New ACES 5.0 & PIES 8.0 Upgrade Guide for Content Professionals

How to switch standards to reap the rewards without breaking what’s already working

Done right, PIES 8.0 gives you cleaner data, better alignment with retailers, and fewer issues downstream, meaning faster onboarding, less manual cleanup, and stronger sales performance.

Think of this like a proper job in the workshop. Don’t just fit the new part: Test it, compare it, and make sure it’s running better than before.

Step 1: Establish your baseline (before you touch anything)

Before upgrading, get a clear picture of how things are performing right now on retailer sites.

Run an True View Audit report across your key retailers and measure:

  • Overall listing accuracy vs your catalog
  • Primary image accuracy
  • Fitment / compatibility accuracy
  • Titles and descriptions
  • Key attributes (brand, specs, etc.)

Why this matters:
You need a before picture.
Otherwise you won’t know if PIES 8.0 made things better — or worse.

Small catalogs can eyeball this, for larger catalogs you can use cheap software to audit this kind of thing. We can give you a free 100 SKU report, just drop us an email. Either way it should be a small job.

Step 2: Take a full catalog snapshot (your rollback safety net)

Create a clean snapshot of your current catalog:

  • Export your full ACES / PIES data (pre-upgrade)
  • Save mapping logic / transformation rules
  • Keep a record of what was sent to each retailer

Why this matters:
If something goes wrong, you need a known good state to roll back to.

No guessing. No scrambling.

Step 3: Switch to the new standards

Now upgrade your data:

  • Apply new schema changes
  • Update mappings
  • Adjust attributes and structures
  • Align PIES with ACES where needed

Take your time here — most issues later come from rushed mapping.

Step 4: Validate locally (before anything leaves your system)

Check the data inside your own environment:

  • Spot check products across categories
  • Validate images, attributes, and structure
  • Confirm fitment logic (if applicable)
  • Compare against your pre-upgrade snapshot

Rule:
If it doesn’t look right here, it won’t look right anywhere else.

Step 5: Send to retailers

Distribute your updated data:

  • Submit feeds/files to each retailer
  • Track when and what was sent
  • Note expected processing times

At this point, the data is out of your hands — and into theirs.

Step 6: Re-audit retailer listings (this is the critical step)

Once retailers have processed the new data, run another True View Audit again.

Compare against your baseline:

  • Did accuracy improve?
  • Did anything drop or break?
  • Are images, fitment, and attributes consistent?
  • Is old data still showing anywhere?

This is where the truth is.

Step 7: Fine-tune per retailer

No two retailers handle data the same way.

Now adjust:

  • Fix mapping issues
  • Adjust formatting quirks
  • Correct missing or overridden fields
  • Optimise for how each retailer ingests data

This is where you turn “working” into “working properly”.

Step 8: Work with retailers to close gaps

For anything you can’t fix alone:

  • Share specific examples with retailers
  • Highlight mismatches clearly
  • Align on how data should be displayed
  • Push for corrections where needed

This step protects:

  • Your brand
  • Your listings
  • Your relationship with the retailer

What this workflow gives you

If you follow this properly, you get:

  • Clear visibility before and after the upgrade
  • Confidence the new standard actually improved things
  • Early detection of issues (before customers see them)
  • Fewer returns and fewer support issues
  • Better retailer relationships

The bottom line

Upgrading to PIES 8.0 isn’t just a data task.

It’s a live change to how your products appear and sell in the market.

If you:

  • Measure before
  • Check after
  • Fix what changed

with True View Audit you turn the upgrade into an advantage.

If you don’t:

You’re flying blind — and the problems only show up once they start costing you.

True View Bonus: You can continue to monitor your retailers and catch the issues that creep in, and make sure new products are landing quickly and correctly.