Taxonomy Mapper (ETIM / UNSPSC / Google)

Different channels speak different classification languages, and the Taxonomy Mapper helps you map product taxonomies across ETIM, UNSPSC, and Google Product Category so one catalog can feed an industrial marketplace, a procurement portal, and a retail feed at once. Paste a code or a category path and see the equivalent classes side by side, with confidence and caveats made explicit.

What it checks

For each code or category you enter, the mapper computes and validates:

• Source code validity — confirms the input is a well-formed ETIM class (for example EC000042), UNSPSC commodity code (8 digits), or Google Product Category ID/path before attempting any crosswalk.
• Cross-standard equivalents — proposes the closest matching class in the other two taxonomies, so a furniture SKU classified under Google “Office Chairs” surfaces its UNSPSC and ETIM counterparts.
• Match granularity — flags when standards do not align one-to-one. A single UNSPSC commodity may span several ETIM classes, or a broad Google category may map to a UNSPSC family rather than a precise commodity.
• Confidence and ambiguity — labels each suggested mapping as exact, narrower, broader, or ambiguous, instead of forcing a false 1:1 result.
• Hierarchy context — shows the parent segment, family, and class path so you can sanity-check a mapping against the surrounding tree (for example UNSPSC Segment → Family → Class → Commodity).
• Unmapped gaps — calls out source codes with no reliable target, which is common for highly specialized MRO and industrial parts that one taxonomy describes and another does not.

How it works to map product taxonomies

Each taxonomy is built on a different model. ETIM is a feature-rich classification used heavily in European technical and electrical distribution, organizing products into classes with defined features and values. UNSPSC is a four-level numeric hierarchy (Segment, Family, Class, Commodity) used widely in procurement and spend analysis. Google Product Category is a retail-oriented tree used for Shopping feeds and merchant catalogs. Because these were designed for different purposes, mappings between them are crosswalks of meaning, not exact code translations.

The tool normalizes your input, validates its structure, and then walks established crosswalk relationships plus semantic similarity between class definitions to propose targets. It deliberately preserves ambiguity: where a CPG beverage or an industrial fastener maps cleanly, you get a high-confidence result; where it does not, you get a ranked shortlist with the granularity mismatch spelled out, so a human reviewer can decide.

This makes the mapper a fast triage step. For one-off lookups it answers the question immediately; for full catalogs, it shows where automated mapping is safe and where human or model-assisted review is required before you publish. When you need to map product taxonomies across an entire catalog with provenance and write-back, that is where a canonical product-data layer like Claro’s classification and enrichment takes over.

Related resources

FAQ

Can you map directly between ETIM, UNSPSC, and Google categories? +

There is no universal, lossless 1:1 mapping between them because each was designed for a different purpose. You can crosswalk most common products with high confidence, but specialized industrial and MRO items often map at a coarser level or have no clean equivalent. The mapper makes those granularity gaps explicit rather than hiding them.

Why does one UNSPSC code map to several ETIM classes? +

UNSPSC commodities and ETIM classes are cut at different levels of detail. A single UNSPSC commodity can describe a product group that ETIM splits into multiple feature-rich classes, so a one-to-many result is correct and expected. Review the shortlist and pick the ETIM class whose features match the actual product.

Which taxonomy should I use for a retail marketplace feed? +

Retail marketplaces and Google Shopping expect Google Product Category, while procurement portals expect UNSPSC and technical distributors expect ETIM or eCl@ss. Most catalogs need more than one, which is exactly why you map product taxonomies once and publish the right code to each channel. See the comparison guide above to decide per channel.

Is my catalog data uploaded anywhere? +

No. The tool runs entirely in your browser with no login and no file-size limit, so nothing you paste is transmitted or stored. That makes it safe for confidential supplier and pricing data during early classification work.

How do I map an entire catalog instead of one code at a time? +

This tool is built for fast, manual triage. For full-catalog mapping with confidence scoring, human review queues, provenance, and write-back to your systems, you need an automated classification pipeline rather than a single-lookup tool. The ETIM classification workflow playbook and Claro’s classification layer cover that path.