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Product Taxonomy
Canadian Tire
Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC) is a leading Canadian retail conglomerate with nearly 100 years of operational history and over 1,700 locations nationwide. The company's multi-banner portfolio includes Canadian Tire Retail, Sport Chek, Mark's, Helly Hansen, and Pro Hockey Life, spanning diverse product categories from automotive and sports equipment to lifestyle goods and apparel.
THE CHALLENGE:
Canadian Tire sought to modernize its internal category architecture across three core banners—Canadian Tire Corporation, Mark's, and FGL Sports—within its enterprise Product Information Management (PIM) system. The existing taxonomy structure had become suboptimal for efficient vendor data collection, creating operational inefficiencies in the upstream data supply chain.
The strategic objective was to establish a unified, scalable category framework that would streamline vendor data ingestion processes across all three banners, enabling more consistent product attribute collection and improved data governance.
THE SOLUTION:
Our team executed a comprehensive taxonomy optimization initiative structured in two phases.
Phase 1 focused on category structure redesign and product migration.
• Current state assessment: Analyzing the existing category hierarchy and product distribution across all three banners
• Taxonomy restructuring: Redesigning the complete node architecture by consolidating or expanding categories to optimize logical groupings
• Attribute framework development: Creating standardized templates defining new attributes, permissible values, and units of measure (UoMs) for each category
• Migration mapping: Developing comprehensive old-to-new category mapping files to enable seamless product catalogue migration to new leaf-level nodes
• Governance framework establishment: Documenting taxonomy maintenance protocols and decision rules to ensure consistent future modifications
THE OUTCOME:
The restructured taxonomy established a more efficient foundation for multi-banner vendor data collection. The new category architecture, combined with formal governance documentation, positioned Canadian Tire to maintain taxonomy integrity while enabling scalable product information management across its retail portfolio.