Moving merchandise faster has many benefits for the end customer, the retailer, and especially the wholesaler. Most of the low-hanging wholesale business improvements are already in place, improvements like smart warehousing, bar-coding, racking, and material handling equipment, better labeling, easy packaging, better transportation with same-day or overnight deliveries, and all kinds of special purpose software that speeds up the process of getting merchandise to where it’s needed.
A wholesaler derives many benefits from improving the overall speed of order management. None of these benefits is dramatic by itself, but together, they add up to genuine business performance improvements – among them are
Warehouse space reduction. Even a small reduction in merchandise in the warehouse can be valuable, especially with high bulk-to-value goods. Maybe this recovered space creates room for another small product line or permits a small delay in adding additional warehouse space.
Warehouse congestion relief. A slight reduction in warehouse congestion might allow goods to move more fluidly. Maybe this creates more elbow room for circulation, more shelf space for better product placement within the warehouse, or more productive space for the people who make things happen.
Cash flow improvement. Any improvement in faster delivery has to produce a corresponding speed-up in getting paid. Some wholesalers have been able to achieve an improvement of more than one full day in cash receipts.
The missing piece is often automated order entry software. The features described below are specific to the processes used by companies running QuickBooks, but the concepts apply to any business or accounting software. Sales reps and customers can operate a sound order management system, and it should provide additional features, each of which can contribute to faster and better service to customers.
Some of those features are:
Customers and reps can place orders online and go directly into the wholesaler’s QuickBooks back-office system, saving time and labor in processing incoming orders.
All incoming orders are fillable because the sales rep or wholesale customer has been able to view the quantities on hand, the specific pricing that applies to that customer, and the order history of each customer and each item.
Incoming orders tend to be error-free since they follow a defined format. Time savings result from the home office crew spending less time talking with order placers and determining how to fix their errors.
The status of each existing order is visible to both the buyer and the sales representative, so no phone calls or emails will be necessary to ask about shipping dates or carrier details.
Automatic warehouse notifications save time by instantly informing the warehouse about each new required shipment.
If only a few of these elements were in place, would your distribution business be improved? It’s quite possible that the biggest improvement would be customer satisfaction, as customers are dazzled by the unexpected gain in service speed from a vendor that does everything well.
