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This is a very interesting thread. When Order Trax was launched in January, I questioned how this would work in an industry that differs greatly in how it operates. You have big distributors and small distributors that all work differently...and the same situation with suppliers.
I'm just happy I'm not on my own these days and have access to our company's WebSTAR ordering system. It's nice to have a team of people that handle all this stuff, so I can focus on things that are more productive.
It will be interesting to see how this all works out. I'm sympathetic to the plight of suppliers who have to keep all the information services updated and now deal with trying to come up with an universal ordering system that everyone can agree on. I'll watch what happens.
__________________ Jeffrey Solomon, MAS, 'Business Construction Foreman'
All American Marketing Group - FreePromoTips.com
16654 Soledad Canyon Road, #230
Santa Clarita, CA 91387 www.freepromotips.com
I am trying OrderTrax2 and so far it has been a bust. It actually takes more time because suppliers don't check their inbox (simplified) from OrderTrax. So as a result you have to check with the supplier or they call you to ask where the order is for the artwork you sent in.
If this sounds confusing it is! I am trying to work through their kinks but it is stressful.
Systems where "everything is automatic" and "everything will be perfect and zen between supplier/distributor" will only work as advertised if everyone drops what they're currently doing and do everything the way that said systems dictate. Forget the workflow that works best for your company.. it's not acceptable if it doesn't jive with these systems. This industry is too diverse for there to be one cookie cutter solution for order management. This isn't healthcare or some other government regulated industry.
I took a look at OrderTrax at the SAAC Show and the interface looks good. It also works with QuickBooks, which is a plus for many companies.
I'm just curious, is the challenge of using this program a lack of education on both the supplier and distributor sides?
Is participation a lack of awareness within the industry of the program?
I have reason for asking, as I'll be making more people aware of OrderTrax through FPT, my industry resource program and it will be helpful to be aware of the pluses of this program and the minuses.
The concept is good, why isn't it working.
Has anyone made PPAI aware of their challenges with the program?
__________________ Jeffrey Solomon, MAS, 'Business Construction Foreman'
All American Marketing Group - FreePromoTips.com
16654 Soledad Canyon Road, #230
Santa Clarita, CA 91387 www.freepromotips.com
Jeff
I have made PPAI aware of my issues. The concept is great, but the suppliers are not fully on board yet. They may accept an order through OrderTrax, but then email you rather than start a thread through OrderTrax as they are supposed to. I can understand since they are adding another task to their routines.
I agree re the suppliers not being on board. I tried it a couple of months ago and was very frustrated because it was creating an extra step for me instead of saving one. Had to call most of the suppliers to make sure they got my orders and then they wouldn't use the message system within OrderTrax. Love the concept but it needs to save me time, not create extra steps!
They may accept an order through OrderTrax, but then email you rather than start a thread through OrderTrax as they are supposed to. I can understand since they are adding another task to their routines.
Were I in the same situation, I'd continue to reply to the supplier's email(s), but would be certain to CC a key contact at PPAI, iServ Corp, OrderTrax, whatever, on every reply.
I'm confident it'd prompt that rep to contact the supplier and emphasize the need to utilize OrderTrax, and all I'd be doing is adding an email address to the distribution list and focusing on my business at hand.
Fixing the problems of OrderTrax shouldn't be a distributor's problem to solve . . . unless as a paid consultant.
If PPAI/iServ/OrderTrax contacted me and asked why I was CCing them on order emails, I'd immediately tell them to contact the supplier . . . and go back to focusing on my business at hand.
Scott
One of the problems is that Iserv is PPAI and not a private business. Because of that there is a lack of motivation and initiative. If I were to copy the owner or manager of a for profit business then there would be action because if the service didn't work they would go out of business. Iserv is funded by myself as a PPAI member.
Scott
One of the problems is that Iserv is PPAI and not a private business. Because of that there is a lack of motivation and initiative. If I were to copy the owner or manager of a for profit business then there would be action because if the service didn't work they would go out of business. Iserv is funded by myself as a PPAI member.
You've hit the nail on the head.
__________________
Chris Miller, GMAS
(Grand Master Advertising Specialist)
Scott
One of the problems is that Iserv is PPAI and not a private business. Because of that there is a lack of motivation and initiative. If I were to copy the owner or manager of a for profit business then there would be action because if the service didn't work they would go out of business. Iserv is funded by myself as a PPAI member.
Sam . . .
Regardless of how you think they will respond, it is minimal effort to CC that entity on the supplier email you're already replying to in the course of conducting your business.
If you don't see positive changes from that simple effort, then you have reason to cancel the OrderTrax service.
If it was correspondence I agree. But, they are just emailing acknowledgments and shipping notices some are auto post. I actually called originally and most told me they didn't want to fool with OrderTrax at this time, but they would accept orders that way.
Just to throw my two cents in from the supplier side. Even though our name was on the spreadsheet mentioned earlier in this thread, Magnet is not an OrderTrax2 participant. We do exchange ePSA documents with a few folks, but that's the extent of it.
Actually, to date, we have been asked by exactly 1 distributor to participate in this and before we could comply, they canceled their participation in OrderTrax2. I agree it is an interesting concept, but in order for it to be useful, it requires a VERY wide range of participation. As a supplier, I really do not want/need yet another set of external systems to deal with, especially if only a small subset of my customers use them.
The largest drawback for me in this effort was that any data we entered or received (orders, CS communications, etc.) was all held in an external database by iServ. Having the lion's share of my customer data in someone else's hands is just not an exciting idea. It may have changed some, but that was the initial portrayal to us when we sat through the conversations at the very beginning of this project.
I am sure folks will disagree with me on some of these points, but I have trouble seeing how a solution can be crafted that EVERYONE in the industry will subscribe to, given the extreme amount of participants in this industry and the relative size differences as well. My preference (which we expressed to the folks at iServ) would be to limit these projects to data exchange like other industries do (i.e. EDI documents) and not try to be the entire application suite provider.
__________________
Jeff Myers - President
The Magnet Group
Magnet LLC
The Bag Factory
Innovations by Magnet
Benchmark Crystal and Clocks
Jeff
That is a well conceived answer. It confirms my comments and findings. The concern as a member of PPAI is how much money has been spent trying to force this product on both sides. I receive multiple email each week promoting this product and I already am trying it. Bottom line is that you cannot make someone like SPAM. All the advertising and it's still SPAM. Either you like it or you don't. So one day you decide to give SPAM a taste even though it sounds gross. So you try and open the can and it is hard d to get into then once it's open the can is empty? The fine folks at SPAM finally got me to try it, but there is no substance. That's how I feel right now about OrderTrax.
I cannot speak to the issues experienced by those who are users of the OrderTrax system, however I can comment on the PPAI/ISERVCORP points made by some previous posts in this thread.
I'll take responsibility for recommending, more than 4 years ago, that in this era of changing modes of travel and lots of trade show competition, it would be in the long-term interest of PPAI to develop a revenue source in the technology "space" to supplement member dues and trade shows. Recognizing that previous efforts were not successful, I advocated for a separate business unit, staffed by experts who know both technology and the industry, and a complement of products and services that would not interfere with what other service providers are already offering (e.g. product search engines).
As my company's Order Locator service has been successfully providing an order-status solution to suppliers since 2001, I am surprised why nobody else has attempted to use that model, improve upon it as required, and accomplish more market penetration at a much lower cost. Personally, I can't get behind the idea that distributors should pay for a customer service feature (order status), and the notion that training and installations are necessary is more than a few years obsolete.
I regret the volume of time and both human and financial resources investments that have not yet borne fruit. Hopefully, a solution to these problems will soon be found because the business "friction" in order processing between suppliers and distributors is no less severe today than at any time I can remember.
I haven't used OderTrax for sometime. I asked them to cancel my subscription.
I have noticed they are starting to bombard me again with emails, which is annoying.
May I ask, exactly what is it that you say "works with QuickBooks?"
My understanding is that QuickBooks users can deploy a "plug-in" that enables the purchase order created in QuickBooks to be delivered to the supplier.
If that is what *all* that is meant by "works with QuickBooks" then the system is delivering only limited value. In other words, it is a substitute for any other method of sending the order to the supplier, such as printing it out and faxing it.
Order Trax is intended, as far as I know, to offer the trading partners (both supplier AND distributor) an opportunity to communicate about the order after the supplier receives it. So the question for QuickBooks users is simply this: "is that working for you?"
If suppliers who receive these QB-generated PO's are still communicating with you by telephone, fax, or regular email, then what is Order Trax really doing for you after you've sent the PO? Was sending that PO really such a problem that it required so much new technology? If the supplier isn't using the same system to correspond back with you, why are they not doing so?
If the supplier isn't using the same system to correspond back with you, why are they not doing so?
Lack of critical mass on the PPD side?
I would think that more suppliers would partner (and properly partner) with OrderTrax2 if they knew that a lot of PPDs were using it.
From my understanding, it's far easier (and cheaper) for a PPD using Quickbooks to integrate with OrderTrax2 than it is for a larger PPD with their own existing platform for order maintenance.
That's why I'm suggesting that iServ target PPDs that can readily deploy a plug-in (such as those running Quickbooks).
Yes, it's easier for smaller distributors to drop a plug-in into their QB program than it is for a larger distributor to work with their Lakeshore, OrderMaster, or even ASI software.
However, that misses the point that may be too extensive to write in this space: the issue is NOT about getting a purchase order from here to there. Rather, the issue is about reducing the communication problems during order processing and even after shipment. OrderTrax promises to do that, but it can't succeed if people don't use it for that 2-way communication.
So, if a supplier only gets a small percentage of their incoming orders via OrderTrax (let's be generous and say 15%) what's going to remind or motivate their CSR's to use OrderTrax instead of the phone or regular email? Suppliers are simply not going to modify their business procedures for the exceptions in their customer base. It would be like instructing their employees: "whenever you have to communicate with female distributors from the eastern half of Colorado, please be sure your email is written in 12pt. blue Helvetica bold."
When a supplier can be certain that a communication system works for ALL their customers, that's when they can alter their procedures effectively.
The "vision" for those of us Suppliers that wish to receive orders electronically is to eliminate human expense and for those orders to go straight into production. This will allow us to offer lower prices and for Distributors to be more competitive.
The "reality" as a Supplier that receives orders electronically is that there is little labor savings UNLESS the Distributor is also using product data provided by the Supplier. On the purchase orders we receive electronically when the Distributor has not used our product data we have almost as much labor involved as whether they submitted the order via fax or email.
Where Distributors fall down in allowing automation of orders for Suppliers is on the sku numbers for options. This is not the Distributor's fault as most Suppliers do not print their option sku numbers in their catalogs. In an automated system however all line items on a purchase order need to have sku numbers that match the Supplier's back-end system.
In addition most Distributors do not have address checking against the national address database in place. Suppliers have a lot of expense from the shipping companies for address corrections. DistributorCentral checks shipping addresses against the national database whether the Distributor kys in the order or the Supplier keys in the order.
The orders we recieve electronically when the Distributor has used our product data (DistributorCentral) skip several steps and go straight into production.
I have yet to see any examples of automated order processing in other industry that was accomplished successfully other than through the purchasers using shopping carts in environments that were strongly tied to the Supplier provided /managed product information. As an example all of the travel sites have strong electronic ties back to the airlines seat availability and fares. This was accomplished by the Airlines working together to develop a centralized data center that is accessed with each "order" to get current pricing and specs.
For Distributors with their own order management systems that wish to access Supplier product information in "real time" DistributorCentral is offering XML data feeds. Contact DistributorCentral for information on this.
__________________
Tom Mertz
President of TradeNet Publishing & DistributorCentral.com
The "vision" for those of us Suppliers that wish to receive orders electronically is to eliminate human expense and for those orders to go straight into production. This will allow us to offer lower prices and for Distributors to be more competitive.
The "reality" as a Supplier that receives orders electronically is that there is little labor savings UNLESS the Distributor is also using product data provided by the Supplier. On the purchase orders we receive electronically when the Distributor has not used our product data we have almost as much labor involved as whether they submitted the order via fax or email.
Where Distributors fall down in allowing automation of orders for Suppliers is on the sku numbers for options. This is not the Distributor's fault as most Suppliers do not print their option sku numbers in their catalogs. In an automated system however all line items on a purchase order need to have sku numbers that match the Supplier's back-end system.
In addition most Distributors do not have address checking against the national address database in place. Suppliers have a lot of expense from the shipping companies for address corrections. DistributorCentral checks shipping addresses against the national database whether the Distributor kys in the order or the Supplier keys in the order.
The orders we recieve electronically when the Distributor has used our product data (DistributorCentral) skip several steps and go straight into production.
I have yet to see any examples of automated order processing in other industry that was accomplished successfully other than through the purchasers using shopping carts in environments that were strongly tied to the Supplier provided /managed product information. As an example all of the travel sites have strong electronic ties back to the airlines seat availability and fares. This was accomplished by the Airlines working together to develop a centralized data center that is accessed with each "order" to get current pricing and specs.
For Distributors with their own order management systems that wish to access Supplier product information in "real time" DistributorCentral is offering XML data feeds. Contact DistributorCentral for information on this.
Is ASI Transact still the Gold standard? I have no idea - but suspect that is the case. I just sell and let someone else handle the processing to the supplier - last I knew they used transact and it works well...
Is ASI Transact still the Gold standard? I have no idea - but suspect that is the case. I just sell and let someone else handle the processing to the supplier - last I knew they used transact and it works well...
Absolutely not. The ePSA standards are moving more orders through larger firms in the industry.
That being said ASI recently added order management to ESP. Why? For the exact reasons mentioned earlier. Orders are most accurate when they originate with Supplier provided product data. I am under the impression ASI has abandoned Transact for their new solution. Others with more information can correct me if I am wrong.
Whether product information is current or not DistributorCentral expects our Suppliers to honor their product information on orders created through DC. Every Supplier has the ability to manage their product information. Those that don't wish to maintain the information and honor it for Distributor Purchase Orders are asked to leave.
These policies ensure that Distributors can place orders with EVERY Supplier on DistributorCentral with confidence.
__________________
Tom Mertz
President of TradeNet Publishing & DistributorCentral.com
ePSA and OrderTrax are both a flop because of their lack of marketing. Like suppliers, our industry service providers seem to think that EMAIL is the way to reach the industry. I've been at this for a few minutes, and I know it takes actual effort, not just a few emails, to build something in this industry. I'm wondering why these "experts" haven't figured this out yet???
__________________
Chris Miller, GMAS
(Grand Master Advertising Specialist)
After Googling Asitransact - found their site and the claim that 50% of the Counselor top 40 suppliers are using this.....if only 50% of the biggest suppliers are using it, probably safe to say the vast majority of industry suppliers don't...
I won't name names to embarrass anyone, but I recall an incident at a Supplier office not too long ago, when a gal in the order entry dept. proudly announced: "Hey, we just got another order from ASI Transact!". And in her hand was a fax. I have spoken to another supplier who wonders why they often receive the same purchase order twice. It happens when a distributor who doesn't trust the new technology also sends the same order the traditional way, just to be sure the supplier receives it. Is there a risk of duplication? Of course!
I caution anybody who reads the published statistics about who is using what: be careful about what you interpret from these claims. Last year, ISERVCORP announced that 10 million "transactions" were processed thru their technology in 2008; that stat is still online despite the more recent news about 1.3 million transactions since March, 2009. Is that a decline of 87%? Probably not. More likely it reflects a different way of defining and counting "transactions."
Because the default delivery method for both these systems is something other than direct-data-entry, orders delivered via email or fax can be counted (for marketing statistics) as "delivered by their system" even though the recipient experiences nothing different than if the same order was sent via traditional means.
Tom Mertz is 100% right: distributor purchase orders very seldom contain sufficient information to facilitate order entry without human intervention. The absence of SKU or ID numbers for line items is only partially to blame. A more fundamental reason is this: distributors have known for 75+ years that there is no imperative for them to volunteer all the necessary line items on their purchase orders. The supplier will do the work for them, applying charges for such necessary things as copy changes, PMS color match, under minimum, split shipments, proofs, set-up charges, etc.
Perhaps some distributors believe that by omitting these line items from their PO they may escape some costs, and there are probably enough anecdotal instances of that happening that the odds favor continuing to do business that way. Perhaps other distributors simply don't study the supplier's line well enough to know what charges actually apply. The bottom line is that no supplier (in my experience) will send a PO back to a distributor for these omissions; they simply add what is necessary and put the order into production. The acknowledgement is the instrument that communicates their "real" details back to the distributor.
I may be alone in this opinion, but I believe that the distributor PO represents only a "general idea" of what is being ordered. Tom's got some very good technology in place that forces the users to be complete and specific -- but the industry has a very long way to go before a promotional products order resembles something you can purchase online from Amazon, simply because promotional products orders are NOT for "off-the-shelf" merchandise.
Re: Anyone using OrderTrax2?
This industry is too diverse for there to be one cookie cutter solution for order management. This isn't healthcare or some other government regulated industry.
