Well, the short answer is that it saves time – increasing your capacity for sales and delivery, it saves order processing labor – decreasing overhead costs, and it eliminates order processing errors – once again saving time while also building your brand in the marketplace.

But what does “autonomous” really mean?  It means eliminating nearly all, if not all, of the manual steps we must all perform when processing an order.  This includes receiving orders from your customer retailers and e-tailers, managing all of their EDI transactions, processing and invoicing orders through your ERP and accounting system, downloading or creating custom packing slips, creating shipping labels, UCC128 labels and / or other shipping documents, getting them to the warehouse for pick, pack and ship and monitoring delivery progress of the order.  Now, imagine doing that 24 hours day, 7 days per week, and only having to focus on the few exceptions that will inevitably occur outside of your control.  That’s obviously going to save you money and give you the capacity to increase sales, right?

Oh, and it also removes EDI transmission / translation and associated costs from your business world.  That’s less to worry about and saves a chunk of change, especially if you’re drop shipping.

So how do you get autonomous order processing?  The best answer is OPAL.  OPAL enables you to process all (drop ship and bulk) orders within one software platform, eliminating the need for most of the 3rd party applications you may be using.  Additionally it enhances the investments you’ve made in your ERP or accounting software, automating order processing related activities.  AND…most importantly, it removes 90%+ of the overhead cost of drop ship order processing and levels the playing field with bulk shipment order processing cost.

If this sounds interesting and is worth 15 minutes of your time, visit www.opal-llc.com to schedule a demonstration, get answers to your questions and see how it can solve the problems you are encountering and improve efficiency and profitability.

All companies large or small that are selling products on-line or for warehouse fulfillment to big box retailers like Walmart, Sears, Kohls, Home Depot, etc. or through e-tailers like Wayfair, Overstock, Hayneedle, etc. need EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). It’s a hassle, forcing many suppliers to employ individual(s) just to coordinate it and keep it accurate.

Plus, you get to pay for the EDI documents needed. It’s certainly not a big deal when you are shipping bulk orders, but when you’re drop shipping small quantities that’s a very different story.  EDI service companies LOVE IT when that happens.  It’s true! Drop shipping means hundreds of more orders, hundreds of more EDI documents to process, HUGE COSTS to you and HUGE REVENUE for them.

Then, of course, there’s the added cost and problem of effectively managing all of those additional orders.  To do that you need to have staff to manage a lot of moving parts from order retrieval to acknowledgement, shipping labels, packing slips, ASNs, shipment tracking, invoicing and inventory reporting – not to mention all of the exceptions that can occur with possible, subsequent charge backs.

All of these things combined really hurt your business’ profitability.

OPAL removes these business issues.  It is an intelligent, self-driving drop ship and large order fulfillment software solution that plugs into your existing software investments and truly automates the entire order process, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  

OPAL touchlessly automates receiving orders from retailers and e-tailers, manages all EDI transactions, processes and invoices orders through your ERP and accounting system, and creates packing slips and custom branded 3rd party shipping labels per any retailer’s or e-tailer’s requirements.  Once shipped, it sends back tracking information and invoices to the retailer or e-tailer, as well as tracking packages and sending inventory updates.

Not only that, OPAL takes advantage of the direct EDI links now provided by retailers and e-tailers enabling a supplier to process a drop ship order with $0 cost for EDI documents – or an LTL, Full Truck Load or Container order for that matter.  OPAL downloads POs (Document 850) from retailers and e-tailers, sends back Acknowledgements (Document 997), ASNs (Document 856), Invoices (Document 810) and Product Inventory (Document 846) with no EDI charges and is 100% compliant with each retailer. 

So, if you employed OPAL, eliminating the cost for things like EDI document charges, EDI management and troubleshooting labor, order processing labor, reduced order exceptions to less than 5% of your order volume, and accomplished it with a total cost of CENTS rather than DOLLARS, wouldn’t that be worth checking into? Schedule a 15 minute demonstration to see the possibilities.