EDI Benefits for eCommerce Suppliers

Suppliers who elect to implement EDI will enjoy numerous benefits. With an end-to-end EDI integration with trading partners, all POs can be sent directly to their ERP or Accounting software for fulfilment. Beyond and automated drop ship process, suppliers will:

• Free up time
  • If you are spending one or more hours manually processing orders each day – you are losing valuable time that could be used to grow other parts of your business. Just take a look at this stat- There are 250 days in a typical work year, and if you are spending at least 1 hour a day processing orders, that equates to 250 hours a year. When you take in account the average work day is 8 hours, all of that manual work equals around 31 work days a year. Imagine what you could do to help your business if you had that time back!  Time is money, and if your time is being allocated to manually processing orders, other areas of your business could be neglected. For example, if a member of your sales team has been manually fulfilling orders, that is one hour each day that they are not selling. In a year, that will equate to a month of lost sales.  Electing to implement and EDI provider and integration hub, like logicbroker, will free up your team so they can focus on their true tasks and your business will run more efficiently. Your EDI provider will translate documents and ensure they flow into the correct system (eliminating the need for data entry).

   

• Increase Speed
  • EDI is seen as a favorable way to conduct business transactions because of its incredible speed. EDI documents send faster than faxes, emails and postal mail, and taking orders via phone call. A survey conducted by Forrester Research found that EDI can speed up your business cycles by 61%. This enables you to exchange transactions in minutes rather than days or weeks as seen by utilizing the postal service. Another benefit to utilizing an integration hub is that you can process more orders in less time. A direct integration with your EDI retail trading partners to QuickBooks enables you to receive and process orders at a much faster pace. EDI documents send much quicker than faxes, and are more efficient than emails or phone calls. With a faster order cycle, your business will gain the benefit of scalability and handle a higher order volume. Because orders are processed in real-time without manual processes, an EDI solution enables you to get paid faster by speeding up the order lifecycle. It also can increase customer satisfaction because they can quickly track and receive their orders.

   

• Save money
  • When you elect to use EDI, expenses associated with paper, printing, reproduction, storage, filing, postage and document retrieval are all reduced or eliminated lowering your transaction costs by at least 35%. Forester research reports that a major electronics manufacturer calculated the cost of processing an order manually at $38 compared to just $1.35 for an order processed using EDI. EDI also enables your company to go green and reduce your corporate carbon footprint.

   

• Scale without Added Headcount
  • The efficiency associated with EDI allows you to scale your business while maintaining the same headcount. Utilizing a third-party provider can be 30% less of a cost than utilizing an in-house service. Logicbroker handles EDI testing, mapping, and 24/7 in-house support. Through automation, the need for manual data entry is eliminated freeing up your employees so they can focus on other aspects of your business.

   

• Receive Orders in One format
  • EDI’s speed makes it a popular alternative to receiving orders via email or fax. Once you are set up with EDI, all order documents can be sent and received in EDI format. If you work with small retailers who are not EDI compliant, they can log into the logicbroker portal to place orders, which will be sent to you via EDI.

   

• Sell to big box retailers
  • Big box retailers mandate that their trading partners use EDI because of the efficiency and speed associated with it. By enabling EDI, you are capable of doing business with these big box retailers. In today’s demo we will simulate an order cycle as a supplier receiving an order from a big box retailer and fulfilling it in QuickBooks. It is also worth noting that with logicbroker, you are able to generate Gs1-128 or UCC-128 barcode labels which may be an additional requirement necessary for doing business with large retailers.