CASE STUDY
Client Background
Our client is a leading eCommerce provider of top-quality industrial supplies and safety products worldwide. Their catalog includes 1.5 million products with a range that spans from adhesives and fasteners to office supplies, janitorial essentials, tools & instruments – from trusted brands and suppliers.
Client Objective
The requirement is to analyze and provide competitor cross-referencing data for their customer product requirements.
The value of the cross-referencing data is to support their Marketing Engineers with information to –
- Identify a best suitable product on the client’s database as listed in the bid sheets.
- Develop pricing strategies for the client, and
- Improvise bidding decisions based on product availability and pricing; and suggest best alternatives to the customer.
Key Challenge
The challenge for the client is to provide an efficient offer with the best product suggestions to fulfill customer needs, on a quick turnaround time without losing the bid to their competitors.
While automated cross-referencing resources can provide a product suggestion with quick turnaround time, they will not ensure the required results in terms of exact product match in the absence of UPC/Model NO.
Here is where Vserve’s Cross-referencing intelligence is a real game-changer.
Vserve Solution
Vserve adapted a combination of an automated and manual cross-referencing process to ensure 100% exact product match even in the cases where the data is not systemically aligned.
Vserve Approach
- The data from the bid sheet with all the details including SKU, Description, Manufacturer number, Manufacturer Name was transferred to a standardized output spreadsheet.
- Our cross-referencing specialist identified the product data using an automated cross-referencing search tool set with 5 predefined sites.
- The products that did not appear on the results were manually browsed on the search engines for the available information.
- The data from the competitor’s site is then cross-referred to find the exact match on the client ‘s site.
- Our team graded the product match results based on the relevance to the data provided on the bid sheet.
Grading Table: Our experts graded the products based on the following criteria
Grade A
Exact matches (Both Manufacture and manufacture model number matched)
Grade B
Exact match on Specification (but the slight difference in attributes that does not impact the intended purpose)
Grade C:
Slight Mismatch (Variations in attributes that impact the purpose and fit for intended use)
N/A
If the same type of products are not available on our client site.
Outcome
Vserve provided the client with a comprehensive data spreadsheet with a detailed audit report on the exact product match to the product listing on the bid sheet. The report included data on Client’s exact match products; manufacturer specifications; client description; product part no; unit cost; and match grade on the client’s site.
This helped the client make well-informed decisions before making a bid, increasing the chance of providing a better bid compared to their competitors and improving revenue.
Benefits of Manual Cross-Referencing
- Products can be identified with its description alone in the absence of Model No/Part no
- We can sort out the right matching product, by using the product category.
- We can identify the lowest and highest price match for the required product.
Importance of Grading the Product
- The Grading system helps the client to understand the average percentage for selection they have for their customers.
- It ensures the sale that they can possibly cover for a particular bid.
- Help the client to identify more vendors to increase their selection.
- It indicates the selection of private label products over the branded products, to provide a cost-saving alternative suggestion to the customer.
Benefits to the client from Vserve’s Cross-Referencing
- Unique workflow system to notify the client by sending Auto-update mail once the output is uploaded
- The client can identify the percentage of the sale that can be made in a specific bid.
- Vserve provides more information like category, subcategory, unit of measure, quantity, etc. for a product that helps the client to understand the product in detail.
- Vserve also gives suggestions on the products which are not available currently, so that the client can contact the corresponding vendor and purchase the exact product for their customer.