Northern Tool + Equipment (www.northerntool.com) is known by do-it-yourselfers and professionals alike for offering the equipment and materials needed to do almost any job. The companys aggressive selling tactics and unique advertising slogans including: Dirty fingernails dont make you a man. Missing fingernails now that makes you a man has won the hearts and wallets of workmen across the nation.
In 2003, Northern ran its first enablement program with SPS Commerce to onboard 250 vendors, most using both direct to consumer and warehouse fulfillment order management models. During the campaigns development and roll-out, Northerns merchandisers leading the initiative held firm that the following principles be followed:
- Vendors must have compliance options including EDI testing, web-based forms, and integrated service;
- EDI specifications and forms were to be kept simple (especially the Advance Ship Notice (ASN);
- SPS customer support teams would be accessible to all vendors, and take each vendor through the enablement process step-by-step;
- Upon the conclusion of the program, non-EDI compliant vendors would cease to be a vendor of Northern.
The program was highly successful with almost 100% vendor participation.
Two years later, Northern was again faced with new EDI demands as sales in each of its retail channels were experiencing strong growth:
- Catalog: Delivering 65-75 million catalogs annually, with catalog sales up 15%.
- Online: Offering 15,000 products with online sales increasing 35% annually.
- Stores: Increased to 55 stores in 10 states (primarily in the South and Southeast).
To profitably increase its dropship sales and improve its inventory visibility, Northern needed to needed to advance its vendor EDI specifications to:
- Add a PO Acknowledgement for order confirmation.
- Update the ASN with more detailed information.
Working with SPS Commerce again, Northerns vendors were given a July 2005 deadline to comply with the new requirements. If not, they would be removed from Northern Tools catalog or incur additional fees per order. As before, SPS Commerce's team worked around the clock with vendors to test, re-test and enable vendors as needed.
In 2005, Northern has achieved the following compliance on its new EDI requirements:
- Warehouse Vendors: 362 EDI-enabled vendors tested; 162 non-EDI vendors enabled.
- Dropship Vendors: 135 EDI-enabled vendors tested; 31 non-EDI vendors enabled.
- 95% of vendors are in full EDI compliance.
"Our 2003 program was our first communication to our vendor base about EDI compliance. Many of our vendors didnt know how to spell EDI or simply didnt want to learn. We did our part to keep it simple and offer options, but SPS made all of the difference by personally working with each vendor until everything was right, no matter how long it took. Their customer support was nothing less than extraordinary! Northern owes its 2005 success to our merchandisers who emphasized the importance of EDI to all of our vendors and held firm to our commitment of 100% enablement, and SPS team whose expertise and personal skills made our vendors feel important and able to trust their EDI no matter which compliance option they chose."
- Brad Therrien, Divisional Merchandise Manager, Northern Tool + Equipment
