What is Dynamic Highway
The industry data sharing platform, and what it does for you.
Dynamic Highway is the UK promotional merchandise industry's data sharing platform. It takes live feeds of products, standard and special pricing, and stock information directly from suppliers, and delivers them to distributors wherever they work.
It launched in February 2025 and now carries data from more than 70 suppliers. That number keeps growing, and a live list of every supplier on the platform is available to Sourcing City distributor and supplier customers from the Sourcing City home page.
The problem it solves
Data sharing and collection is one of the industry's most expensive and least visible costs. It falls on both sides of the trade.
Suppliers
Repeated requests from dozens of distributors, each wanting the same product data in a different format. Time spent preparing exports rather than selling.
Distributors
Collecting data from many suppliers, then collating and reformatting it for their own websites and systems. Phone calls to confirm prices and stock that could have been answered by a screen.
Both
Discontinued products lingering on websites, new products missing from them, and quotations built on prices that have moved.
Every minute spent managing data is a minute not spent selling. Dynamic Highway provides a single central source for that data, so it is prepared once and used everywhere.
How it works
Suppliers provide product, pricing and stock data once, in whichever way suits their systems. Dynamic Highway normalises it and feeds it onward automatically.
What suppliers provide
- Product data. Full product detail, including colours, materials, sizes, branding methods and print areas, dimensions, weight, packing and images.
- Pricing. Standard list prices with quantity breaks, personalised distributor rates, catalogue group pricing, special promotions, origination and carriage.
- Stock. Current warehouse stock, and stock arriving on known dates.
How the data arrives
- Web service. Prices and stock are real time, all of the time.
- Automated file transfer. Refreshed on the supplier's own schedule, daily, weekly or monthly.
- Manual file upload. As current as the last upload.
Currency is shown, not assumed
Where data arrives by file, we collect stock at least once a day and products and pricing at least once a week. Your data is therefore as current as your most recent upload, not as current as our collection schedule.
Sourcing City displays the date of each supplier's most recent upload, and the date of the one before it. Distributors can see for themselves how current a supplier's data is, and how often it actually refreshes.
That is a stronger position than a blanket promise, because it is verifiable. It is also why the upload method carries 20 points on the Dynamic Highway Data Rating, the score we give every supplier's data. The Dynamic Highway team can tell you how your data scores and what would improve it.
Where the data goes
- Sourcing City Platinum. Distributors see your actual standard prices, their own individual special pricing, catalogue group pricing where it applies, and live stock.
- Sourcing City Skin Sites. Off the shelf distributor websites, branded as the distributor's own and populated from Dynamic Highway.
- Bespoke distributor websites. Distributors select products and feed the data to their own sites, which then update automatically.
- Promotional Office. Distributors pull product and price information straight into a quotation, and the product and supplier are added to their own database for repeat use.
The reach that gives you
- Sourcing City: 370 or more subscribing distributor companies, with over 2,000 daily users.
- Sourcing City Skin Sites: over 100 live distributor sites.
- Promotional Office: 600 or more users across more than 100 distributor companies.
Private Highway
Distributors can also route data from their own confidential suppliers, who are not on Dynamic Highway, through the same pipes. That data stays private to them.
What suppliers get
- One format, once. Provide your data in your own format. No more responding to individual spreadsheet requests from every distributor who asks.
- Your pricing in front of buyers. Your list prices, your personalised rates and your live stock appear in Sourcing City Platinum and in Promotional Office, at the moment a distributor is building a quotation.
- Reach beyond our own platforms. Your products appear on bespoke distributor websites and Sourcing City Skin Sites without you doing anything further.
- Fewer phone calls. Price and stock enquiries that exist only because the buyer could not see the answer simply stop.
- Time and cost back. The people currently preparing data exports get that time returned to them.
- Accuracy. Discontinued products come off distributor websites automatically. New products appear without being chased.
What distributors get
- Complete product data. Comprehensive detail in Sourcing City Platinum, with your personalised pricing and real time stock.
- Your own websites populated. Feed bespoke sites, Skin Sites and web shops from one source, updating automatically.
- Real ecommerce becomes possible. Live pricing and live stock are what make genuine online selling work, rather than a catalogue with a contact form.
- Search by stock for a delivery date. Find what can actually arrive when the client needs it, which is usually the question being asked.
- Clean catalogues. Discontinued products are hidden automatically. New products are available to add immediately.
- Data wherever you work. Personalised pricing and supplier stock in Sourcing City Platinum, in Promotional Office, and on your own sites.
Getting your data on
There are two routes, and you do not have to start with the more automated one.
Spreadsheet
Best for suppliers whose product, pricing and stock data lives in Excel or in a system that can export to it.
API or web service
Best for suppliers with a database driven website or a product information system that can serve data on request.
Whichever route suits you, the Dynamic Highway team will send you the requirements for it, field by field, along with our Product Image Specification. Image quality has more effect on how a product performs than almost anything else you supply, so it is worth reading before you send anything.
A note on security
We will never ask you for the password to your own systems, your file storage, your backup service or your website control panel. Where an integration needs access, we ask you to create a dedicated, scoped, read only account that you control and can revoke at any time.
If anyone asks you for a password on our behalf, treat it as suspicious and call us on 01252 224191.
Next steps
Suppliers not yet on Dynamic Highway can start by sending a sample of whatever data they already hold. We will tell you what it scores, what is missing, and what would make the biggest difference. There is no requirement to have everything ready first.
Distributors wanting Dynamic Highway data in their own website or systems should talk to us about which route suits their setup.
Want to speak to the Dynamic Highway team? Please call 01252 224191 or email info@sourcingcity.co.uk.
