Strengthen Your Supply Chain With All-New Vendor Management

Strengthen Your Supply Chain With All-New Vendor Management

Introducing a centralized, super-organized way to keep track of (and foster relationships with) your favorite vendors.

Despite what 2020 might suggest, most supply chain issues are preventable. And avoiding these mishaps often comes down to your vendor relationships.

That’s where Cogsy’s new vendor management feature comes in.

Introducing a centralized, super-organized way to work with your favorite vendors – complete with everything you need to strengthen these relationships.

 

Manage all your vendors, altogether

The worst-kept secret among ecommerce brands? Anyone can see which vendors you use if you house that information in Shopify. (And we mean literally everyone—even your competitors.)

Alternatively, you could manage your vendors in a really messy, hard-to-manage (usually out-of-date) Excel sheet. (Believe it or not, this was the “organized” alternative for a while.)

But now there’s a better alternative.

With Cogsy’s new vendor management feature, organize all your vendors’ contact information, lead times, and order histories in one tidy system of record. That way, you can pull up anything you need to know (like your vendor’s address) in seconds.

Best part? Only your team can access this information. No one else.

 

Make it easy to say “hi” and follow up

There’s an old cliché that “people do business with people, not companies.” And time and time again, that sentiment holds true.

Need proof? Just look at who your vendors prioritized when the pandemic hit.

Sure, some supply got tossed to whoever placed the biggest purchase orders. But most vendors gave first dibs to their favorite customers. (AKA, the folks they already built strong relationships with.)

And frankly, being the kind of customer that gets “first dibs” starts with reaching out and saying “hello” – person to person.

With Cogsy, create contact cards for everyone you interact with at each vendor. That way, you know who to stay in touch with (and how to reach them).

You can then use these cards to follow up on an incoming purchase order, ask questions about product specifications, or yes – simply say “hello.”

Always prioritize your best vendors

Just like your vendors have favorite customers, you likely have favorite vendors.

Maybe you feel partial to the partners offering the best price or the ones that always deliver your orders on time. Whatever your reasoning, ensure most of your business goes to those preferred vendors.

How? Simply set these folks as your primary vendor for whatever SKUs they supply. You can also assign secondary (read: backup) vendors to each SKU.

Cogsy’ll then cater its restock recommendations to your primary vendor.

For instance, we’ll factor in lead time to ensure you place purchase orders with plenty of time. That way, you’re not the annoying customer that’s constantly rushing their orders (ew).

In other words, we’ll help you prioritize your vendors. So, when push comes to shove, your vendors prioritize you back. (Think: Faster fulfillment, “dibs” when supply is limited, or more flexible payment terms.)

And if things go really, really wrong and your primary vendor can’t deliver the goods? No worries – you’ve already coordinated backup vendors, mitigating risk in your supply chain.


The vendor management feature is now available to all Cogsy merchants. Log in now to set your preferred vendors.

If you have any questions, drop us a line at help@cogsy.com – we’re happy to help.

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