What is category standardization?
Placing every product from every retailer into one shared category tree, so the same kind of product is compared like for like across retailers.
Definition
Each retailer organizes its website differently: one files a product under Sneakers, another under Trainers, a third under Running. Category standardization maps every product into one shared tree of about 4,000 categories, so a category means the same thing at every retailer and in every country.
How Data Purl measures it
Products are classified from their names, retailer menus and attributes. In Hardlines & Consumables, most products are individually verified or matched by audited classification rules, and the rest are assigned by a model only at calibrated high confidence. The shares of each, and the audit results, are published on the validation page.
Why it matters
Without one tree, a category total mixes unlike products and a cross-retailer comparison compares menus rather than products. Standardization is what makes share of shelf, category price change and brand-versus-brand comparisons meaningful.
Pitfalls
- Category definitions are Data Purl's, not a retailer's or a statistics agency's; a Data Purl category will not line up exactly with an official price-index category.
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