Q Drinks & SPS Commerce: A Success Story

Grocery and Retail Customer Compliance

Founded by entrepreneurs looking for a tonic that was as good as their gin, Q Drinks launched its superior mixers at some of New York City’s top bars in 2007. Since then the company has expanded its sales and distribution to dozens of national retailers and grocers including Albertsons, H-E-B, Kroger, Target, Total Wine and Whole Foods.

The growing beverage company began to automate to meet the demands of a growing customer base. In 2008, they deployed Oracle NetSuite as their ERP and used a third-party EDI solution.

“Over the years our EDI needs to remain compliant with our customers exploded,” said Jenn DuRei, director of operations at Q Drinks. “When our existing solution struggled to produce a label for a Target order accurately, we made a welcome switch to SPS Commerce.”

SPS Commerce Fulfillment is the only 100 percent native EDI integration for NetSuite, proven to eliminate time-consuming data entry and human errors. With this solution, Q Drinks’ entire purchase order process flows directly through NetSuite, from receiving their orders to shipping the product.

90 Percent Reduction in Keystrokes

Data entry leads to inefficiencies and inaccuracies across the order cycle. Q Drinks understood this and wanted to decrease the number of keystrokes needed to fulfill an order.

“We have cut our data entry by more than 90 percent by using SPS Fulfillment, and they are continuing to partner with us to bring this number closer to 100 percent,” said DuRei. “Before SPS, I was doing the data entry work of 2-3 individuals due to rising order volumes. My job has changed dramatically, and for the better.”

Operations is not the only area positively impacted by a smooth-running EDI solution, the company’s accounts receivable team is saving time producing invoices that have accurate order and shipping information.

Two Days to Retailer Order Readiness

As more retailers and distributors sell the Q Drinks product line, they are adding more trading partners to their EDI service. The company knows that being setup on EDI with a retailer is not just about compliance, it’s about being ready for orders (sales) to start coming into the company.

“SPS recently set up a new trading partner, Ahold Delhaize, on our behalf and completed testing the PO transaction within two days,” said DuRei. “We were ready for the first real order to arrive the next week and to begin doing business with this new customer. Working with SPS has improved our retailer and grocer relationships.”

Grocery retailers were the first to do EDI with Q Drinks, followed by their distributors on the liquor side. “We have three of our four major liquor distributors now doing EDI with us, further cutting down our data entry,” commented DuRei. The company is looking to its natural/green grocery channel to onboard next.

By the end of 2018, Q Drinks will be doing EDI orders with 95 percent of its major accounts.

Shipping Notice and Label Automation

The savings don’t stop at Q Drinks headquarters, the impact of these new efficiencies can be seen at its warehouses.

“We recently connected our two warehouses to SPS Fulfillment, so orders are now published to the location that will fulfill the order. Our onsite staff can send shipping notices and print labels created automatically from the EDI order. Our warehouse teams love it,” said DuRei.

With streamlined order operations in place, Q Drinks has built the foundation to scale its business, relying on the experts at SPS Commerce and its proven technology.