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Retail EDI
News - A Thing of the
Past?
Some of you know me
from way back when. I started writing an EDI
Connection newsletter during the early 1990's
and continued it until 1998 when I sold my
business to QRS. Some of you may remember QRS and
some of you may not. QRS is now part of
Inovis. During the 1990's there was lots to
write about. EDI was new, retailers were
constantly implementing new technology and
pressing their suppliers to do so as well.
In the early 1990's,
JCPenney and Sears were some of the trend setters.
After setting up their EDI systems to transmit 850
purchase orders, they encouraged their suppliers
to use EDI. First came nice letters,
then subtle threats, and finally chargebacks. A
similar approach was taken to mandate usage of the
810 invoice. But when some vendors choose to
pay the chargeback rather than comply, Sears
and JCPenney got smart - they stopped taking paper
invoices altogether. No EDI, no payment. It
worked too. The EDI Connection was a service
bureau for processing EDI and we got lots of phone
calls from suppliers in a panic because they could
not get paid!
Meryvn's was an innovator for
early implementation of the 856 ship notice.
This was before they became part of the Target
system. Likewise, Federated and Dillards were
instrumental in the adoption of UPC codes by
apparel companies (many of them did resist it - so
many codes to keep track of).
Wal-Mart was always a company that
demanded much of their suppliers and although a
firm believer in EDI, they sometimes did things
their own way when it came to
communications. They now have one of the
most progressive programs with rapid adoption of
new technologies including RFID, GTIN, and EDI
over the Internet.
This week I went through the EDI
websites, vendor guidelines, and EDI news sites
for major retailers. I didn't find much news. When
I purely look for updates, by far the majority of
updates have to do with transportation changes and
store/distribution center logistics changes.
Important stuff but not so interesting to write
about. I did find a few highlights of current
implementations:
- Wal-Mart is asking all vendors
that that do RFID to also implement GDSN
technology.
- AAFES is implementing data
synchronization and preparing for scan based
trading later this year.
- JCPenneys has updated their
guidelines and I noted that they have changed the
nomenclature of the UCC-128 to the new
terminology, GS1-128.
- Kroger is consolidating their
VAN services to Sterling Commerce.
- Target is eliminating dial up
bisynch modem support. Now all communications must
go through AS2 or a VAN.
Now if any of the above
terminology is Greek to you, please sign up for
the EDI Center Fundamentals class on March 22.
We'll explain it all
then! | 
