Improve Your Retailer Relationships with a Consumer Goods ERP

Maintaining good retail customer relationships are at the root of your business success. In order to build and maintain those solid relationships, you must deliver the right product mixes at the right times. Additionally, you need to regularly evaluate your products—which are selling and how you can modify the ones that aren’t. By leveraging an enterprise resource planning system, you can identify and improve your entire supply chain, resulting in happier retail customers and greater profits. Streamlining your supply chain can result in fewer chargebacks, more accurate forecasting, increased profitability and margins, and higher quality products.

Below we have identified four of the ways in which Aptean Distribution ERP can help you improve your retailer relationships.

1. Utilize Integrated EDI Tools to Decrease Errors

Featuring electronic data interchange (EDI) functionality enables you to improve collaboration between you and your customers; basically, EDI takes everything off of paper and digitizes it, thus streamlining communications between you and your vendor. EDI can bring a higher level of compliance, faster information processing, decreased costs and improved shipping accuracy.

Many retailers use their own unique EDI processing rules, and Aptean Distribution ERP can provide ongoing map creation to cater to each individual retailer's specifications. Our EDI solution is built into our ERP software – no add-ons or plug-ins that other vendors may offer – which provides a higher level of data integrity and security. We also provide daily transaction monitoring and full technical support. Although EDI is built on standards, not all EDI vendors are the same. Aptean Distribution ERP specializes in consumer goods EDI because we know the right EDI partner can be the difference between a good or bad supplier score and a positive or negative retailer relationship.

2. Forecast More Accurately for Long Lead Times

Consumer goods companies are unique in that they require long lead times. Any mistakes in forecasting and distribution resource planning mean you will not have the right product mix available to ship to retailers. This strains your retailer relationships and threatens your future business opportunities with that vendor.

Aptean Distribution ERP includes time-phased tools that help consumer goods companies account for long lead times and inventory on demand. Our forecasting tools also integrate point-of-sale data, customer forecasts, sales trends, seasonality, inventory status and other inputs to help you improve purchasing and inventory management.

We know that best-in-class forecasting and distribution resource planning tools will help you keep your retail customers happy. That's why we provide a rule-based environment that automatically identifies and alerts you to any issues based on exceptions to criteria that you define. Aptean Distribution ERP also provides maximum efficiency and control to purchase from multiple suppliers, trade in multiple currencies and manage inventory across multiple warehouses.

3. Improve Efficiency with Warehousing Tools

Implementing the correct warehouse management tools can provide you and your business with a competitive advantage. Adopting wireless functionality in your warehouse allows you to streamline workflows and improve data accuracy. All of these advantages can improve your warehouse accuracy and efficiency, in turn reducing your shipping errors to retailers.

We also have flexible tools for bulk or batch picking. We know when you pick a small number of products for a large number of orders it is easier to bulk or batch pick the products rather than pick each order individually. This helps you streamline your warehouse processes when dealing with larger retailers.

4. Improve Product Quality with Supplier Production Monitoring

Aptean Distribution ERP includes innovative supplier production monitoring functionality. Overseas third-party manufacturing poses unique challenges for consumer goods companies. Our supplier production monitoring functionality enables you to monitor, manage and track the production activities of all your overseas providers.

Having greater visibility into the production activities of your third-party suppliers helps ensure your operations stay on track and on time. You will be alerted in real-time to any delays or issues with production or product quality, which will help you make faster and more informed decisions. Knowing the production status of your products means your entire supply chain will run smoother, helping ensure you always ship the right product mix at the right time.

If you’re looking to improve your retailer relationships and improve your business practices along the way, a consumer goods ERP like Aptean Distribution ERP can help you. Building and maintaining relationships with retailers is essential for consumer goods businesses, and we want to partner with you as you take this next step in your business journey. To learn more about how Aptean Distribution ERP can work for you and your consumer goods enterprise, reach out to us, we’d love to talk.