Who Owns Your Product Data: ERP or eCommerce?
October 15, 2026
By: Tiffany Hindman
Summary: Who owns your product data: ERP or eCommerce? It depends on the type of information. ERP systems often manage operational data such as pricing and inventory, while eCommerce platforms handle customer facing content and merchandising. Clear ownership rules help keep information consistent and online orders accurate.
It sounds like an easy question.
A product has a name, a description, a price, and an inventory quantity. Put that information in your systems and start selling. Unfortunately, it rarely works that way.
Most manufacturers and distributors don't manage product information in a single place. Inventory may live in the ERP. Marketing descriptions might be maintained on the website. Product images could be stored somewhere else entirely. Then someone inevitably has a spreadsheet with information that isn't in either system.
At first, it's manageable. Then someone updates a product description in the ERP while someone else updates the same product on the website. A price changes. Inventory doesn't match. The sales team sees one thing, the customer sees another, and suddenly everyone is trying to figure out which system has the correct information.
The problem usually isn't the technology. The problem is that nobody has clearly defined who owns the data.
For businesses connecting platforms like BigCommerce with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management, establishing ownership is one of the most important steps toward building a reliable eCommerce operation.
Why Product Data Ends Up in Multiple Systems
ERP systems and eCommerce platforms are designed to do different jobs.
An ERP manages operational processes such as inventory, pricing, purchasing, fulfillment, and order management. An eCommerce platform focuses on helping customers discover products, place orders, and interact with your business online. Because they serve different purposes, they often require different information.
Both systems need product information, but that doesn't mean both systems should be responsible for maintaining the same information.
The goal isn't to force every piece of data into one system. The goal is to clearly define which system owns what.
- Item numbers
- Units of measure
- Inventory availability
- Customer-specific pricing
- Purchasing and fulfillment rules
- Product descriptions
- Images and videos
- Product specifications
- SEO information
- Categories and merchandising data
What Should the ERP Own?
In many organizations, the ERP serves as the source of truth for operational data. If a piece of information affects inventory, purchasing, fulfillment, pricing, or financial processes, there's a good chance the ERP should be responsible for maintaining it.
Core Product Information
Things like item numbers, units of measure, dimensions, and other foundational product attributes typically belong in the ERP. These records are connected to purchasing, inventory management, order processing, and reporting. If different systems disagree about what a product is, problems tend to spread quickly throughout the organization.
Pricing
Many distributors and manufacturers don't have a single price for every customer. They may have contract pricing, quantity breaks, negotiated agreements, promotions, or customer-specific discounts. In those situations, the ERP often maintains the pricing rules while the eCommerce platform displays the appropriate price to the customer. The website may show the price, but it doesn't necessarily need to calculate or maintain every pricing rule.
Inventory Availability
Your ERP may track inventory across multiple warehouses, locations, or business units, and account for reserved inventory, allocated stock, and replenishment processes. Customers shopping online don't need to see every operational detail. They simply need accurate information about what is available to purchase. Businesses need to determine not only where inventory is managed, but also how it should be presented online.
Purchasing and Fulfillment Rules
Minimum order quantities, case-pack requirements, units of measure, and shipping restrictions frequently originate in the ERP because they're directly connected to operational processes. When these rules are aligned between systems, customers are more likely to place orders that can be processed and fulfilled without manual intervention.
What Should eCommerce Own?
Not everything belongs in the ERP. Your website has a different purpose. It's designed to help customers find products, understand their options, and make purchasing decisions. Because of that, several types of information often make more sense within the eCommerce platform.
Product Descriptions
ERP descriptions are frequently written for internal use. Customers usually need more than a brief item description. They want to understand product features, benefits, applications, and differences between options. This content is often best maintained by the teams responsible for marketing and customer experience.
Images and Digital Assets
Product images, specification sheets, videos, installation guides, and other supporting content are critical for online selling. These assets may live within the eCommerce platform or a dedicated digital asset management solution. What's important is having a clear process for maintaining them and associating them with the correct products.
Search and Merchandising Information
Customers can't buy products they can't find. SEO titles, meta descriptions, search keywords, categories, filters, and merchandising settings all help customers discover products more easily. While these fields are important to online sales, they generally don't impact operational ERP processes.
What Happens When Nobody Owns the Data?
This is where problems begin.
Imagine your operations team updates a product in the ERP. At the same time, your marketing team updates the same product directly on the website. Neither team is wrong. They're both simply doing their jobs. The problem is that the systems now disagree.
A few weeks later, a customer notices a discrepancy. Customer service gets involved. Someone opens a support ticket. A meeting gets scheduled to figure out which information is correct and where it should be updated. Sound familiar?
The solution isn't usually to eliminate systems. The solution is to eliminate confusion about who owns the information within those systems.
- Conflicting product information
- Duplicate manual updates
- Pricing inconsistencies
- Inventory discrepancies
- Order processing problems
- Unclear accountability
Where Does an ERP eCommerce Connector Fit?
Once ownership is defined, businesses need a way to move information between systems.
That's where an ERP eCommerce connector comes in. What a connector cannot do is decide ownership for you. If the ERP and eCommerce platform are both trying to update the same field without clear rules, a connector may simply move that confusion faster.
Before implementing any integration, businesses should answer a few important questions. The clearer those answers are, the more successful the integration is likely to be.
- Products
- Inventory
- Pricing
- Customers
- Orders
- Payments
- Shipment updates
What About a PIM?
Some organizations eventually reach a point where neither the ERP nor the eCommerce platform is the ideal place to manage large amounts of product content. That's where a Product Information Management (PIM) solution can help.
A PIM provides a centralized location for enriching, organizing, reviewing, and distributing product information across multiple channels. In many cases, each system has a clear role:
ERP
Owns operational product data.
PIM
Owns enriched content.
eCommerce Platform
Presents information to customers.
Not every organization needs a PIM, but it can become valuable as product catalogs grow and content requirements become more complex.
Creating Clear Ownership Doesn't Have to Be Complicated
You don't need a major technology project to improve product data management. Start with these steps.
Test the scenarios your business deals with every day, not just the easy ones. Real-world testing often reveals issues long before customers ever see them.
The Goal Isn't Identical Data. It's Clear Responsibility.
Your ERP and eCommerce platform don't need to do the same job. They simply need to work together.
When ownership is clearly defined, product information becomes more reliable, manual work decreases, and teams spend less time chasing down discrepancies between systems.
At Strabo Partners, we help manufacturers, distributors, and other product-based businesses connect their eCommerce platforms with the ERP processes that drive inventory, pricing, customer management, and order fulfillment. By aligning system responsibilities with business processes, organizations can create a more reliable foundation for both online selling and operational success.
Simplify. Automate. Grow.
Define Who Owns Your Product Data Before You Connect Your Systems
Strabo Partners connects eCommerce platforms and ERP systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365, with clear data ownership built into the plan from the start.