ZLine, SPS Commerce & Brightpearl: A Full-Service EDI Solution Success Story

eCommerce Requires EDI Operations

Known for their innovative kitchen ranges and cooktops, they were growing quickly. They had recently launched their products at Lowes, the latest of many retailers selling their products using a drop-ship model. With each new retailer, the supplier expanded its EDI program to electronically communicate order, shipment and invoicing information.

The company had an EDI provider that was not working out. “Our first EDI solution was not delivering on their customer service promises. Our new trading partner setups were taking far too long and weren’t right, and we couldn’t use the full capabilities of Brightpearl. It was a nightmare,” said Ahmadi. A change needed to be made…quickly. When ZLine asked Brightpearl and their integration partner, Business Solutions in the Cloud, who to trust with handling their EDI, the answer was SPS Commerce.

Full-Service EDI Solution Delivers the Complete Package

While deploying SPS Commerce Fulfillment for EDI, ZLine had an SPS team to guide and manage the setup, as well as test connections and integrate to Brightpearl. “It was a big project. The SPS team was focused and were the best people to work with. They were open, efficient and so easy to work with,” said Ahmadi.

Given the supplier’s previous EDI experience, they were hoping for a full-service EDI partner that would take on the daily responsibilities of their EDI operations. They wanted a partner they could trust.

“One of our retailers is known for not being helpful during EDI setups, but SPS knew their difficult requirements for each transaction and got it all done. This was an important account for us. The professionalism and speed at which they onboarded the new retailer established a high level of trust,” said Ahmadi.

With SPS and Brightpearl taking care of daily operations, new partner setups and more in a timely manner, their staff can focus on other tasks. Ahmadi commented, “Instead of worrying about whether we can get order shipped, the new SPS solution gives us the freedom to focus on other projects for the company. These are higher value tasks that are providing value to our company and a better use of our staff. The only time I need to interact with our EDI is to troubleshoot an order with SPS. It doesn’t often happen, and when it occurs the SPS team takes the lead.”

Drop-Ship Orders Delivered Fast

Keeping up with priority and drop-ship orders can be a challenge for growing companies, including ZLine. The supplier is using Brightpearl and SPS to become extremely efficient and reduce the average number of days to ship orders. “Our drop-ship business continues to expand, including some same day channels such as Amazon Marketplace and Wayfair. With the automation from SPS and Brightpearl, we are able to keep up and have reduced our drop-ship delivery times by half a day,” said Ahmadi.

Automated Inventory Updates

The supplier offers more than 2,000 unique SKUs on it marketplaces and daily updates on inventories are required. “We used to update inventory levels manually every morning. This was very tedious work. With SPS and Brightpearl, this process is fully automated and done automatically on our behalf. This has saved us hours each week,” said Ahmadi.

Ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

The third quarter of every year represents a significant amount of sales for them. Ahmadi stated, “With Brightpearl and SPS as part of our operations, we are 100 percent ready for the peak sales season. We’ll be processing more orders across more products. But I am more comfortable with our operations and secure in its ability to scale.”