Pepkor Lifestyle is using Agentic Ziggy to simplify complex product data work. From creating product families and managing difficult bulk updates to identifying opportunities to improve catalog quality, while keeping its team in control of the final result.
Agentic Ziggy has taken a lot of time and a lot of thinking work out of the workflow. At least we have a base to work from, and we’re not starting from scratch.
Pepkor Lifestyle is a leading South African retailer managing a broad portfolio of consumer goods and electronics across multiple brands, categories, and sales channels. Behind that customer experience is a complex product information operation spanning product specifications, images, supplier information, legislative documentation, and product structures, all of which must ultimately flow into enterprise systems and digital channels.
Managing product information across Pepkor Lifestyle’s broad portfolio involves a number of detailed workflows. Creating new product families, for example, requires teams to work from existing reference structures, select the right attributes, configure options, and verify completeness requirements. The introduction of a new product family would involve a lengthy workshop with the merchandise team to understand the new attributes this family requires.
As the team worked across its product data, some tasks required moving between different areas of Akeneo PIM to investigate information and make updates. More complex bulk changes, particularly those involving table attributes, could also require additional steps beyond creating another rule.
Product documentation added another layer of complexity. Manuals, specification sheets, and legislative documents contain valuable product information, but understanding and applying that information often relied on filenames, metadata, and team review. Maintaining catalog quality also meant regularly identifying redundant attributes, classifying assets, and reviewing inconsistent product information.
Pepkor Lifestyle saw an opportunity to simplify these workflows and give its teams a more intuitive way to create product structures, work with documents, maintain catalog quality, and manage complex updates at scale.
Pepkor Lifestyle began using Agentic Ziggy within Akeneo Product Cloud to explore how AI could simplify some of its more complex product data workflows while keeping its team in control of the final result.
One of the team’s first use cases was product family creation. Starting with an existing product family as a reference, users can have a conversation with Agentic Ziggy about the structure they need. Ziggy can retain required attributes, identify attributes that can be reused, recommend additional attributes and options, and create a new product family for business users to review. This gives the team a strong starting point without having to build every element from scratch. The new family is then reviewed by the merchandise team, who would advise if any changes are required, which saves time across multiple teams.
Pepkor Lifestyle is also using Agentic Ziggy to support more complex product updates, including changes involving table attributes that can be difficult to manage through standard rules. Now, with a conversational request, users can define the criteria products must meet, identify relevant products, and specify which attributes should be updated. Agentic Ziggy can then carry out those changes across the relevant products for the team to review. This would previously involve exporting complex JSON data, building scripts to mass update the data, and re-importing the updated data. Being able to do this in one go with Ziggy has saved hours of work for each nuanced requirement.
Beyond product creation and updates, the team is exploring how Agentic Ziggy can support ongoing catalog management, including identifying redundant or unused attributes and classifying legislative documents based on asset metadata and naming conventions.
Pepkor Lifestyle has taken a thoughtful approach to introducing these new workflows. The team tests each use case on a controlled sample, reviews and validates the results, and then expands the approach across a broader set of products. This allows them to introduce AI into their product operations while maintaining human oversight over the final outcome.
With Agentic Ziggy, Pepkor Lifestyle is simplifying how its teams approach complex product data tasks. Instead of navigating through multiple manual steps to determine how to complete a task, users can describe the outcome they need through a conversational request and receive a structured starting point for review.
For product family creation, Agentic Ziggy can recommend additional attributes, reuse existing ones, and help build the new structure. Rather than starting from scratch, the team can focus its time and expertise on reviewing the recommendations, refining the structure, and confirming that it meets the needs of the business.
Agentic Ziggy has also given Pepkor Lifestyle another way to approach product updates that are difficult to manage with standard rules. The team can define the criteria products need to meet, identify the relevant records, and specify which attributes need to be updated.
This has been particularly useful for complex changes involving table attributes. Previously, these updates could involve extracting data, preparing an import, and moving between different parts of Akeneo PIM. With Agentic Ziggy, the team can bring more of that process into a single conversation and review the proposed changes before confirming the result. This saves hours for each iteration, as each use case is unique and would require export, update and reimport of data.
This allows the team to spend less time working through the mechanics of an update and more time reviewing the outcome and making sure it meets their requirements.
Pepkor Lifestyle has also been using Agentic Ziggy to support ongoing catalog cleanup. The team can use it to identify redundant or unused attributes, such as “name test” and “color test”, classify documents, and surface inconsistent or incomplete product information that may require attention.
This capability gives the team a focused view of where improvements may be needed without having to investigate every product, attribute, or document individually. The team can then evaluate Ziggy’s recommendations, determine the appropriate action, and remain in control of any changes made to the catalog.
For Pepkor Lifestyle, the value of Agentic Ziggy extends beyond any one task. It gives users a more intuitive way to work with product information, moving from identifying what needs to be done to reviewing and refining a proposed solution.
Today, Pepkor Lifestyle is applying this approach to create product families, complete complex product updates, and maintain catalog quality. As the team continues to explore new use cases, it sees an opportunity to extend the same approach to product documents and enrichment. Using Agentic Ziggy to help interpret product manuals and specification sheets, apply relevant information to products, and support enrichment when information is missing.
The goal is not to remove people from the process, but to reduce the work required to reach a strong starting point, so that Pepkor Lifestyle’s teams can focus their expertise on reviewing, refining, and making the final decision.
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