What is a punchout catalog?

Example

An engineer at Cobalt Labs opens the procurement system and clicks "Lab Supply Co." She lands on the supplier's site, adds 6 boxes of nitrile gloves at $14 and a 2 L beaker at $22, and presses a transfer button. The cart comes back as a requisition for $106 and goes to her manager. After approval the system issues the PO to the supplier.

The supplier keeps the prices and stock current. The buyer's system never holds a stale copy of the catalog.

In Atta

Atta doesn't use punchout. The agent searches the stores a workspace has connected, such as Shopify stores and stores that speak the Universal Commerce Protocol, and reads open-web pages read-only. It returns options with prices, and a purchase goes through the workspace's approval rules before checkout.

For a store that has no cart interface we can use, the agent hands back product links or a cart link the shopper opens themselves. The one cart Atta writes from its servers is a Universal Commerce Protocol store's anonymous cart. Supplier catalogs with price, minimum and lead time can also be entered for suppliers you buy from regularly.

Why companies use it

Punchout keeps prices current and puts contracted pricing in front of the buyer. It needs the supplier to support cXML or OCI and a procurement system to receive the cart, which is why it usually belongs to larger buyers with fewer, bigger suppliers.