Sportsman’s Supply Boosts Performance with an EDI Upgrade

Sportsman’s Supply is a leading sporting goods wholesaler that brings products from 500 top brands and connects them to over 6,000 dealers, including major retail chains and eCommerce channels. The company has over 25,000 products in its catalog, and that translates into over 120,000 SKUs. Working with that many disparate partners requires a reliable electronic data interchange (EDI) system.

Over time, Sportsman’s Supply’s legacy EDI solution became constrictive to its growth, and the leadership team decided they needed to take EDI to the next level. The company sought an automated option that could deal with large transactional flow and integrate seamlessly with its existing NetSuite ERP. The company also wanted to get things running on the new system quickly.

Operational EDI and Analytics Support head, Mr. W. Mofield, says the company first considered building a custom solution in-house, but they saw that TrueCommerce EDI was more cost effective and offered faster ROI. Since TrueCommerce EDI is Built for NetSuite Certified, it was easy for Sportsman’s Supply to make the transition. “With TrueCommerce, we went from a signed agreement to a live EDI solution in less than 60 days,” commented Mr. Mofield.

Stepping Up the Game

Mr. Mofield’s team looked to TrueCommerce to help Sportsman’s Supply with its rapid expansion roadmap. With full NetSuite EDI integration, TrueCommerce enabled Sportsman’s Supply to manage data across its supply chain with more accuracy and speed, both of which were important performance indicators for the company.

Mr. Mofield noted that the system’s accuracy allowed the team to spend much less time troubleshooting EDI issues, and the system’s speed supported tens of thousands of transactions daily. Sportsman’s Supply could now also manage its massive catalog of over 120,000 SKUs with a quick and agile cloud-based interface. Instead of getting bogged down by data errors, the team could focus on revenue-generating efforts like onboarding existing vendors and preparing for growth.

Speaking of errors, the old system didn’t provide a simple way to search for and view failed transactions. That added time and energy to the problem of a failed transaction. Mr. Mofield was happy to find a cost-effective approach to error resolution with TrueCommerce. In his words, “The system highlights the problem that needs attention, and I like that very much. It’s vastly superior to what we had before.”

Knocking it Out of the Park

After switching to TrueCommerce EDI, the team at Sportsman’s Supply saw more benefits like faster onboarding times for new vendors. Mr. Mofield said, “We can go to a vendor, say we’d like to start doing business, and five days later we’re exchanging EDI documents.” Previously, it could take six weeks for Sportsman’s Supply to start selling products from a new vendor.

The enhanced speed is partly because TrueCommerce EDI is already connected to more than 120,000 trading partners on their global trading network. That means installation is plug and play for many of Sportsman’s Supply’s established vendors and customers. On the other hand, the TrueCommerce OneTime supplier enablement solution also allowed Sportsman’s Supply’s non-EDI partners to continue using their preferred method of communication (XML, CSV, PDF). It automatically translated those documents into useable EDI documents.

Sportsman’s Supply had also experienced some issues with advance ship notices (ASNs) created by its warehouse management system (WMS). The WMS created the notices as XML files with unusual formatting, and the company’s previous EDI system had a habit of translating the data incorrectly. That led to wasted time and money as the company had to manually fix problematic ASNs.

The unique ASN format required a unique solution, and fast. That’s why TrueCommerce built a piece of custom software to convert files from the WMS into useable (and compliant) ASNs. According to Mr. Mofield, “The TrueCommerce team built a custom ASN solution from the ground up in about two weeks. They were able to take a mess of data and turn it into a useable 856 document.”

More Connected EDI Gives Sportsman’s Supply a Winning Edge

TrueCommerce Integrated EDI allowed Sportsman’s Supply to take vendor setup, onboarding, catalog management, ASN management, and document exchange to the next level. At the end of the day, the transition was fast and cost-effective. Mr. Mofield said, “The cost of this solution to our old solution—it’s barely a comparison. We projected our ROI, and the switchover will pay for itself in less than a year.”

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About the Author: Bob Bees is a Pre-Sales Engineer for ERP Integrations at TrueCommerce. He’s spent a couple of decades working in the commerce space providing guidance to prospects on how to integrate to their partners using various solutions within the Middleware, EDI, and Managed File Transfer spaces. Bob works directly with organizations to better understand their needs and challenges so that he can provide a first-hand look at the best solutions that will help those organizations to perform more efficiently. Bob’s breadth of cross industry knowledge combined with experience working with clients from fortune 50 to startups allows him to ensure the right fit for the client he is working with. During his free time at home in Florida he spends his time outdoors either on, in, or near the water!