SPS Commerce empowers data-driven decisions for Peavey Mart

Peavey Mart is a leading farm and ranch retail banner based in Canada. The company offers a broad assortment of agriculture, farm and ranch, pet, workwear, lawn and garden, hardware and homesteading products.

Peavey has a unique product mix that differentiates the company in the marketplace. The company’s assortment includes 45,000 SKUs from more than 1,400 vendors.

Creating an omnichannel consumer experience

The company’s omnichannel journey began more than 10 years ago when its eCommerce business began to accelerate. Peavey started its eCommerce channel with the buy online, pickup in store model.

According to Scott Bennett, senior vice president of merchandising, Peavey strives to be a relationship-driven company that creates an emotional connection with consumers.

“When I think about how retail has changed, I think about all our connections with customers. We want our customers to love us, whether they shop at a brick-and-mortar location, respond to a digital ad, visit our website or order from our catalogs,” Bennett described.

As Peavey’s customers became increasingly sophisticated, Peavey realized the growing need to make data-driven decisions.

“Customers have easy access to all sorts of information. That’s why it’s really important for us as an organization to leverage data, whether it’s our traffic patterns in stores or the regionality of our sales. The better data we have, the more we can tailor omnichannel solutions for our customers,” he added.

Adapting to supply chain disruption

During the pandemic, Peavey was classified as an essential retailer. Like other retailers, Peavey must prepare for supply chain disruptions such as container delays, commodity shortages, transportation issues and natural disasters.

“We carry all sorts of essential products, and our customers depend on us. When customers come into our store, we need to have the products they want in stock regardless of any supply chain disruptions,” Bennett explained.

With the help of SPS Commerce, Peavey mitigates supply chain disruptions by working closely with its vendor community.

“We can’t operate the way we operated three or four years ago. We need to become more automated and have data alert us to what’s happening. That’s why we’ve been working so closely with SPS Commerce,” Bennett said.

Vendor partnerships drive order fulfillment efficiency

Peavey works with a mix of large, small and local vendors. Bennett appreciates SPS’s ability to work with each vendor regardless of size or technical sophistication.

SPS Commerce has helped Peavey with a vendor connectivity initiative that gives them visibility into purchase orders throughout the entire supply chain. First, SPS enables Peavey’s vendors to exchange critical supply chain data using EDI. SPS conducted an outreach campaign to vendors allowing Peavey to explain the importance of EDI and how the company’s growth makes automation critical.

“We’ve worked with SPS for many years, but in the last two years, we’ve taken our relationship to a whole new level. Working with SPS Commerce has helped us drive discipline with our ordering process. We now have close to 93 percent of our purchase order volume automated through EDI,” Bennett described.

With the SPS Community solution, Peavey can measure themselves and their vendors on their order fulfillment performance. SPS has also helped Peavey share point-of-sale (POS) information with vendors. Using this data, vendors can educate Peavey on regional trends and top-selling SKUs.

Thanks to its partnership with SPS, Peavey continues to share critical supply chain data with its vendor community. This helps the company understand its inventory position, drive greater sales performance and develop vendor partnerships that support its ongoing success.

“SPS is a reliable partner I can trust. The bigger we get, the more discipline we need to run a great supply chain and a great omnichannel business. I’ve embraced the partnership because SPS really understands our aspirational goals and makes them come to life with their technology,” Bennett concluded.