Content Standardization Efforts for B 2 B E-Commerce Interoperability in the Textile / Clothing Sector

The objective of the EUREKA SUM project is to develop new ecommerce software and business practices to enable manufacturers to sell make-to-order products to the end customer without the need of a retailer. A research activity has been carried out in the first project stage to investigate the efforts that are active or have been done in the field of e-commerce content standardization with a focus on the application in the textile/clothing sector. This research has revealed the existence of a number of initiatives and projects at the European and international levels to standardize the exchange of data in the textile/clothing sector and we believe that they are of interest to a larger audience than the project consortium. The paper briefly summarizes these results and draws some conclusions regarding their implications on the further development of SUM software.