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VENDORCOMPLIANCE.INFO

Specializing in EDI and vendor compliance for manufacturers, distributors, &  retailers.

BENEFIT - Enhanced Product Marketability

As mentioned in the Anti-Competitive Strategy benefit review, vendors can use their good standings in vendor compliance with their customers to gain an advantage over their competitors.  But why stop at the first (big) customer you won?  Why not use your vendor compliance capabilities to help pave the way into new customers?

A vendor's ability to meet customer A's vendor compliance requirements (i.e. barcoding and EDI), should absolutely be used to help market their products to customers B, C, D, and so on. 

It might be surprising to know that on the boards and advisory panels of various standards organizations, (i.e. ANSI, UCC, NRF, etc.), sit several of the major retailers - even retailers who compete with each other will sit on the same board or advisory panel of an organization!  Regardless of how they compete in the marketplace, the retailers know they must work together to set industry-wide standards for conducting business with their vendors.  (This is also true for other industries such as automotive and health care.)  The retailers know that it is in their best interests to have input into the standards that are set for the industry.  This is one reason why the requirements of many retailers are very much the same.

Therefore, if a vendor is compliant with one customer's requirements, chances are very good that the vendor will have little or no problems being compliant with another customer's requirements.   This also helps spread the investment costs of barcode and EDI computer systems and equipment, additional personnel, etc., across more customers and thus across more sales.

For the vendor looking to expand sales to other customers, the vendor might want to highlight the other retailers successfully carrying its products, as it shows the vendor is able to become compliant with generally industry-standard rules.