Product catalogs: prepare a broker-ready dataset brief
Prepare product and variant counts, field-level provenance, update history, and missingness for an AI data broker’s first review.
Use this guide to describe a bounded collection and decide what evidence an intermediary needs next. It does not establish buyer acceptance, a valuation, or permission to license the material.
Distinguish products, variants, and snapshots
Explain which key identifies a product family and which identifies a size, color, or regional variant. Count historical snapshots separately from current products. A daily export can repeat the same item many times, so tell the intermediary whether your count measures rows, variants, or unique products.
Create a field-level source map
Descriptions may be written internally while specifications and images come from suppliers. Record origin and review status for each field group rather than making one ownership statement for the whole export. Exclude restricted fields from the proposed brief; permission to display content in a store may not answer a proposed licensing question.
Show gaps instead of promising a clean catalog
Summarize missing identifiers, inconsistent units, taxonomy changes, and discontinued items. State how the summary was calculated and when. Ask whether the evaluator wants entity matching, attribute extraction, or historical change analysis; these tasks require different evidence and should not be bundled into a claim of universal AI usefulness.
Agree which snapshot deserves preparation
Provide a schema with fabricated values and a coverage table first. Ask the intermediary to obtain a decision on languages, product families, and update cadence. Do not normalize every attribute or export supplier images merely because someone requested “the catalog.”
| Part of the brief | Record these facts |
|---|---|
| Keys | Product family; variant; snapshot date |
| Fields | Units, taxonomy and missingness summary |
| Sources | Original descriptions versus supplied specs/images |
| Refresh | Current snapshot, historical depth, update responsibility |
Draft your high-level brief
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