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Product Taxonomy and Attribution
Indigo
Indigo is Canada's leading book retailer with a mission centered on inspiring customers through life-enriching products and experiences. Beyond its core book offering, the company has expanded into diversified lifestyle categories including paper goods, baby products, toys, home décor, and electronics. Indigo's merchandising philosophy emphasizes curation and presentation, translating the organized, aesthetically driven in-store experience to its eCommerce channel.
THE CHALLENGE:
As part of a planned migration to a new Product Information Management (PIM) system, Indigo identified critical gaps in data structure and organization. Historical growth had resulted in fragmented product data architecture—stakeholders across the organization required specific product attributes for decision-making, yet this information lacked standardized storage protocols or uniform formatting.
Additionally, product-level data supporting the eCommerce experience proved insufficient for optimal customer engagement. The strategic imperative was twofold: enhance vendor-supplied product data quality and quantity to satisfy internal stakeholder requirements while simultaneously improving customer-facing content richness on the digital platform.
THE SOLUTION:
Our team executed a comprehensive taxonomy design and attribution framework initiative, building Indigo's product information architecture from foundational principles.
• Developed a complete category tree identifying logical product groupings and sub-category relationships
• Created standardized attribute templates for each category, including controlled value lists and data type specifications
• Established the taxonomic foundation required for consistent vendor data collection and internal product classification
Phase 2: Presentation Taxonomy Architecture
• Developed brand-aligned category nomenclature appropriate for frontend merchandising
• Created comprehensive mapping protocols linking backend collection categories to customer-facing presentation nodes
• Ensured semantic consistency between operational data structures and consumer-oriented navigation
Phase 3: Attribute Prioritization and Content Guidelines
• Ranked attributes by importance to customer purchase decision processes
• Established content standards for product description authoring
• Provided Indigo's content team with structured guidelines for consistent, high-quality product narrative development
THE OUTCOME:
The dual-taxonomy architecture established a scalable foundation for Indigo's PIM migration while addressing both operational and customer experience requirements. The structured attribute framework enabled more effective vendor data collection, improved internal data accessibility for stakeholders, and provided clear content standards to enhance product representation across the eCommerce platform.