Inventory Feeds

What is an inventory feed?

• A systematic way to share units of inventory available to sell to our customers, almost exclusively drop ship customers
• Drop ship customers use this information to determine what they can sell, they expect this number to be 100% accurate and no cancellations
• We send shared inventory, not dedicated
• Sent via EDI 846 doc, NetSuite generated email or (on rare occasions) manually maintained
• Almost all sent via NetSuite/Boomi
• Unless otherwise manipulated, the API quantity from the item record is the value transmitted to the customer

What is API quantity?

• The quantity of an item available in a facility that we drop ship from
• Locations included in the API quantity are marked on the location record setting
• ‘Reportable Inventory’. Examples of excluded locations- Direct Import, Tuf-Tite, Complete, GCR
• API quantity value is updated throughout the day in relative real-time
• This value is also fed to the Advantus-owned web sites

Who gets an Inventory Feed?

• Drop Ship Customers!

Examples:

• 123 Stores (34CGI)
• Pottery Barn (788PNBXML)
• Sam’s Club (02SAMDS)

How is a feed set up for a new customer?

• Onboarding with CI (Continuous Improvement): CI submits feed requirements to IT; Sales Specialist sets up CID records
• Onboarding through Customer Service: CS rep submits feed requirements to IT; Sales Specialist set up CID records

How is a feed set up for an existing customer?:

This will likely require a new customer number due to pricing, program and other factors and should follow the new customer onboarding process for CI or C/S, depending on the customers.

How is a feed delivered to a customer?

How is a feed maintained?

The customer Item Detail Record!

Customer Item Detail:

View from Customer Record: Sales & Marketing subtab, Customer Item Details sublist

Most fields are greyed out as they are populated from the item and customer records; including some additional fields (ex: less than X logic and Has Price on Feed)

Fields that referenced Macola will remain, but are re-named for future use cases/acquisitions

Fields on Customer Record

Has Price on Inventory Feed:

• Customer requirement to include the price a customer pays on inventory feed (currently set for Radial and OJ Commerce)
• Updates nightly

Less Than X Then 0 Logic:

• Allows for potential oversellign of items that could result in customer fines

How is the feed “manipulated”?

• Override Quantity
  • USE CASE: We no longer want customer XYZ to have this item available. We override quantity to 0
  • USE CASE: We want to divvy out inventory among customers who buy the same item
    • Example: Item A has 200 units available, we want to tell customer 1 have 150 units and customer 2 we have 50 units
• If less than X, report 0
  • USE CASE: If we have less than 10 units on hand, we should tell the customer we have 0 because we could oversell or not have actual inventory (maintained at the Customer record level)
• Report on Hand Quantity
  • USE CASE: We want to report the on hand value instead of available value
    • Example: Inventory is on reservation for the customer, but we need them to know we have inventory for them to sell

Why is a feed stopped or an item removed from the feed?

• Issues with pricing
• Item is obsolete
  • This is done via script 2 days after an item is marked obsolete to allow for ample time to send 0 quantity on feed
• Item no longer makes sense to drop ship
• Item became exclusive to another customer
• Customer is in on credit hold or over credit limit

How is a feed stopped or an item removed from the feed?

• STEP 1: Zero out inventory manually in customer portal or using override qty on CID record
• STEP 2: Uncheck ‘Include on Inventory Feeds’ box on CI record
• If inventory can be manually set to 0 in customer portal, then steps 1 & 2 can be done simultaneously. If not, need to ensure feed sends 0 to customer before unchecking on CID; otherwise the last inventory value reported to the customer will remain in tact

How to resolve inventory feed issues:

Before submitting an IT ticket, check the following:

• What exactly is the customer stating the issue is?
• What is the date the customer last received a feed?
  • If the customer has a portal, check current inventory numbers or timestamp of last modificaiton
• What is the delivery method – EDI or Email?
  • If email, is the email address for inventory feed field filled in?
    • Confirm email address with customer. Ask customer if any changes have been made on their end.
• Is the ‘Include on Inventory Feed?’ box checked on the proper CID records
• Are the CIDs set up under the correct customer number?

If nothing can be determined from checking this info, submit a ticket to IT (NetSuite Problem/Bug) with as much info as possible

Future Enhancements

• Adding sent email inventory feeds to Customer Record-Communication subtab-Messages
• Adding sent 846 EDI docs to Customer Record by new button “View EDI Inventory Feed”

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