Self-Service Is Vital
Keep Product Data Accurate with Self-Service and Approvals
Additionally, It’s crucial that the vendors have the self-service capability to push their product data into the marketplace and keep it up to date. It’s also key that the administrators of group buying platforms be able to audit and review any updates and provide approval before those updates go out. For end users who are purchasing, it is critical that they are able to see accurate data, so that’s why an approval process is necessary before items get published from vendors.
Vendors also have the ability to go into an approved sync list where they can actually sync from their ERP systems, EDI files, or CXML, and push data to the platform when they’re approved. Depending on the vendor’s status, they can have the data that's automatically synced into the platform go into a non-published state and go through a review and approval process before it gets published as an update to the site.
Vendors also have the ability to manage their inventory and pricing data and provide updates to fulfillment of items that are drop-shipped, and deal with intermodal and complex logistics around some of the items on the peer-to-peer marketplace. Many of the vendors will utilize robust intermodal shipping options, including container shipments via the ocean and freight shipments from the port to the shipping destination. Being able to coordinate all of this and get accurate pricing can be one of the biggest challenges of dealing with bulk orders. This is something that we work with via logistics partners, and we were able to integrate robust platform APIs into the checkout process as well as necessary customs, duties, and respective tax forms via the Avalara partnership.