Industry News: ePSA Board Approves UPIC As Alternative ID


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Industry News: ePSA Board Approves UPIC As Alternative ID

Issue: 2009may

The ePromo Standards Alliance (ePSA) Board of Directors has approved the UPIC identifier as an acceptable alternative ID for use in ePSA Open Standards trading. The board acted on a recommendation from ePSA’s core group. Trading members of the ePSA community can now route order communications with a UPIC identifier or a DUNS number. Either will ensure the order information is routed appropriately through the ePSA trading network.

“Acceptance of the UPIC identifier for ePSA trading further enhances the usefulness of this non-proprietary code,” said Steve Slagle, CAE, PPAI president. “ePSA’s open standards and UPIC can now work hand in hand to promote an efficient process for electronic trading.”

For more than 10 years, the Universal Promotional Identification Code (UPIC), administered by PPAI, has been the industry’s only free universal identifier helping more than 28,000 distributors and suppliers find each other to do business. It is the largest free database for the industry. Providing a level playing field for all promotional products professionals, UPIC includes credit services and a free search tool that makes doing business easy in a lively and diverse marketplace.

“This is a significant step in the advancement of the ePSA movement,” says Gene Geiger, ePSA board chair and CEO of Geiger. “By adding the UPIC Identifier as an acceptable ID for open standards trading, we now make the ePSA standards easily available to the entire industry. While a DUNS ID is available to all companies, getting one can be a difficult and time consuming process. Today, most firms have the free UPIC identifier, and getting one is a very easy process.”

The UPIC identifier is not a proprietary code and is easy to obtain; a company must only prove its involvement in the promotional products industry.

“Service providers such as Distributor Central, ISERVCORP with OrderTrax², OrderMaster and Lakeshore Group Ltd, can all now use either the DUNS or UPIC Identifiers in their systems. This opens the promotional products industry to a wealth of new approaches and will speed industry adoption of e-commerce, improving operational efficiencies, “added Geiger.

The ePromoStandards Alliance is a nonprofit, self-funded organization. Initiated by the PPAI, ePSA is independently governed by its member firms.

ePromoStandards Alliance establishes and promotes open standards to support common business-to-business transactions within the promotional products industry; it does not build commercial tools or develop user solutions. The standards, favoring no individual members, are designed to benefit all by enabling electronic commerce, communication, and innovation among global trading partners. For further information, please contact info@epromostandards.org.

Comments (1)

5/19/2009
John Lundberg (jlundberg@displayheadquarters.com)
company: Showdown Displays
title: VP Sales
"Still trying to get information ab out current state of epsa. We used to subscribe but really could never make any progress with it."

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