Demystifying ACES & PIES

Demystifying ACES & PIES

Demystifying ACES & PIES


Q: What are ACES & PIES (A & P)


ACES & PIES are data standards organized by the Auto Care Association to streamline the product data exchange in the automotive parts industry.

Q: Why ACES & PIES?


ACES & PIES are two standardized formats to submit product data:
  1. ACES = Application (fitment) data
  2. PIES = Product information (weights/dims, attributes, pricing, description, etc.)
Both formats are submitted as XML files (there is no “ACES Excel” or “PIES Excel”).

Q: How do I, as a parts manufacturer, benefit from ACES & PIES?


Providing your product data in the ACES & PIES formats:
  1. Increases Sales
  2. Reduces Returns
  3. Saves Time

Q: How do ACES & PIES increase Sales?


Your customers can easily process your product data to list all of your products more accurately and faster to reduce time to market.

Q: How do ACES & PIES reduce returns?


Accurate product data is key to reducing returns.

Q: How do ACES & PIES save time?


When part manufacturers and their customers talk the "same language" in the product data exchange, the data exchange becomes more efficient to a point where new products and product updates can become available in real-time.

Q: How can I provide ACES & PIES data?


There are two options:
  1. W/o a partner: Get a subscription to the Auto Care tables to build A & P data yourself.
  2. W/ a partner: Utilize a 3rd party’s service, which will include the Auto Care subscription and supports you to build the data.

Q: What are the ups/downs of a service provider vs. doing it all by myself?


There are no downs in using a third party. Here are the ups:
  1. + Your subscription to the ACES & PIES tables is included. Without a service provider, you have to subscribe to the Auto Care tables yourself, which is a subscription of at least $7,818.
  2. + A service provider's software makes the data generation easy for you. The Auto Care tables contain a lot of information that requires a lot of knowledge to the process.
  3. + Your data is never finished. A service provider makes it easy to update and improve your product data continuously.

Q: Where is my product data housed?


The data is not automatically hosted anywhere but resides with you. Some third-party services that build your data also do the data distribution.

Q: Who has access to my data?


Since you own your data, you always control who has access to your data. Make sure when selecting a third-party service they don't take ownership of your data.