AI-Powered Efficiency at Scale

How Integrity Transformed Operations at Staples Promotional Products

Staples Promotional Products

Staples Promotional Products, a division of Staples, Inc., specializes in delivering custom-branded merchandise for some of the world's most recognizable brands. As a trusted technology partner since 2019, Integrity Inspired Solutions has helped SPP modernize operations through two key initiatives: AI-powered product categorization and an intelligent pricing engine. Together, these systems transformed how SPP manages tens of thousands of products and serves clients across multiple platforms.

From Spreadsheets to Speed: AI-Powered Product Categorization

The Challenge

  • • Merchandisers manually curated product recommendations from a catalog of tens of thousands of items
  • • Recommendations were built using manually updated spreadsheets segmented by verticals
  • • The process was time-consuming, error-prone, and extended onboarding time for new clients
  • • The internal team wanted a more scalable way to handle product categorization as new items entered the system

The Results

  • ✓ Integrity developed a machine learning model in just two months that automatically predicted verticals for new products
  • ✓ The tool categorized batches of 100 products in under 10 seconds—a task that previously took a merchandiser about an hour
  • ✓ Human intervention was only needed for about 8% of cases, drastically reducing manual work
  • ✓ Merchandisers no longer relied on spreadsheets and could generate vertical-specific recommendations quickly and accurately
  • ✓ The AI component became a part of SPP's larger internal Product Information Management (PIM) system, launched in 2023

80% Faster Quotes: Intelligent Pricing Automation

The Challenge

  • • Pricing and product quote information relied on monolithic legacy systems that were difficult to change
  • • Frequent vendor price fluctuations caused by supply chain disruptions led to delays and inaccurate quoting
  • • Sales reps had to manually research pricing and availability from multiple sources, extending the quote process
  • • Onboarding new customers required manual developer intervention to set up products and apply client-specific pricing rules
  • • Pricing rules were fragmented across applications, creating inconsistencies and redundant logic

The Results

  • ✓ Time-to-quote was reduced by an estimated 80%, turning week- or month-long processes into hours or days
  • ✓ A new Pricing Engine allowed real-time price and margin calculations using predefined rule sets
  • ✓ Integration with PromoStandards automated supplier pricing and inventory data, eliminating manual lookups
  • ✓ New tools enabled sales reps to configure quotes instantly, using client-specific business rules and pricing logic
  • ✓ The system automatically pushed accurate pricing to online catalogs, client portals, and internal tools like PIM
  • ✓ Customer onboarding was streamlined, with product and pricing setup requiring no developer involvement

How We Did It

  • → Integrity worked closely with SPP's IT team to design and deploy modular services instead of monolithic tools
  • → Trained machine learning models on existing vertical-specific product lists and catalog metadata
  • → Developed a Pricing Engine capable of ingesting business rules and dynamically applying them to real-time quotes
  • → Integrated PromoStandards to automatically pull live pricing and inventory data from suppliers
  • → Built UI components and automation for client-specific product and pricing configurations
  • → Implemented team metrics, demos, and feedback loops to keep stakeholders involved in prioritization and planning
  • → Continuously evolved the platform with ongoing enhancements aligned to SPP's modernization goals

The Bottom Line

By blending AI-powered automation with strategic systems modernization, Integrity Inspired Solutions helped Staples Promotional Products dramatically reduce operational inefficiencies, improve quote accuracy, and create a foundation for future growth. What once required hours of manual work and developer intervention now happens in seconds—automatically, accurately, and at scale.

"Integrity Inspired is considered our top notch development team."
— Staples Promotional Products
"We never give [Integrity Solutions] any prep and pepper them with questions, and [they] always have the most spot on perfect responses."
— Staples Promotional Products

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