Slash Receiving Time & Chargebacks With EDI

March 2013 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

By Matt Pillar, editor in chief

Outsourcing electronic data interchange (EDI) enabled specialty retailer Retail Concepts to reduce shipment receipt activity from hours to minutes and minimize vendor chargebacks.

Houston-based Retail Concepts is the parent company of Sun & Ski Sports, an outdoor outfitter with 25 locations across the nation. Retail Concepts also owns and operates five other retail stores, including Patio Place and Ski Stop.

As Retail Concepts grew its sales, store counts, and brands, the number of suppliers it dealt with mushroomed in corollary fashion. Throughout that growth, the company was aware that the increasingly frenetic pace of warehouse activity and resulting management effort was leading to the need for a comprehensive approach to electronic data interchange (EDI). Heading into 2010, company executives knew something had to be done. The company’s first inclination was to tackle the project in-house; it had a programmer on staff who had a smattering of EDI experience. When that programmer suggested a meeting with EDI solutions provider DiCentral — just for conversation’s sake, mind you — Retail Concepts’ VP of IT Shelly Nixon agreed to entertain the idea. “To sum it up, DiCentral came in, did a presentation, and changed our minds. They sold us on outsourcing the effort,” she says. “It was a matter of ROI. We realized it would come more quickly and be stronger if we put it on a third party to make it happen, as opposed to struggling through it ourselves.”