Today’s consumers won’t accept any excuses when it comes to getting their orders on time, which puts pressure on retailers to modernize their supply chains. Wine Enthusiast’s upgrades were particularly complex: the retailer’s direct-to-consumer and B2B businesses include more than 80 suppliers and 15 retailer connections that would have to be migrated as part of any system changes.
Wine Enthusiast uses dropship partners for many of its orders, which requires clear communication and coordination between the retailer and suppliers to ensure that products are shipped correctly and bills reach the right people. Previously, Wine Enthusiast had to fulfill orders on multiple systems, based on whether it was sending a small order to a single person or a larger shipment to a retailer such as Costco.
The company has since tapped Logicbroker to leverage its NetSuite Connector in order to consolidate supply chain operations by letting Wine Enthusiast employees and outside partners access and update shipping information through a single portal. The new platform has simplified processes for both Wine Enthusiast and its dropship partners.
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“The fact that that they have this portal with access to all the information they need really makes life a lot easier than sending them the details in an email,” said Eric Roelofs, VP of Technology at Wine Enthusiast in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Emails tend to get lost and there’s no tracking or auditing, but you can go into the portal and log in as Amy’s Wine Glasses, and see that you’ve got three orders from Wine Enthusiast and they’re going to these three people. Using the portal you can print the packing slips, shipping labels and other necessary information, ship it off to the customer and then go back to mark the order as shipped and send the invoices. It really makes life a lot easier.”
Timing also was a concern for Wine Enthusiast: an earlier effort to modernize its systems took a year of work and ultimately resulted in missed go-live deadlines. Logicbroker was able to solve the challenges caused by the previous transition and get its own system running in a matter of weeks.
“We were really in a bad spot, and they came in and went above and beyond to deliver in a very short time,” said Roelofs. “We spent almost a year working with our previous company to get this set up, and they came in and over the course of just two and a half a months they replicated all that work.”
The solution has led to improved efficiency for Wine Enthusiast’s workers since its implementation. Automation means employees no longer need to manually enter order data, and the team can use Logicbroker’s managed service to ensure all procurement information is properly exchanged. Additionally, new suppliers and retail channels can be added quickly to further speed up processes.
Even more time has been saved by the platform’s reporting tools, which let Wine Enthusiast examine vendor performance, exception management and order overviews to ensure everything is operating smoothly. Logicbroker also has been open to further tweaks and upgrades to optimize the platform’s performance.
“When we see an area that makes us think, ‘You know, it would be great if we could do this, it would help my efficiency,’ we have sent those comments over to Logicbroker,” said Roelofs. “We’ve worked directly with their product managers, and when it makes sense to them they’ve implemented those changes.”
