Like the cost of EDI, many suppliers believe that Vendor Compliance Chargebacks are just a cost of doing business and have resigned themselves to accepting less revenue and profit.  But, also like EDI, chargebacks DO NOT have to impact your revenue and profitability.  It can be a win-win situation.

The truth is that non-compliance by suppliers can cost retailers literally billions of dollars in unexpected processing and rework.  When you, as a supplier, make money for your retailers they will value your relationship more highly. When you don’t, the opposite is true and it will be reflected in your Supplier Scorecard and subsequent penalties.

In fact, it’s estimated that Vendor Compliance Chargebacks can now amount to 1% or more of revenue due to a supplier’s failure to comply with retailer order, billing and shipping requirements. 

To this end, large retailers like Wayfair and Walmart recommend OPAL to their suppliers in order to address these issues – for two very important reasons: 

1.       OPAL is 100% compliant with not only Wayfair and Walmart requirements, but also nearly 100 other retailers – with new ones being added each month. OPAL processes a retailer’s orders for the supplier and complies with all necessary transactions (Acknowledgement, Confirmation, ASN, Invoices, etc.), PO pricing, packaging, labeling, shipping documentation and accurate, on-time inventory feeds in just a few seconds per order.  This speed and accuracy makes a supplier much more valuable to their retailer. 
2.       For the supplier, OPAL processes orders with a no-touch, self-driving approach that works 24×7, without the need for an additional Warehouse Management System, Shipping Software, Retailer Portal or EDI company.  It also reduces Order Processing time by up to 90%, Order Processing Cost by up to 80% and Undelivered Packages to less than 1%, while also increasing Order Accuracy up to 99%, Picker and Packer Productivity and Daily Shipments by 25%-50%.  All without EDI charges.

Stopping Vendor Compliance Chargebacks comes from taking the time and resources to understand why the problems are occurring and the steps that must be taken to keep them from occurring in the future.  Implement OPAL, an intelligent software system that autonomously manages the order processing and fulfillment workflow in a method that is always retailer compliant.  Power up and power on with OPAL.

A recent Washington Post headline just stated: ‘Retail apocalypse’ now: Analysts say 75,000 more U.S. stores could be doomed”.  ”Widespread closures have roiled the retail industry, but many more stores are likely to shut down in coming years to keep up with a shift to online shopping, according to a report by investment firm UBS.” 

The main reason for the shift, analysts say, is simple: Americans are increasingly shopping online. The average U.S. household spent $5,200 online last year, up nearly 50 percent from five years earlier.  That’s a lot of small parcel and large parcel deliveries to home addresses! 

This indicates that your future as a supplier is in transition.  Do you continue to focus on large pallet shipments to these retailers or do you start, or do you expand, your e-Commerce footprint? 

Unfortunately, to do this, it takes as much time and effort to process, pick, pack and ship a $20 order in the Direct to Consumer world as it does a $200,000 order in the Direct to Store or Direct to Distribution Center world.  And the number of orders going Direct to Consumer are exponentially larger. 

So, consider this very real situation as an e-Commerce Supplier:  You are handling at least 50 drop ship orders each day, selling to multiple sales channels such as Amazon, Target, Home Depot, Walmart, Wayfair, e-Commerce sites, etc., creating packing slips, creating shipping labels, creating customized pick lists, scanning orders, sending tracking numbers and invoices to trading partners, updating accounting systems, and tracking packages. 

Then you need to send up-to-date, accurate inventory feeds to all of your sales channels – as often as once every hour!  Not to mention you still have the warehouse manual process of picking and packing all of those smaller parcels. 

To not only survive but thrive, you need speed, efficiency and scalability.  This means: 

•         You Just pick and pack and an autonomous system does the rest for you
•         Warehouse pick and pack is optimized, growing the number of daily shipments made by 25%-50%
•         Nothing else is needed – no Warehouse Management System, shipping software, EDI companies or retailer portals
•         And, you can grow your business without increasing your costs or hiring additional employees. 

You can take control of your future and see how you can ensure future success and an unmistakable competitive advantage.  Not only can you outlast and surpass competitors who either ignore or simply don’t know until it’s too late, but you can also realize a quantum leap in profitability with a huge savings in time and labor costs.  Power up and power on with OPAL.