The Real Power of Product Data with Kerry Young

For more than two decades, B2B eCommerce leaders have been chasing better platforms, faster implementations, and more sophisticated digital experiences. Yet one problem continues to surface again and again, often later than it should, and always with more complexity than expected.

That problem is product content.

In a recent episode of The B2B eCommerce Show, Kerry Young, President and Chief Operating Officer of Bluemeteor, and one of the longest-tenured practitioners in the product information space. Their conversation traced the evolution of PIM, the realities of automation and AI, and why product data remains the foundation, and bottleneck, of successful B2B digital commerce.

What emerged was a clear message:
B2B eCommerce does not fail because of technology. It fails because product content is treated as a project instead of a process.

A 25-Year View of Product Information Management

Kerry Young’s career offers a rare longitudinal view of the product content problem. Before PIM was a category, he served as CIO of Marshall Industries, once the third-largest electronic components distributor in the world. At a time when the internet barely existed, his team was already struggling with quoting, cross-referencing part numbers, and managing millions of SKUs.

Those early challenges eventually led Marshall Industries to become the first B2B eCommerce company in the world, long before the term was widely used. But even then, the underlying issue wasn’t commerce, it was content.

In the 1990s, PIM systems didn’t exist. Product data lived inside print catalogs built with tools like QuarkXPress. Automation meant scraping PDFs, normalizing spreadsheets, and stitching together fragile processes. What later became PIM originally existed to solve a much simpler problem: automating print catalogs.

That history matters, because many of the challenges companies face today are the same ones, just at a larger scale.

From Codified to Bluemeteor: Built by Practitioners, Not Theorists

The conversation traced the lineage from Codified, one of the earliest product content services firms in the U.S., to what eventually became Bluemeteor. Codified didn’t start as a software company—it built software out of necessity to make product data onboarding, enrichment, and syndication more efficient.

That origin story still defines Bluemeteor today.

Rather than positioning itself as “just another PIM,” Bluemeteor focuses on the edges of the product content lifecycle:

• onboarding data from multiple sources
• normalizing and mapping inconsistent formats
• enriching incomplete or low-quality content
• syndicating data efficiently across channels

This focus exists because traditional PIM systems often struggle where the real work begins and ends—getting data in and getting it out.

Why Product Content Is Still Addressed Too Late

Across many B2B projects, product content is consistently deprioritized or treated as an afterthought rather than a foundational element.

Organizations invest heavily in:

• eCommerce platforms
• search technologies
• UX redesigns

Then they launch, only to discover that search doesn’t work, product pages underperform, and customers can’t find what they need.

The root cause is almost always the same:
missing, inconsistent, or inaccurate product data.

Search isn’t broken. The data feeding it is.

While awareness has improved in recent years, Kerry noted that many companies still underestimate the scale of the challenge. Millions of SKUs, thousands of attributes, multiple sources, and constant updates make product content one of the most operationally complex problems in B2B.

The companies that succeed treat product content as foundational, not cosmetic.

Product Content Is a Process, Not a One-Time Project

One of the most important distinctions Kerry made is between building a catalog and building a system.

Many organizations invest in a one-time effort to clean up product data for a launch. Within months, the data is outdated. New products arrive. Specifications change. Regulations evolve. Without an ongoing process, content quality degrades rapidly.

Mature organizations now approach product content as:

• a continuous workflow
• a system of automation and review
• an operational capability, not a deliverable

This shift, from project thinking to process thinking, is where long-term ROI emerges.

Manufacturers vs. Distributors: Two Very Different Problems

A major theme of the conversation was how differently manufacturers and distributors experience the product content challenge.

Manufacturers:

• originate the data
• own the specifications
• focus on distributing content downstream
• care deeply about consistency and reach

Their challenge is orchestration, creating accurate data internally and pushing it efficiently to sales channels, distributors, and marketplaces.

Distributors, on the other hand:

• own very little of the data
• aggregate content from hundreds or thousands of suppliers
• receive data in inconsistent formats
• must normalize everything into a single customer experience

Distributors face a “many-to-one” problem. Manufacturers face a “one-to-many” problem. The tooling, processes, and priorities are fundamentally different.

Why B2B Product Content Carries Higher Risk

Another critical distinction between B2B and B2C is consequence.

In B2B, incorrect product content can:

• cause equipment failure
• violate regulations
• create safety hazards
• expose companies to legal risk

Flow rates, materials, tolerances, and compliance details are not marketing copy, they are operational requirements. In many industries, accuracy is not optional.

This reality elevates the importance of structured data, governance, and human review, especially as automation and AI become more prevalent.

AI Is Not a Magic Button, And That’s a Good Thing

The discussion turned naturally to AI, and Kerry offered a grounded perspective shaped by years of hands-on experience.

Bluemeteor has used AI long before generative AI became mainstream. Today, AI assists with:

• mapping attributes
• scraping and extracting data
• normalizing formats
• enriching incomplete content

But Kerry was clear: AI does not eliminate complexity.

Automation is broader than AI alone, and human expertise remains essential. Domain knowledge is required to:

• validate results
• interpret industry-specific terminology
• catch edge cases
• ensure safety and compliance

The real goal is not perfection, it is leverage.

As Kerry described it, the question is:
Can a team of two to five people do what used to require a hundred?

With the right combination of automation, AI, and human oversight, the answer is increasingly yes.

Endless Aisle, Buying Groups, and Data Aggregation

Another challenge facing distributors is scale. Buying groups, industry catalogs, and aggregators allow distributors to expand assortments without carrying inventory, but they also multiply data complexity.

Pulling millions of SKUs from multiple aggregators reintroduces the same problems:

• inconsistent taxonomy
• conflicting attribute definitions
• search failures
• fragmented customer experiences

Without automation, teams fall back on spreadsheets, offshore content factories, and manual scripts—slow, expensive, and fragile approaches that do not scale.

How Bluemeteor Positions Itself in the Market

When asked who should be calling Bluemeteor, Kerry pointed to symptoms rather than company size:

• product data managed in spreadsheets
• heavy manual processes
• poor site search and discoverability
• slow onboarding of new products
• difficulty syndicating content across channels

Bluemeteor supports both manufacturers and distributors, with a slightly heavier focus on distribution. Its differentiation lies not just in software, but in deep industry understanding, particularly in complex industrial, electrical, and electronic categories.

The Bigger Takeaway for B2B Leaders

The conversation between with Kerry Young reinforces a truth many organizations learn the hard way:

Product content is not a supporting function of B2B eCommerce. It is the foundation.

AI and automation are accelerating what’s possible, but they don’t remove the need for strategy, process, and expertise. The companies that win will be the ones that:

• treat product data as a core capability
• invest early, not late
• combine automation with domain knowledge
• build systems that scale over time

In B2B, commerce doesn’t start at checkout.
It starts with content, and always has.

Contact Kerry | Bluemeteor

Kerry Young

Bluemeteor