Inheritance

In brief: In PIM, inheritance means that values are automatically passed down from a parent level to child products or variants. This allows information to be maintained once and applied to many items.

How inheritance works

Inheritance works in two ways. Attributes are inherited through classifications and categories: every product in a class receives the characteristics of that class. Values are inherited through the product hierarchy: information maintained at product level applies to all its variants, unless a variant has its own value.

Example

A furniture manufacturer maintains the description, material and care instructions for the product “Oslo Chair”. Its twelve variants in four colours and three upholstery fabrics inherit these values. Only the colour, fabric, EAN and image are maintained for each variant. If the care instructions change, a single update at product level is all that is needed.

What to consider

Inheritance significantly reduces maintenance effort, but it requires clear rules: which attributes can be overridden at variant level, and which cannot? And how does the system indicate whether a value is inherited or specific to the variant? These questions need to be addressed during data modelling and in demos during PIM selection, as systems differ considerably in this respect.

See also

• Variants, items and SKU
• Classifications
• Values
• Data model
• Products