How to use supply feeds for effective e-shop business

Knowledge base / FAQ Supplier feeds
1

Introduction to supply feeds

Before an order reaches the e-shop offer, so that it can subsequently reach the customer, it must complete several steps: the goods are manufactured, inspected, arrive at the warehouse and finally are transported (often several times). The supply chain manages the efficient passage of these logistical steps. In order for your business to be as successful as possible, your important task is to take care of its quality management.

What is a supply chain

The supply chain system includes:

  • manufacturers
  • suppliers
  • sellers
  • carriers
  • buyers
  • information
  • follow-up activities
  • other resources

All of these components are parts of the structure for supervising the operation of each chain and at the same time the process of improving the quality of individual parts. The main purpose of the entire system is to deliver orders as quickly and as high as possible. If it were to function inefficiently, it could, on the contrary, lead to reduced customer satisfaction, and therefore to reduced margins and turnover.

How can using a supply feed help me in my business

Maintain an optimal amount of products in stock

By being able to set inventory levels that you can reorder if necessary, you eliminate the risk of stockouts and overstocking. Of course, you can also request the same goods from multiple suppliers at once. This way, you can easily choose the most ideal one based on price.

Reduce the likelihood of delays between all parts of your chain

By regularly analyzing and optimizing your processes, you will create the most ideal conditions for cooperation with suppliers, warehouse operation, or partnership with the most suitable carriers.

Optimize logistics costs

Analysis of the supply chain can bring many opportunities to save (e.g. in warehouse management, inappropriate warehouse location, high transportation prices, etc.).

How do I make my supply feed more efficient

Devote energy to choosing the right supplier

First and foremost, you should be working with a supplier who can guarantee fast, high-quality, and inexpensive production (or sale or availability) of goods.

Place orders for goods on time and correctly

Focus on data monitoring that will help you predict future demand. This way, you can order the right goods from your supplier at the right time.

  • Professional e-shoppers and marketers use tools to do this, which create overviews and sales predictions based on sales data and create optimal order lists for each day.
  • Mergado users can monitor the development of their assortment in detail using the Fox Data+ application.
  • Do you run an e-shop built on Shoptet? Try the add-ons Shopstato and Inventoro.

Watch the delivery of goods to your warehouse

Solve the transport conditions of the products with all suppliers in advance. As part of this process, also check whether the carrier has attached all the mandatory documents for each shipment.

  • In practice, it often depends on whether e-shoppers are satisfied with the carrier’s table price or the first price offer, or whether they can negotiate better conditions.
  • Make sure that you have shipping prices included in the price list on the e-shop and in the cart. And also make sure that shipping is correctly set according to the weight of the shipment.
  • Shoptet offers several add-ons to improve the level of goods transportation. Try DODO or DPD.

Take care of correct storage

To ensure the fastest possible picking of shipments, make sure that goods are stored in warehouse positions according to their type, size, etc..

  • Based on correct storage, you can easily inform your customers of the accurate availability of the product.
  • When picking goods, you have easy access to information about where they are in your warehouse.
    Shoptet users have at their disposal the handy add-on Warehouse Management or tools BRANI.

Focus on speeding up delivery

Based on the correct resolution of the previous points, you should be able to speed up delivery of orders. Currently, this is one of the most important competitive advantages.

  • Are you thinking about how to speed up packaging of orders? If you have an e-shop solution on Shoptet, use the BRANI Balic or Shipmall Logistics tools.

Don’t forget about the current status of your shipment

To effectively analyze and improve parts of your supply chain, you need to ensure the transmission of current information about the status of your shipments via their digital footprint.

  • Nowadays, you can use the email or SMS notification options to easily and quickly inform customers about changes in order status or promotions and discounts.
  • Shoptet users can do this with add-ons SMS service and SMS notification.

How Mergado and its tools will help me with supply feed management

We have put together a typical example of this process for Czech sellers using MERGADO Editor and its expanding applications.

Example:
A client with an e-shop built on the Shoptet platform needs to connect its supplier. The data connection professional then proceeds as follows:

  1. Once he has obtained the data from the supplier for the e-shop, he analyzes how to make the connection.
    a) if the data is shared via URL address, it can be imported directly into Mergado and then worked with
    b) if the data is not on the URL, it usually has to be obtained from some server (or FTP etc.) using the Mergado Drive application – thanks to it, it can create a URL address that it gets into MERGAD.

  2. In Mergado, either
    a) turn on the format converter
    b) or maps its own – specifies:
    I. what each element correctly contains
    II. where is the selling price
    I. where is the purchase price
    IV. where is the manufacturer listed
    V. where is the product name
    VI. where is the description
    VII. where are the codes like ean, serial number etc.
    c and decides whether to work with this for each client, to which elements to send it etc.

  3. Mergado usually can transfer the correct structure of the XML feed (in our case for Shoptet). Therefore, the expert can immediately validate using the Shoptet Validator so that the feed is content-correct (adjustment or currency conversion, rounding etc.).

  4. Once the feed is fully validated, it continues to connect the feed itself (for Shoptet using the Automatic imports add-on).
    a) According to customer wishes, he most often sets:

  5. what should happen to products that are no longer in the feed

  6. what items he wants to synchronize

  7. adjusts pricing using the Pricing Fox application

  8. Other frequent tasks when connecting:

a) translation of the feed – the Mergado Translate application is a great help here
b) connecting in the case of a larger number of feeds from suppliers

  1. the expert prepares valid Shoptet feeds, inserts them into the Blending Bull application in Mergado and connects them into one large feed
  2. Each supplier feed edited in the Mergado Editor has a Supplier element, to which he adds that specific supplier. When you then upload the connected feeds to the automatic import in Shoptet, you can then filter everything in the product overview by supplier.

If you make the connection (or have it made) in a similar way, it will work long-term and automatically. The entire process should be done so smartly that you don’t have to spend so much time on it when changing the supplied brands of goods or when purchasing new products or categories.

AND DON’T FORGET: You can effectively automate the process of automatically flowing products from the supplier to you as an e-shop using the MERGADO Editor and the expanding applications.

Are you going to connect suppliers with Mergado? Use our expert tips

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