In Japan, a product catalogue database called JICFS/IFDB has been in operation since 1988. Basic product information (e.g., GTIN, product name, product classification, gross weight) that has been collected and sorted in JICFS/IFDB has recently been used for Web sales and Internet marketing surveys, in addition to the conventional uses for POS masters in retail businesses as well as EOS masters exchanged between retailers and wholesalers.
Information collected in the JICFS/IFDB and sorted according to the original criteria is provided to retailers and wholesalers for a fee.
Data on about 4.57 million items from about 20,000 manufacturers are now entered in the JICFS/IFDB as of July 2007. Of the 6,400 companies using this database, slightly less than 70% are retailers and 20% are wholesalers.
By using product information managed by JICFS/IFDB, individual companies can perform notification, enquiries, and registration of product information swiftly and accurately at low cost. For this reason, the database is widely used, particularly by small and medium-sized companies.
Internet sales companies often manage product information on the Web, using their own codes or product names. In this case, the same product displayed on a website from different distributors is sometimes registered with different names or in multiple product categories. As a solution to this problem, the centralized management of product information has started using the JICFS/IFDB.

Fig.6.1-1 JICFS/IFDB System Flow

Table 6.1-1 JICFS/IFDB Number of Item Registration by Year (as of end of March)