The Orvis Company Reels In Its Key Vendors with VendorNet Stock PO Manager

Delray Beach, FL., December 18, 2007 – VendorNet, a supply chain collaboration solutions provider, today announced The Orvis Company has implemented VendorNet Stock PO Manager and its product labeling, case labeling, and Advanced Shipment Notification (ASN) capabilities with its vendors that supply over 85 percent of Orvis’ inventory.

From its humble beginnings when Charles Orvis opened his first tackle shop over 150 years ago, The Orvis Company has become the world’s most recognized name for quality fishing gear, and provider of classic men’s and women’s apparel, fine home furnishings, and high-quality dog products. Its dropship and stock inventory vendors help support that reputation. To ensure more complete integration and collaboration with nearly 400 of its key vendors, The Orvis Company relies on VendorNet Stock PO Manager and Dropship Manager.

Orvis’ stock vendors represent a mix of domestic and foreign vendors with the majority being foreign. This translates to time zone differences, communication gaps, and language barriers. With a six month lead time for stock orders, and a requirement that barcode labels are applied to all products and cases, these everyday challenges were compounded by the lack of a standard communication infrastructure, and diverse IT capabilities amongst its vendors.

Prior to implementing VendorNet Stock PO product and case labeling capabilities, Orvis printed the product labels and shipped them to its stock vendors. Any change in an order could mean a change to the product labels, or worse, by the time a vendor was ready to ship, they lost the labels. Orvis would then be faced with the cost of reproducing the labels, and air expressing them to places like China. Case labeling was inconsistent and sometimes as rudimentary as a vendor labeling cases via hand written notation on the carton. ASNs did not exist. In addition, the vendor’s IT capabilities varied from very sophisticated EDI-based vendors to vendors that did not have Microsoft Word or in extreme cases did not have knowledge of the Internet. In preparation for a new warehouse management system, Orvis knew it needed to establish an infrastructure that provided consistency and standardization in product and case labeling and advance shipment information to manage the flow of inventory coming into its warehouse.

Pete Vadnais, Senior Inventory Planning Manager at The Orvis Company explains. “We deal with a wide range of vendors that vary by country, times zones, IT sophistication, volume, and order lead times. We also have specific compliance guidelines that our vendors must meet to avoid chargebacks. The reality, however is that with a six month lead time, orders can and do change. Unless you have a standard system in place that you and all of your vendors utilize to communicate order information, then you are likely dealing with a myriad of different back and forth processes based upon each vendor’s capabilities. Looking just at our requirement for product labels, we were incurring significant amounts of excess time, resources, and costs in reprinting and express shipments, not to mention the impact on our receiving dock when shipments were improperly labeled and no advanced shipment information was provided. It was clear we needed a solution to establish a standard and consistent order processing infrastructure with our stock vendors. VendorNet Stock PO Manager became that solution.”

The implementation of VendorNet Stock PO Manager at Orvis also provides the visibility to monitor inbound receipts, and determine how it will impact the receiving dock and flow of inventory in the warehouse. Orvis is able to perform forward planning on the receipt of goods knowing whether shipments will be early, late, or on time. “VendorNet Stock PO Manager provides our vendors with a powerful yet simple management system that keeps them completely compliant. That is good news for the vendors, and even better news for us. As we expand our warehouse management infrastructure, VendorNet Stock PO manager will continue to be a critical and integral part of our operations to help us drive down costs, and continually improve our business processes,” emphasizes Vadnais.

Sharon Gardner, president of VendorNet remarks, “It is a great distinction that one of the country’s oldest mail order catalogs selected VendorNet Stock PO Manager and VendorNet Dropship Manager to collaborate and integrate with nearly 400 of its key vendors. We are pleased we could not only supply the technology solutions, but also the implementation and vendor training services. It was a collaborative success for all companies.”

About VendorNet
VendorNet delivers web-based supply chain management solutions to multi-channel retailers enabling real-time collaboration with suppliers. VendorNet Commerce Suite, which includes its flagship products VendorNet Stock PO Manager and VendorNet Dropship Manager establishes a powerful foundation for solutions that dramatically improve supply chain processes, reduce costs, and strengthen retailer and supplier relationships. VendorNet's client base includes leading retail, catalog, and e-commerce companies such as Plow & Hearth/1-800-Flowers, Neiman Marcus, Norm Thompson, The Swiss Colony, FrontGate, Levenger, Gevalia/Kraft, Hammacher Schlemmer, RedEnvelope, Uline, David’s Bridal, and Lands’ End. For more information, visit www.vendornet.com


Contact:
VendorNet, Delray Beach
Louisa Rupp
954-767-8228
lrupp@vendornet.com