Solution for Efficient Vendor Onboarding

Eliška Štrosová

6. 5. 2024

In the world of eCommerce, competition is relentless, and every company strives to keep up with the fast pace of the market. For companies that operate as resellers and distributors, it is crucial not only to offer customers a wide range of products but also to keep current information about their vendors’ offerings.

We understand how challenging it can be to keep track of all products and prices, especially when collaborating with various vendors who have individual conditions and utilize different technical means to communicate changes in their offerings, prices, or stock availability. That’s why we’ve decided to outline several situations you may face and provide you with efficient solutions. Let’s explore how a WisePorter PIM system can help you!

“I cooperate with numerous different vendors, which allows me to offer a diverse range of products to my own customers. However, managing them all increases administrative tasks and internal costs.”

A huge challenge in managing vendors and integrating their products into the product catalog is the workload associated with administration. Every vendor has unique data formats, many of which require manual managing and updating. Not to mention the amount of data that has to be processed. A PIM system offers a complete solution thanks to simple integration directly with vendors. Product listing is done automatically, guaranteeing fast and accurate updates to your offering. Whether you work with tens or hundreds of vendors, automation through the PIM system can significantly relieve your team’s workload. You don’t need IT experts to connect with a new vendor; you can easily set it up yourself.

“The vendor has a product in the offering, but it takes me a long time to list it in my own offer.”

The delayed product listing can negatively impact business performance and lead to a competitive disadvantage. Manual product listing can take several weeks, causing delays in product availability and lost sales opportunities. With a PIM system, you can eliminate these concerns and ensure that your product offering is always up-to-date. When a vendor publishes a new product, the PIM system automatically uploads it to your product catalog. This includes product details, parameters, stock levels, pricing, images, and other attachments.

“The vendor has stopped manufacturing the product, but it takes me a while to remove it from my offering.” or “The vendor still has the product in the catalog, but my stock has run out.”

Inadequate response to vendor changes and the inability to deliver products on time can significantly damage a company’s reputation and lead to substantial profit losses. While competitors benefit from swift processing and updating of their offerings, your company faces long-term reputation damage and the risk of legal consequences. Not to mention the costs associated with order cancellations. With a PIM system, the data on your website can be automatically updated in a matter of minutes. This means that you won’t have to worry about any possible repercussions if a vendor updates or removes a product from their catalog. PIM ensures that your product listings remain current and relevant, all within a matter of minutes.

“We are dealing with changes in the vendors’ price lists. Our costs frequently surpass the selling price and do not generate the necessary profit for us to continue selling. During the season, one weekend at an outdated price can result in thousands of euros lost, depending on the goods and volume of sales.”

In the world of eCommerce, one of the key factors for success is proper pricing and maintaining sales profitability. However, constant changes in vendors’ price lists can pose a significant challenge to maintaining competitive prices and profitability in business. Exceeding the selling price or selling at outdated prices can lead to serious financial losses and damage to reputation. Through the PIM system, however, you can always be sure that your price is set correctly; the margin will always be based on current costs.

“Although the vendor has all the information available, it is not provided to us on time and frequently contains errors. Additionally, they fail to include the necessary attachment data, including pictures and other files. The work is further complicated by the numerous variations in data formats from various vendors.”

WisePorter can handle various product parameters and process different formats, such as feeds, APIs, CSV, TXT, or EDI. Furthermore, we can enrich your data with additional sources such as internet information, automatically generated texts and descriptions, or SEO elements, and then deliver them to ERP, eShop, or wherever needed. The PIM system can also map all variations of vendor codes, manufacturer codes, industrial codes, and codes in your ERP to the same record using aliases. All you have to do is configure the system at the beginning, and it will then learn from the data you provide. If the system finds errors in the data, it actively alerts the relevant users; incorrect data will not be uploaded to the website until corrected by you. And what if the vendor has no automated interface? This situation might also occur. Again, our solution is simple: provide the vendor with a blank template to complete, which you can then quickly upload to the catalog.

“We operate on multiple markets across different countries and currencies. We encounter complications due to the diverse offerings for individual markets. Some of our vendors only deliver to selected countries; they have different prices for each market, and we have to utilize various local carriers. These differences need to be effectively managed.”

Managing product catalogs for various markets brings complexities associated with the diversity of vendors, their delivery capabilities, and specific conditions for each country. It can be challenging to offer products effectively and efficiently across multiple markets without the risk of errors in product availability or price if local market logic is not supported. Our system can work with various conditions under which the vendor is able to supply to the relevant market. We will connect vendors, whether they are in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, or Germany so that their products are only offered in the countries where they can supply them. Everything is under the conditions specific to that market.

Have you encountered any of these cases? Do you feel overwhelmed by vendor listings? WisePorter can offer you flexible and simple solutions to your difficulties and ensure customer satisfaction. Shift your business from operations to strategy and try our FREE DEMO version now!