The secret to a healthier supply chain

The challenge

The Vitamin Shoppe has been the premier national destination for health and wellness solutions since 1977, with nearly 700 retail locations across the US and a growing e-commerce business. In an industry driven by innovation and rapidly changing trends, The Vitamin Shoppe’s growth relies heavily on having the most efficient processes. With frequent new product introductions and an ever-present need to add new vendors, The Vitamin Shoppe needed a streamlined solution that could handle the fast pace of the nutritional supplements market, ensuring that inventory stayed accurate and payments were on time. Their key challenges included:

• Vendor turnover: Regular onboarding of new vendors made maintaining compliance against key requirements like EDI an ongoing challenge.
• On-time payments: Manual matching of invoices, orders and receipts led to delays in paying invoices on time and managing vendor relationships.
• Inventory management: A lack of compliance with essential EDI documents, especially when communicating supplier intent to fulfill, could lead to last-minute inventory discrepancies, resulting in backorders and stockouts on high-demand items.

“We weren’t getting PO acknowledgments. We weren’t sending PO changes. We weren’t getting ASNs. While we were still doing pretty well, we weren’t as efficient as we should be.”

Matt Woods, Sr. Director of Merchandise Operations.

The solution

With the support of SPS Commerce, The Vitamin Shoppe embarked on a project to transform vendor compliance and EDI utilization. SPS consulted on the current state of their vendor requirements, working closely with The Vitamin Shoppe to design an EDI program tailored to their needs. Acting as an extension of The Vitamin Shoppe’s team, SPS engaged with suppliers—whether they were new to EDI or new to The Vitamin Shoppe—to ensure they were fully prepared for ongoing compliance. This collaborative approach helped create a seamless process for onboarding suppliers and maintaining long-term EDI readiness.

“SPS Commerce was very helpful in aligning our EDI mapping specifications with our internal systems. They helped ensure everything was aligned across the board with JDA. Their expertise also extended to vendor onboarding, ensuring all necessary paperwork and mapping specifications were in place.”

Suhel Nazario, Sr EDI Analyst.

The results

The EDI improvements and supplier onboarding programs with SPS have had a transformative impact on The Vitamin Shoppe’s operations. With these changes, they’ve experienced:

• Increased auto-match rates: With more streamlined AP processes, auto-match rates for invoices, ASNs and POs significantly improved.
• Reduction in past due orders: A dramatic reduction in past-due purchase orders, enabling better inventory management and faster restocking.
• Faster vendor payments: The reduction in manual work has significantly decreased payment processing times, resulting in quicker payments and stronger relationships with trading partners.

“Our past-due order number has dropped dramatically. Part of that is because we’re now getting PO acknowledgments and changes.”

Matt Woods, Sr. Director of Merchandise Operations.

With these new processes in place, The Vitamin Shoppe is ready to continue its growth journey and maintain its competitive edge in the health and wellness market. As new products and vendors enter this dynamic space, their partnership with SPS Commerce ensures smooth operations and accuracy for both their team and suppliers.