What is EDI?

EDI 101: The Basics and the Business Benefits for Retailers, Grocers, Vendors, Distributors, 3PLs and Others

Learn what is EDI, how EDI works and why companies within the retail and retail supply chain industry use it. Explore the benefits of electronic data interchange (EDI) for your business, how other businesses use it or browse types of EDI documents.

Common EDI Transactions
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What is EDI?

What is EDI? It's the data interchange that connects all the business involved in retail supply chain.

EDI is an abbreviation for electronic data interchange.

Using EDI, companies send information digitally from one business system to another, using a standardized format. Some of the types of business systems to which EDI can connect include e-commerce solutions, ERP, WMS, CMS, accounting software and more.

EDI replaces order processes, transactions and communications that were done with paper or fax in the past. It’s an important component for automation in business processes.

With EDI, you can exchange digital information and transactions with other businesses for greater accuracy and speed of communication. For example, purchase orders, invoices, advanced ship notices and other documents can be digitally transmitted via EDI.

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Curious how EDI impacts your business?

Click on your business type below to see how electronic data interchange and EDI automation works for your company. You can also take a look to see how other businesses are using EDI.

Achieve EDI compliance with your trading partners

“Spencer’s wanted to create an environment for all of our domestic and international vendors to adopt EDI quickly. SPS Commerce helped us to achieve extremely high EDI compliance with our suppliers. Today more than 96% of all our orders are processed via EDI.”

Ann Arena, Director of Merchandise Management Systems, Spencer’s

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Still not convinced SPS Commerce is the right EDI provider for you? Read our white paper about the benefits of Full-Service EDI provider.