs. Attributes are scoped to your taxonomy, so a supplier adding an outdoor light is asked for IP rating and lamp type, not the fields for a cable gland. Mark the attributes a supplier must answer as mandatory and leave the rest for enrichment.
2. Suppliers submit on a Line Card. The supplier creates the new item in their portal, completes the category template and uploads images and datasheets. No spreadsheet goes back and forth.
3. Your team reviews every line. Submissions arrive as Submitted. Approve them, or reject with a reason so the supplier knows exactly what to fix.
4. AI fills the gaps. AI Tools pull missing attributes from the datasheet, the manufacturer's site or the product images, and content generation writes titles and descriptions from the verified attributes. Nothing publishes until you approve it.

What changes

A 5x improvement in time to live. The buying team stops rekeying supplier forms. Suppliers see the same requirements every time, so submissions improve after the first round. New lines reach the website complete instead of being patched after launch.

Common questions

Do suppliers need training?

Very little. The Line Card only shows the attributes for the product's category, with mandatory fields marked, so there is far less to get wrong than on a generic form.

What if a supplier will only send a spreadsheet?

Import it. The file import maps their columns to your attributes, and you can save the mapping for their next file.

Does this replace our PIM or ERP?

No. SKULaunch handles intake, enrichment and approval, then publishes the finished record to your PIM, ERP or ecommerce platform.

More on supplier onboarding, or see how supplier data approval works.