Free tool · BMEcat viewer
Open BMEcat and Datanorm catalogues in your browser.
View BMEcat 1.2 and 2005 files with ETIM and ECLASS features and Datanorm 4 and 5 deliveries without PIM or ERP software. Check the catalogue with the quality report and export the articles to Excel.
Drop a catalogue here
orBMEcat 1.2/2005 (XML) · Datanorm 4/5 · several files or a ZIP · up to 2 GBNo catalogue at hand?Your files stay in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.Why this viewer
Made for the catalogues manufacturers and wholesalers exchange.
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Your catalogue stays on your device
The viewer reads the files in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, so unpublished catalogues and price lists stay with you.
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BMEcat, ETIM, ECLASS and Datanorm
BMEcat 1.2 and 2005 with ETIM and ECLASS features, and Datanorm 4 and 5 with price, product group and discount files, also as a ZIP.
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Quality report and Excel export
Missing classes, invalid GTINs, duplicate article numbers and unknown units at a glance. Every article with its features as columns in Excel or CSV.
Formats explained
BMEcat, Datanorm, ETIM and ECLASS: what is what?
What is BMEcat?
BMEcat is an XML standard for electronic product catalogues, developed by the German Association for Supply Chain Management, Procurement and Logistics (BME) with partners from research and industry. Manufacturers use it to send article data, prices, texts, images and features to wholesalers and buyers.
Version 1.2 calls articles ARTICLE, version 2005 PRODUCT. Every file has a header with the catalogue, supplier and buyer, and a transaction: T_NEW_CATALOG for a complete catalogue, T_UPDATE_PRODUCTS for changed articles and T_UPDATE_PRICES for new prices.
What is Datanorm?
Datanorm is the text format wholesalers in plumbing, heating and electrical use to send article data and prices to installers and their software. A delivery consists of several files: DATANORM.001 holds the articles, DATPREIS.001 the prices, DATANORM.WRG the product groups and DATANORM.RAB the discount groups.
Datanorm 4 and 5 are semicolon-separated text files, usually in the DOS code page 850; Datanorm 5 lays out the article record differently. Datanorm carries no ETIM features. The Datanorm viewer explains versions, files and code page in detail; more about the format at datanorm.de.
What is ETIM?
ETIM is an open classification model for technical products, maintained by ETIM International. Every product belongs to a class (EC code) and is described with standardised features (EF codes), values (EV codes) and units.
The model is free to use under an open data licence. In BMEcat, the ETIM data sits in each article’s FEATURE blocks together with the reference system, such as ETIM-9.0.
What is ECLASS?
ECLASS is a classification standard for products and services maintained by ECLASS e.V. Classes have an eight-digit code in four levels, such as 27‑06‑01‑01, and properties are identified by IRDIs.
ECLASS is widely used in industry and procurement; using it requires a licence. In BMEcat, ECLASS features appear the same way as ETIM features, with a reference system such as ECLASS-13.0.
BMEcat or Datanorm?
BMEcat carries much more: long texts, images and documents, several prices with validity dates, references to accessories and ETIM or ECLASS features. Datanorm is smaller and simpler, and almost every installer software reads it.
Typically, manufacturers supply BMEcat with ETIM to wholesalers, and wholesalers pass Datanorm on to installers.
What the quality report checks
Article numbers (present, not duplicated), short text, order unit and price, units against UN/ECE Recommendation 20, the check digit of every GTIN/EAN, each article’s ETIM or ECLASS class, features without a class and empty feature values. For Datanorm also product and discount groups against the WRG and RAB files, and missing long texts.
The report shows gaps; it is not a validation against the official BMEcat schema.
Catalogue data in Mercura
Mercura takes your article catalogue from BMEcat, Datanorm, Excel or straight from your ERP and suggests matching articles from it to your inside sales team for every enquiry, tender and order. Read more for manufacturers and for distributors, about quotes and tenders and order processing, about our integrations, ERP integration and the proALPHA integration, and about software for building material distributors.
FAQ
Questions about BMEcat and Datanorm.
BMEcat is an XML format for electronic product catalogues. Manufacturers use it to send article data, prices, texts, images and ETIM or ECLASS features to wholesalers and buyers. The files usually end in .xml; versions 1.2 and 2005 are in use.
Drop it into the viewer above. You see the catalogue header, every article with its features and prices, and a quality report. The file is read in your browser and not uploaded. ZIP archives with images work too.
Open the file and choose Excel or CSV. You get one row per article with number, texts, units, prices, GTIN, classification and one column per ETIM or ECLASS feature. With filters set, only the articles shown are exported.
BMEcat is an XML format with long texts, media, several prices and ETIM or ECLASS features. Datanorm is a simpler text format that wholesalers use for article data and prices, split into files such as DATANORM.001 and DATPREIS.001. It carries no ETIM features.
Datanorm 4 and 5: the article file (DATANORM.001), price files (DATPREIS.001), product groups (DATANORM.WRG) and discount groups (DATANORM.RAB). Select several files at once or drop the ZIP the wholesaler sent. Datanorm 3 is not supported.
It shows the class and feature codes from the file, plus any names the file itself contains. Name lists are not built in: ETIM's are free under an open licence and can be looked up in the ETIM viewer, which the tool links for every ETIM class. ECLASS names require an ECLASS licence.
No. The viewer reads your files in the browser and sends nothing from them to Mercura or anyone else. Even very large catalogues with hundreds of thousands of articles are processed on your computer.
Mercura reads incoming enquiries, tenders and orders and suggests the matching articles from your catalogue for every item. It takes the catalogue data from BMEcat, Datanorm, Excel or straight from your ERP.