B2BGateway to attend Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore

B2BGateway, the leading global EDI solution provider will be attending the Natural Products Expo East trade fair which takes place in the Baltimore Convention Center from September 22-24, 2016.

Natural Products Expo East is the East Coast’s Largest natural, organic, and healthy products event with over 22,000 attendees and 1,800 exhibitors. Each year Natural Products Expo East draws top retail buyers from independent stores, natural market chains and big box retailers – all with the mission to find the newest and hottest products shaping the future of the healthy living marketplace. Market categories represented at Expo East include natural and specialty food and beverages, supplements, pet, natural living and beauty. New emerging trends include:

·         Foods and beverages with floral ingredients such as hibiscus, elderflower and chamomile.

·         Coffee fruit, the refreshing and flavorful anti-oxidant rich and anti-inflammatory fruit.

·         Snacks using avocado oil, which has always been GMO free and is paleo friendly.

The majority of large scale box store retailers and natural markets chains require all suppliers to become EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) compliant for the exchange of electronic business documents such as Purchase Orders (EDI 850), Purchase Order Acknowledgements (EDI 855), Advance Shipment Notifications (EDI 856) and Invoices (EDI 856). Suppliers can also use the EDI for seamless communication with their 3PL’s for Warehouse Ship Orders (EDI 940) and Warehouse Ship Advice (EDI 945).

By using B2BGateway’s cloud based EDI solutions the supplier can integrate with all relevant parties in their supply chain. Full integration removes the need for the supplier to re-key data when exchanging electronic business documents with trading partners, leading to greater accuracy, increased labor efficiencies and expediting the order-to-payment cash cycle with customers.

If you would like to meet with the B2BGateway team attending this year’s Natural Products Expo East, please email Sales@B2BGateway.Net 

B2BGateway and Maclaren Shortlisted for a UK Supply Chain Excellence Award

B2BGateway, a leading global EDI solution provider and Maclaren, the company which introduced the world's first lightweight aluminum baby stroller over fifty years ago, have been shortlisted for a UK Supply Chain Excellence Award 2016 for developing a mobile EDI Connect App in the Technology Awards Category.

B2BGateway provides cloud based EDI solutions to Maclaren which fully integrate with Maclaren's NetSuite ERP system. The B2BGateway EDI solution allows Maclaren to exchange electronic business documents such as orders, invoices and shipping notices, etc., with customers such as Target and Amazon and removes the need for the Maclaren staff to re-key data.

This summer B2BGateway developed a mobile EDI Connect App that lets Maclaren executives check EDI orders from anywhere on their mobile devices, ensuring EDI documents are transmitting properly and that all orders are fulfilled in a timely fashion. Some of Maclaren’s EDI customers include retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, John Lewis and Saks.The B2BGateway EDI Connect App works with the majority of ERP systems and is available on both iOS and Android platforms to B2BGateway clients.

The winners of the UK Supply Chain Excellence Awards will be announced in London on November 14, 2016. You can see a full list of all the organizations that are shortlisted for this year's awards here.

B2BGateway EDI Application Certified By Acumatica

B2BGateway's cloud based, fully integrated EDI solution is now an Acumatica Certified and Customer Validated Application. You can read the full press release here http://bit.ly/2crSRns

A baby stroller manufacturer rolls faster with electronic orders

By Phil Burgert on B2BeCommerce.com

Maclaren, a pioneer in strollers, is using a mobile app to check EDI orders as it also takes orders via its e-commerce site.

Maclaren is a manufacturer known for introducing 50 years ago lightweight, easy-to-use “umbrella” baby strollers made with aviation-grade aluminum. It’s continuing try new things today, including a more flexible means of managing its electronic orders from all sizes of customers.

Maclaren sells to retailers ranging from large corporations like Target Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. to smaller regional store chains and individual “mom-and-pop” stores. While the Targets and Amazons prefer to place most if not all of their orders via electronic data interchange, or EDI, many of the smaller merchants aren’t set up to exchange EDI documents and prefer to order via Maclaren’s e-commerce site, MaclarenBaby.com, which also takes orders from consumers.

In early 2015, Maclaren deployed NetSuite Inc.’s SuiteCommerce software suite, which includes Maclaren’s e-commerce platform and its enterprise resource planning, or ERP, business software applications for managing inventory, customer orders and financial records. As Maclaren receives e-commerce orders from customers across eight countries, it automatically updates data across the SuiteCommerce ERP applications.

But it can be difficult to monitor the flow of EDI orders, checking for transmission problems and ensuring enough inventory is on hand to fulfill the orders. Following the SuiteCommerce deployment, Maclaren worked with B2BGateway to also integrate its EDI orders with the SuiteCommerce ERP system, relieving the manufacturer of manually entering EDI order data into its ERP applications.

This summer, Maclaren took things up another notch by deploying B2BGateways’ EDI Connect App, a mobile app that lets Maclaren executives check EDI orders from anywhere, ensuring EDI documents are transmitting properly and that orders are fulfilled. EDI documents include customer purchase orders and Maclaren’s invoices and ship notices. Maclaren’s EDI customers also include retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, John Lewis and Saks.

“We have an EDI team and they use the app to work with EDI transactions coming and going,” says James Ramsey, global head of technology for Maclaren, a unit of United Kingdom-based holding company Dory Ventures.

“All of our larger customers prefer to work through EDI so they don’t have to use our B2B e-commerce site and everything can be done through EDI with those customers,” he says. “That’s why we’re working with B2BGateway. They’ve been a great partner in getting EDI set up with all of these big accounts, which takes a lot of the load off our account executives and sales team for everything that comes in and goes back out again.”

Ramsey says considerable volume goes through EDI at Maclaren, and that that having the integration with SuiteCommerce and the mobile app make it far easier to keep it running smoothly. “The misconception with EDI is people think once it is put in place it just runs and everything is good in the world. But it never gets done, there’s always some issue that comes up,” he says.

Louisa Gooding, director of sales and strategic relationships at B2BGateway, says B2BGateway is continuing to add more of Maclaren’s trading partners into its EDI system. “We’re in the process of adding 40 more online trading partner relationships between now and December.”
Gooding described the B2BGateway EDI Connect App as primarily a reporting app. Ramsey, she says, “needs it because he wants to have a quick place to see what’s going on.”

Ramsey says he has been able to use the app to catch up on the status of trading partners while walking into the office or to get complete overviews of a day’s EDI transactions while watching his son’s soccer games.

B2BGateway launched the app last year on iOS platforms and added Android platforms earlier this year.

For further information on the B2BGateway EDI Connect App please visit www.B2BGateway.Net or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net