Pell Industrial
Founded in 2007, Pell Industrial manufactures and distributes private label hand tools and related products. Its retail customers include Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, and Pep Boys, among others.
Pell made a strategic decision in 2009 to expand visibility to in–store inventories, and improve forecasting and customer service. The company began to seek out a provider that could deliver access to POS data from retail customers.
After surveying the intelligence offerings in the market and listening to customers’ recommendations, Pell selected SPS Commerce’s Trading Partner Intelligence Service. In addition, Pell subscribed to SPS’ on–demand supply chain management services, including web-based EDI, integrated EDI with QuickBooks and Scan and Pack to optimize their supply chain and logistics efficiency.
SPS Commerce’s Trading Partner Intelligence service turns complex EDI 852 and other point of sale (POS) data into actionable intelligence. The interactive service provides key metrics that enable suppliers to:
- Understand and improve sales performance by identifying and preventing missed opportunities
- Gain a better understanding of final sell through
- Understand and minimize chargebacks for greater profitability and customer satisfaction
- Analyze key fulfillment metrics across any customer, any region/market/store, any product and any time period
- Improve vendor scorecards by understanding their performance relative to customer expectations
Using primarily EDI 852 data, Trading Partner Intelligence is providing Pell with online access to a dashboard that includes an executive view of retail sales, timely forecast analyses, trend reports and drillable weekly sales reports.
More Accurate Forecasting
Prior to using Trading Partner Intelligence, Pell’s forecasts for retail customers were accurate about 30 percent of the time. Its sales staff would routinely call customers to obtain information on product sales and inventory levels. The result was infrequent updates and a reactive approach.
Today Pell has increased forecasting accuracy to 60 percent or better using Trading Partner Intelligence, with accuracy is improving every month.
"By more accurately understanding how our products are selling in stores, we can better predict when our retail customers will need to replenish their inventory," said Christian David, Vice President of Sales at Pell Industrial. "Trading Partner Intelligence provides us with summary dashboards and drillable reports on our weekly sales, on–hand inventory, percent changes by week and much more. Its POS data analysis is helping us streamline order fulfillment, improve demand planning and increase sales."
Proactive Sales Approach
Pell's sales team uses Trading Partner Intelligence daily to identify items whose sales are trending high or low. This information helps Pell partner with retail customers to improve in–store promotions and understand where product sales are lagging compared to previous weeks. These proactive measures are also helping decrease stockouts, prevent excess inventories, and enhance customer service.
"Pell wanted to provide advanced sales analyses to strengthen our relationships with our retail customers," continued David. "With Trading Partner Intelligence we are able to convey the message to our customers that we are actively managing our SKUs to better serve them. Our retailers are seeing us excel in this area and it is helping us to grow these relationships."
About SPS Commerce
SPS Commerce is a leading provider of on-demand supply chain management solutions, providing integration, collaboration, connectivity, visibility and data analytics to thousands of customers worldwide. We deliver our solutions over the Internet using a Software-as-a-Service model to improve the way suppliers, retailers, distributors and other customers manage and fulfill orders. Our SPSCommerce.net platform features pre-built integrations used by current and new customers alike, spanning 2,700 order management models across 1,300 retailers, grocers and distributors, as well as integrations to over 100 accounting, warehouse management, enterprise resource planning, and packing and shipping applications. More than 35,000 customers across more than 40 countries have used SPSCommerce.net, making it one of the largest trading partner integration centers. SPS Commerce has 38 consecutive quarters of increased revenues and is headquartered in Minneapolis. For additional information, please contact SPS Commerce at 866-245-8100 or visit www.spscommerce.com.
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