Why is EDI Important for retailers like Walmart and Their Supply Chain Partners?

If you’re a smaller supplier, it’s possible to get buried under the weight of manual paper-based processes when fulfilling too many customer orders. your retail trading partner emails a purchase order, which you enter into your inventory system. The order delivered to retailer, followed by an invoice a few days later. This process is good for little systems. Most large retail suppliers require you to have an EDI system to manage a wide range of their business information before they’ll start trading with you.

Needless and duplicate entries including incompatible applications can all lead to inefficiencies and delays in your supply chain. The challenge lies in the breaks in workflows between their business management system and trading partners. That’s where EDI technology comes in. EDI-based transactions (messages) are the same as traditional paper documents — except that EDI documents are sent and received in electronic form formatted according to EDI standards.

Larger retailers like Walmart and Amazon have their own sets of rules and standards and preferences for EDI. EDI Mapping is a process of organizing data according to both the specific requirements and the EDI standard of each trading partner and every retailer has multiple implementation guides that suppliers need to follow.

EDI Benefits in Retail Industry

Below are many benefits to using Walmart EDI to interchange information across your retail supply chain.

Standardizing document formats

Integrating seamlessly with SAP Business One

Eliminating manual data entry

Avoiding point to point integrations with individual trading partners

Providing additional visibility into sales, invoicing, production, scheduling, and shipping information across the supply chain