You know that big box retailers like Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, etc. are expanding their presence in the e-commerce world as a means to compete more effectively against more agile e-retailers like Wayfair, Overstock and so on.  Like it or not, e-commerce (and drop shipping) is a market segment that’s growing by double digits year over year.

There are BIG reasons for retailers to move in this direction but there are also BIG advantages to the suppliers working as a drop ship vendor (DSV).

One of the biggest advantages is your risk as a supplier can be spread across MANY retailers as opposed to big box programs that can end without notice at any time leaving you with unsold inventory and a huge financial loss. 

Another advantage is better margins.  In typical big box brick and mortar fulfillment you can get beat down on price with the expectation of making it up in volume.  Unfortunately, that rarely if ever happens – you end up taking lower margins due to allowances. 

Lastly, online shopping is a powerful and lucrative force that allows you to be agile and react quickly to market demands, to observe changes and gain a better sense of real-time demand for product making inventory forecasting easier. 

But to succeed you need to follow the Retailer’s rules!  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. 

More and more retailers are recommending OPAL to their suppliers for this reason. 

For the Retailer, OPAL is 100% compliant.   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. 

For your business’ productivity, 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%. It also increases Order Accuracy up to 99%, as well as increasing Picker / Packer Productivity and Daily Shipments by 25%-50%.  All without EDI charges.

Yes, OPAL will process your drop ship orders in 5-8 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with 100% of the Vendor Compliance required by your retailer and with NO EDI COST!  It will even simplify and reduce the steps required to do pallet shipments. 

But maybe, even more importantly, OPAL is configured to each business’ financial needs and processes – small or large, one size and process does not have to “fit all” businesses. 

OPAL is the only self-driving (think ROBOTIC) order fulfillment software solution in the market today that:

•         Automates receiving orders from retailers and e-tailers

•         Manages all EDI transactions

•         Invoices orders in your accounting system

•         Manages inventory

•         Sends inventory feeds to your retailers based upon their compliance requirements

•         Creates Packing Slips, custom branded 3rd party Shipping Labels per any retailer’s or e-tailer’s requirements, Bills of Lading and UCC128 labels

•         And, once shipped, it sends back tracking information and invoices to the retailer or e-tailer, as well as tracking packages.

All WITHOUT ANYONE managing the order or touching a keyboard.  All you need to do is pick, pack and ship product from the warehouse. 

It even has Warehouse Management capabilities that can increase the efficiency and output of your warehouse, increasing daily shipments by more than 25%! 

So what does this REALLY mean to an e-commerce business?  Joe Miller, CIO of REACHbarrier, a company that provides an easy, affordable way for homeowners to save on energy costs by reducing their energy consumption experienced this common problem: 

“We have products that sell for $11-$15 and were unable to sell them on-line due to the order processing cost. With OPAL we were able to lower our order processing cost to $.50 cents or less an order, opening up a whole new sales avenue to us. In addition, it used to take two people to process 100 orders per day. Now, we process thousands of orders daily during peak periods.” 

In addition, have you ever thought about how many EDI documents you’re paying for per order?  Well, for a simple drop ship order you are going to need at least five and the average order file size is 1KC (one thousand characters).  Each one costs around $.06 cents. That may not seem like a lot, but here’s what Victoria Bouldin, Vice President of Primetime Petz experienced: 

“We sell our pet gates to the top 20 retailers in the market and were paying $1,100 per month in EDI charges.  With OPAL all of that is gone. The other thing that we really like about OPAL is that it has taken all of the errors out of our order processing.  Everything is accurate and everything ships on time. It’s enabled me to focus on growing the business without having to worry about managing order processing.”