Units of measurement

In brief: Units specify the unit of measurement for a numerical value, such as millimetres, kilograms or watts. Most PIM systems store values with their units and automatically convert metric units.

How units are stored in PIM

A numeric attribute such as “length” is assigned a unit family, for example length with mm, cm and m. The value is stored with its unit and usually converted internally to a base unit. This allows products to be compared and filtered, even when one supplier provides measurements in centimetres and another in millimetres.

Why units matter

• Filtering and comparison: Only consistently stored values can be used for filtering in an online shop.
• Channel formats: Retailers, marketplaces and standards such as ETIM or GS1 often require specific units.
• Internationalisation: For the US market, measurements need to be presented in inches, pounds or Fahrenheit.
• Error prevention: Without a unit, “250” is meaningless: grams or kilograms?

Example

A drinks retailer maintains volume in litres. The online shop displays “0,33 l”, the system converts this to one litre for unit pricing, and exports for the US market show “11.2 fl oz”. The value only needs to be maintained once.

See also

• Values
• Properties / Attributes
• Product data quality
• Classifications
• Channels