From Catalogs to Clicks: W.B. Mason Increases Speed to Market by 67% and Boosts Product Enrichment with Inriver

At a glance:

• Office & Facility Products
• B2B
• Enterprise
• Brockton, Massachusetts

<3-day

Onboarding time

90–95%

AI accuracy

100,000+

SKUs managed

Summary

W.B. Mason, one of the largest privately held office products dealers in the U.S., modernized its century-old, service-driven business model by digitizing and centralizing product information with Inriver PIM.

Facing a dramatic market shift during the pandemic and an urgent need to launch thousands of new products online, W.B. Mason turned to Inriver to eliminate bottlenecks in product content creation and accelerate time-to-market. The platform enabled the company to streamline content operations, unify data from hundreds of vendor sources, and transform offline catalog processes into efficient digital workflows.

With Inriver, W.B. Mason reduced product onboarding time from 7 days to under 3, improved data accuracy across its 100,000+ SKUs, and empowered teams to enrich 70% of its catalog with consistent, high-quality content. The addition of Inspire by Inriver and AI-driven attribute generation has further advanced content creation—achieving 90–95% accuracy rates and cutting manual work from weeks to seconds.

Outcomes:

• Reduced time-to-market from seven days to under three
• Centralized and digitized a historically print-based catalog model
• Unified product data across more than 100,000+ SKUs
• Achieved 90–95% accuracy in AI-generated attributes
• Scaled catalog enrichment across the majority of active products

Challenge

W.B. Mason faced significant challenges while modernizing its business and adapting to an increasingly digital environment. Historically built around a catalog and in-person sales model, the company needed to embrace digital transformation to stay competitive, especially against growing eCommerce giants. This necessity placed tremendous pressure on the company’s ability to efficiently handle and enhance an ever-growing volume of product data.

The urgency of this undertaking was amplified in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly shifted the business landscape. Demand for core products like paper and toner—longstanding staples of W.B. Mason’s catalog—plummeted. Instead, customers shifted their focus toward janitorial supplies, personal protective equipment (PPE), and sanitation products. The sudden increase in demand, along with growing supply chain challenges, spurred the need to expand sourcing and introduce new categories of sale. The need to set up new products grew from dozens to hundreds, then thousands, virtually overnight.

“Within three weeks of the shutdown, our sales were down almost 70%. We had to make a quick strategic shift into janitorial and cleaning supplies and make them available online for our customers,” shared Jared Swanson, Associate Director at W.B. Mason.

To meet this new demand, the company successfully secured necessary inventory by collaborating with vendors. However, managing an influx of new products created a significant bottleneck in W.B. Mason’s content operations. Thousands of new items had to be listed online quickly, overwhelming the company’s existing processes. “We had thousands of products to get online, but we just couldn’t get them posted fast enough. It was a massive bottleneck in our content operations,” Swanson explained.

This issue was further complicated by inconsistent product data from hundreds of vendor partners. Vendors submitted product information in various formats, requiring time-consuming manual efforts to standardize the data. “We have hundreds of vendor partners, a lot of disparate information. We were trying to normalize the data in Excel,” Swanson noted.

W.B. Mason’s reliance on legacy systems and manual workflows significantly hindered its ability to respond quickly to market demands. These inefficiencies delayed time-to-market and limited the company’s capacity to enrich and optimize product information—key elements for creating a top-notch online shopping experience. It was clear that a scalable and efficient solution was critical to overcoming these challenges, accelerating the company’s transformation and boosting revenue from this new, preferred way of buying.

Solution

W.B. Mason partnered with Inriver to transform its approach to product information management, adopting a centralized and efficient system that eliminated manual processes. The implementation replaced outdated spreadsheet-based workflows with a streamlined, user-friendly platform capable of managing the complexity and scale of W.B. Mason’s operations. This transformation resolved the bottlenecks in content operations and enabled W.B. Mason to establish a more agile and future-focused approach. 

“What sold us was that Inriver really wanted to understand our business problems. They wanted a partnership, and we wanted to invest in a partner.”

Jared Swanson

Associate Director, W.B. Mason

Inriver’s collaborative approach stood out, and the team began working closely with W.B. Mason to tailor the platform to its needs. The new system reduced errors, simplified workflows, and greatly accelerated the process of bringing products online and to market faster. 

A game-changing element of this evolution was the adoption of Inriver Inspire, a tool that automates the creation and enrichment of product attributes. Inspire drastically reduced the time and effort needed to manage product data. “With Inspire, we can take content that used to take days or weeks to generate and do it in seconds—it’s transformational,” Swanson said.

The simplicity of the platform’s user interface was also pivotal. It reduced the steps required to bring products online, empowering teams to focus on creating high-quality content. “Right away, I could see my 9 or 10 steps to get an item online shrinking to 2 or 3, and that was huge,” Swanson remarked.

Integration with W.B. Mason’s existing systems further improved operational efficiency. Product data now moves seamlessly from the company’s ERP system to Inriver, enabling immediate action. “An item gets born in our ERP and is in Inriver in seconds. We can immediately start curating the product data and have it on the website within hours now,” shared Swanson. This level of automation has been essential in speeding up the time-to-market for new products.

Standardizing and enriching data from hundreds of vendors was another key achievement. Inriver’s centralized platform allowed W.B. Mason to organize and enhance vendor-provided information with greater efficiency. Inspire’s automation capabilities made it easier to transform this raw data into standardized attributes for the company’s online catalog.

“We’re able to take vendor data and generate the attributes and enrichments we need in record time,” Swanson said. These enhancements improved the quality and consistency of product information while making it easier to address gaps.

W.B. Mason’s partnership with Inriver has provided the tools and infrastructure necessary to meet the demands of a competitive, digital-first marketplace. With streamlined processes and innovative technologies, the company is now better positioned to offer a personalized and efficient eCommerce experience.

Results

W.B. Mason’s implementation of Inriver has delivered remarkable results, transforming how the company manages, enriches, and launches products in the digital marketplace. By streamlining workflows, automating processes, and leveraging advanced AI capabilities, the company has increased the speed, accuracy, and scalability of operations while boosting revenue.

One of the most significant outcomes has been the drastic reduction in time-to-market for new products.

“Within the first six months, we doubled our speed to market—from about 7 days to under 3—and eventually got it down to 2.3 days,”

Jared Swanson

Associate Director, W.B. Mason

The company has also significantly enhanced its ability to enrich product data. “We used to impact only 15% of our catalog across an entire year, and now we’ve enriched data for nearly 70% of our products in the last 6 months,” Swanson shared. Providing detailed, accurate product information creates a better shopping experience and strengthens customer trust and satisfaction.

Inspire, with its automation and AI-driven capabilities, has been instrumental in overcoming once-daunting challenges related to product attributes. Processes that previously relied on manual effort and spreadsheets are now seamless.

“We used to rely on 10 spreadsheets to get a single item online. Now it’s all automated, and we can do it in hours instead of days or weeks. We’re getting 80 to 90% accuracy for attributes with generative AI within Inspire. With the new GPT-5 model, we’ve seen 95% plus accuracy.”

Jared Swanson

Associate Director, W.B. Mason

These advancements have enhanced data quality significantly and freed internal teams to focus on strategic tasks.

The improvements in product content have resulted in tangible business benefits. Enriched data boosts customer engagement and also increases sales. “When we enrich data in Inriver, we see better conversion rates and higher average order values—and the impact comes through quickly,” Swanson noted. By prioritizing enriched content in strategic categories, W.B. Mason has been able to achieve consistent advancements in customer experience and performance metrics.

Additionally, W.B. Mason has made strides in meeting the growing demand for sustainability information. The company has enriched its catalog with thousands of attributes related to green and recycled products. “We’ve added thousands of attributes for green and recycling information, letting big customers monitor their green spend more accurately,” explained Swanson. This focus on sustainability highlights W.B. Mason’s commitment to aligning with customer values and market trends.

Seamless integration with the company’s ERP system has further streamlined operations. The automation of product data processes has reduced delays, allowing products to be listed online within hours instead of the previously required days. This transformation has been key to maintaining a competitive edge in the fast-paced world of eCommerce.

Through its partnership with Inriver, W.B. Mason has achieved a comprehensive modernization of its content operations while retaining its customer-focused business model.