A leading provider of reading glasses, sunglasses and prescription eyewear that markets to the “irreverent and slightly jaded” found that it needed to sport something new itself: optimized order processing and supply chain efficiencies. The company, eyebobs, turned to TrueCommerce to leverage its trading partner connectivity and integrated capabilities for NetSuite ERP.

But for implementation of the TrueCommerce solution, eyebobs simply wouldn’t be able to process large retailer transactions properly, according to Susannah Kyle, director of IT at eyebobs. Efficient and accurate order processing is key because the eyebobs product line is sold from major retailers, including Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Von Maur, Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Dillards and more. In addition, the company has recently opened eyebobs-branded stores operated by the company. And, of course, customers can order product online.

To bring the needed efficiency and accuracy to a diverse spectrum of retailer orders, to reduce manual efforts and to improve scalability, eyebobs implemented TrueCommerce EDI for NetSuite in 2014.

Kyle says that eyebobs, like many major retail brands, uses EDI to exchange key order-processing documents with its big-box retail partners, such as receiving EDI 850 purchase orders and sending EDI 810 invoices and EDI 856 advance ship notices. The eyewear company currently has more than 15 EDI trading partners, including some of the largest retailers worldwide.

Automating Workflow

Prior to integrating TrueCommerce EDI into its NetSuite enterprise resource planning system, eyebobs relied on manual efforts to process invoicing, advance ship notices and purchase orders.

“We were on a different EDI solution that was not integrated with Netsuite,” Kyle said. “We would have to go into a separate portal and manually rekey orders.” Errors and sub-optimal order management were major concerns.

In addition to reducing manual efforts and mistakes, while improving speed and accuracy, TrueCommerce EDI has also enabled eyebobs to operate at a scale and efficiency that otherwise would not be possible, Kyle said.

Today, TrueCommerce has fully automated the processing of EDI 850 purchase orders, EDI 810 invoices and EDI 865 advance ship notices.

For eyebobs, TrueCommerce EDI is not only an operational necessity, but a financial boon — helping to eliminate unnecessary costs and make resource planning more predictable. Retail suppliers like eyebobs may face costly chargebacks if there are errors within the EDI transaction, which can take the form of per-transaction fees. TrueCommerce EDI greatly increases the accuracy and consistency of orders and eliminates chargebacks, Kyle said. In addition, the vendor's team is helpful in resolving issues.

“If we have a chargeback or if something goes wrong with a transaction, TrueCommerce is always working with us to help solve it,” Kyle said.

At the same time, the efficiency and time savings that TrueCommerce creates is a huge cost savings for eyebobs. “From a financial standpoint, the ROI is huge, compared to what we pay per month and per trading partner plugin,” Kyle said. “It definitely is a huge time savings.”

Responsive Support

Customer support is extremely valuable, Kyle says: “We have a lot of integrations with NetSuite, and TrueCommerce is one of the partners that’s most responsive. They have a very high-touch service level, with many experts on their team, and that’s something we really appreciate.”

More specifically, Kyle says that TrueCommerce strives to support eyebobs in its supply chain relationships, even as issues arise with retailers.

“TrueCommerce is always looking out for the vendor-supplier side, where other companies may look out for the retailers. That’s a big positive, from our perspective, and it’s not an experience we’ve always had.”

Kyle said she sees the following benefits:

• It eliminates manual effort by automatically processing inbound purchase orders and outbound PO acknowledgements, invoices and advance ship notices
• Meets the varied EDI requirements of major retailers
• Integrates directly with NetSuite ERP solution
• Improves order processing time and reduces chargebacks caused by errors, accelerating the cash-to-order cycle
• Eliminates the need for additional headcount while scaling operations
• Its responsive, high-touch support enables seamless issue resolution and efficient product operation

“Working with TrueCommerce has been easy,” Kyle said. “I regularly speak with other businesses in our industry about the TrueCommerce EDI system and say positive things.”