MALL SERVICES GROUP TRANSFORMS DROPSHIP BUSINESS WITH VENDORNET

VendorNet Payoff

• Over a 20 percent increase in fill rate in first 2 months of usage
• Implementation on time, within budget, and performed as advertised
• Reduced cost of customer service by eliminating phone calls and faxes
• Increased profit in shipping and handling through a reduction in backorders
• Improved productivity in accounts payable by automating the transfer of shipping and invoice data
• Eliminated need for additional headcount

"VendorNet Dropship Manager is a great product from a great company. It's a product that really puts control in the hands of the retailer, which is extremely important particularly when your business is 100 percent dropship. Let's face it, it's the retailer that has to answer to the customer, but all too often in a dropship scenario, the retailer doesn't have the answer at its fingertips. VendorNet completely fixes that problem. Any catalog or e-commerce enterprise doing 30 or maybe even 20 dropship orders per day should install this software. I wish I had thought of the idea!"

Jim Meyer, President
Mall Services Group

The Company

Mall Services Group (MSG) is licensed by General Motors Corporation to manage the automobile giant's Chevy Mall and Pontiac Mall web sites. Combined, Chevy Mall and Pontiac Mall receive over 8,000 visitors per day, and offer car enthusiasts an incredible array of Chevy and Pontiac branded merchandise. Working with a network of more than 1,000 suppliers that are licensed by GM to sell GM branded merchandise, MSG acts as a middleman to make GM merchandise available to consumers around the world via the Chevy and Pontiac Mall web sites. It is also responsible for ensuring every order placed on either site is sent to the appropriate dropship supplier for fulfillment and shipment direct to the customer within established fill rate targets.

The Business Challenge
Inefficient and Redundant Manual Processes

Based on a one hundred percent dropship business model, Mall Services Group required a solution that would eliminate manual processes, and the redundant paperwork associated with order processing, shipping, and invoicing. Improving system integrity by synchronizing the audit trail between its operations and those of its supplier's was critical. Additionally, it was essential for Mall Services Group to improve the overall efficiency of its operations in order for head count to remain static while its volume of business increased.

Jim Meyer, President of Mall Services Group elaborates, "As a 100 percent dropship business, it is paramount that we operate as efficiently as possible. Prior to implementing VendorNet Dropship Manager, that was becoming increasingly more difficult at least with our higher volume suppliers. There were discrepancies in our records and theirs regarding status of orders and invoices. It was a long paper trail just to get the order processed and shipped, and then we had to do the same thing all over again when it came to invoicing. There was a lot of redundant manual processing, and if you're spending hours processing and tracking a relatively small dollar value invoice, that eats into profits very quickly. I saw things getting exponentially worse as our volume of orders increased.”

The VendorNet Solution
Automate Supply Chain Collaboration With Suppliers

Mall Services Group considered only one solution to solve its dropship challenges – VendorNet Dropship Manager. The reasons speak for themselves. VendorNet Dropship Manager was specifically designed for dropshipping as a primary business process not an exception as compared to order management systems that incorporate dropship functionality as an add-on. It's sole focus is handling all of the business nuances associated with dropshipping orders – from the transmission of an order to the supplier, to customer service visibility at the retailer level, to invoicing and payment processing, and ultimately shipment to the customer. MSG not only believed in VendorNet's product, but also had complete faith in the VendorNet team citing a reputation for good business practices, outstanding customer service, and the ability to work with even the most technology-intimidated suppliers.

Meyer explains, "When you make a change in your IT infrastructure, especially one that will impact your supply chain, it's extremely important to select a technology company that stands behind its product 100 percent. All too often in the world of the web, companies install their software and then the user is on their own to debug it for their application environment. Not so with VendorNet. It is available from pre-installation through post installation for both the retailer and its suppliers – even when its Florida-based headquarters are being battered by hurricanes!”

VendorNet Dropship Manager is integrated with MSG's Mail Order Management (M.O.M.) system, which now allows MSG to electronically transfer dropship orders to suppliers with a simple push of a button. For MSG's primary dropship supplier, VendorNet's flexible mapping utility allows the supplier to automatically download the orders via the Internet into its proprietary order management system completely eliminating the previous manual and error-ridden process of re-keying every order. In addition, VendorNet Dropship Manager subsequently extracts the shipping, invoicing, and tracking number for each order, and transfers this information to MSG. This provides valuable tracking information for both the retailer and the supplier, and automates accounts payable functions for MSG.

Meyer comments, "I would not have even considered tackling this project right before the holiday season if I didn't have complete confidence in VendorNet's management and its products. I certainly wasn't disappointed. The project was on time, on budget, and the application does what it promised. You can't ask for much more than that from a software product and the company behind it. VendorNet Dropship Manager has really transformed the way we do business with our largest supplier.”

Reaping The Benefits

By utilizing VendorNet Dropship Manager to automate supply chain collaboration processes, Mall Services Group has streamlined their entire order processing, shipping, tracking, and invoicing operations for its dropship orders. The benefits have been big -both for the supplier and MSG.

Productivity gains are high for the suppliers as evident with the elimination of redundant processes such as re-keying orders, and the manual duplication of data for order processing and invoicing. And in just two months, fill rates went from 70 percent to over 90 percent even while ramping up for the busy holiday season. Comprehensive reporting features provide complete visibility to the status of dropship orders and invoices allowing both MSG and suppliers to provide real-time feedback. This ultimately translated to better customer service capabilities for MSG and its customers. VendorNet Dropship Manager completely eliminated the time previously spent manually entering shipping and invoice data into M.O.M., and according to Meyer, this savings alone will pay for the software in less than a year. Additionally, MSG realized a significant reduction in mail, phone, and fax charges since implementing VendorNet Dropship Manager.

Meyer says it best, "VendorNet Dropship Manager is a great product from a great company. It's a product that really puts control in the hands of the retailer, which is extremely important particularly when your business is 100 percent dropship. Let's face it, it's the retailer that has to answer to the customer, but all too often in a dropship scenario, the retailer doesn't have the answer at its fingertips. VendorNet completely fixes that problem. Any catalog or e-commerce enterprise doing 30 or maybe even 20 dropship orders per day should install this software. I wish I had thought of the idea!”

At the End of the Day

Meyer says it best, "VendorNet Dropship Manager is a great product from a great company. It's a product that really puts control in the hands of the retailer, which is extremely important particularly when your business is 100 percent dropship. Let's face it, it's the retailer that has to answer to the customer, but all too often in a dropship scenario, the retailer doesn't have the answer at its fingertips. VendorNet completely fixes that problem. Any catalog or e-commerce enterprise doing 30 or maybe even 20 dropship orders per day should install this software. I wish I had thought of the idea!”