An online portal that allows Nisa’s independent retail partners to browse and order thousands of products and services available from local, regional and specialist suppliers has won a national award.
The ‘Direct to Store’ (DTS) solution won the Online Innovation of the Year Award at the Retail Systems Awards held in London recently. Bethany Ashton (right) and Rebecca Holloway were among the members of the DTS team who attended the ceremony.
The system, which was officially launched at Nisa’s retail exhibition in April, enables Nisa partners to search and compare a vast array of product catalogues from multiple ‘Direct to Store’ suppliers in one place, build up an online basket and place orders with numerous suppliers at the same time. Once partners have placed an order in the system those suppliers will receive a notification and process the order accordingly.
Adrian Page, Business Manager for Direct to Store, explained: “In addition to the range Nisa distributes centrally from its warehouses, independent retailers typically trade with hundreds of smaller and locally-sourced suppliers around the UK.
“As the retailer must manually order and maintain product and price information directly with these suppliers, this requires high administration in store – with a typical retailer dealing with anywhere from 10 to 100 small suppliers direct.
“The DTS solution removes this complication by providing a portal where all suppliers can list their product ranges, and an order portal for retailers to place orders on said suppliers quickly and efficiently. All product data is also available for retailers to download, massively simplifying the maintenance of product and price in store.”
