Creating a Win-Win Relationship with Retailers
When everything goes well, your retailer wins AND your business wins.
You already know the advantages retailers get out of working with you as a Drop Ship Vendor (DSV), but it’s also important to note that poor performing suppliers cost retailers billions of dollars each year. If you want to be a valued supplier to a retailer, it’s important to make this relationship work efficiently.
Remember that retailers can opt to have as many suppliers as they desire and they don’t have to limit themselves to only one brand. When you, as a supplier, make money for your retailers they will value your relationship more highly and provide you with the opportunity for even more sales volume.
When you don’t, the opposite is true and it will be reflected in your Supplier Scorecard and subsequent penalties.
There are essential metrics where your performance is measured and where decisions are made regarding how, or if, they will work with you in the future. These include:
- The number of Back Orders you experience – do you provide them with accurate item inventory so that orders aren’t placed by the retail channel when an item is out of stock.
- The number of orders you accurately fulfill within the customer delivery date – do you provide on time order processing and trigger an Advanced Ship Notice (ASN) to your retail channel.
- Compliance errors – do you consistently comply with all necessary transactions (Acknowledgement, Confirmation, ASN, Invoices, etc.), PO pricing, packaging, labeling and shipping documentation to minimize order issues and rework (cost) for the retailer.
So, how to you create a win-win with retailers?
Well, the first way is to be compliant with a retailer’s business processes. This compliance makes you valuable to a retailer by reducing their expenses surrounding order issues and rework.
The second way is to have the ability to scale your business, delivering more on-time orders each day and the handling of peak periods without having to hire additional personnel.
And lastly, you must maximize your warehouse’s efficiency, dramatically increasing the number of shipments that can be made each day and their accuracy.
The bottom line is that OPAL addresses all of this for you and more, giving you the means to create a win-win relationship. Recommended by major retailers to their suppliers, it combines all of your order processing and warehouse management activities into one AUTONOMOUS software platform – NO Warehouse Management System, NO Shipping Software, NO Retailer Portals and NO EDI companies or document charges.