Wholesale Distribution and Acumatica ERP

Posted on: June 25, 2014 | By: Jim Bertler | Acumatica

Today Logan Consulting and Acumatica provided a webinar covering the Wholesale Distribution industry. Acumatica’s whole distribution evangelist, Richard Duffy, provided great insights into the industry.  Acumatica ERP is a robust solution that can address many of the needs and concerns of a wholesale distribution company, but Richard’s comments and insights were clearly the highlight of the webinar.

We will post the full webinar recording soon, but I thought I would share a few of the highlights.

Amazon – Richard’s thoughts on Amazon were interesting.  While many of us think of Amazon as the world’s largest online store, it really is more of a distribution house.  Amazon sells the goods of many companies and has a massive distribution network.  Many distributors today use Amazon as another channel to increase sales.  However, Amazon can also be a competitor as companies can easily find comparable products a distributor may sell directly on Amazon.

Getting Squeezed – Many wholesale distributors are getting squeezed by both manufacturers and retailers.  Some manufacturers today are setting up their own distribution channels and again using online tools to sell their products.  Retailers such as Wal-Mart are at times filling the role of distributor through their amazing distribution operations.  These points lead to another major trend and an important issue for distributors and that is portals.

Customer and Vendor Portals – Many distributors have the need to setup and manage both customer and vendor portals. Customer Portals allow customers self service capabilities to monitor shipments, print invoices and place orders. Providing these self-service capabilities greatly enhances the value a distributor can provide and strengthens the relationship with the customer.  Competitors and other providers all expect a customer portal based on their experience with such entities and Wal-Mart and Amazon.  The vendor portal has also become an important issue as more companies pursue vendor managed inventory to reduce their costs.

So if these issues are of interest to you please contact Logan Consulting so we can help you examine your wholesale distribution needs. 

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