Aftermarket Insider - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 23) Internet technology and enabling realtime e-commerce. At AAPEX, Luckett told the audience that the number of connections between buyers and sellers established by GCommerce had tripled Dorman Products has grown their busiin the past two years. They will actiness and their product selection signifivate more than 800 connections in cantly in recent years. At one time, 2008. Each connection saves an average “We’ve put a real push on getting Dorman managed seven distinct vehicle of $15,000 per year for the buyer and electronic orders,” Welvaert said. databases. Over the past eight years the seller over kilo character-based fees “Ten years ago we had 25 people in they have abandoned all of their propricharged by VANs. But more important than the immediate cash savings is that the partners are now able to exchange e-commerce documents in two directions in real time. Suppliers are now “Companies that invest in improving their catalog sending advance shipping notices (ASN) data and product information report increases and invoices without any concern over in sales, reductions in returns and improved the VAN fees, because Internet-based fees are small and fixed. margins through increases in efficiencies.” “Imagine how many full-time staff a large reseller has matching POs, packing slips and invoices, and you realize how valuable three-way electronic reconciliation is to the bottom line,” Luckett said. At the Aftermarket eForum™, Dennis Welvaert, president, Dayco Products, told an audience tales of significant savings in the back-office through increased order automation made possible by improving the accuracy of their product data. “That’s the lion’s share of your line card and your business,” Luckett said, “with data flowing faster and more accurately in the ACES format.” Product data services manager Chris The early majority is on board with Nierintz was quoted: “We’ve seen a technology standards and real-time Activant is the leading provider of elec- 50 percent reduction in data time-toe-commerce. They’re seeing the promtronic catalogs to the independent after- market. We’re able to produce catalog ised ROI and more. Some say that it market and a barometer of industry updates faster, publish them to our Web has taken longer than it should have to adoption of the industry standard for site immediately and get them to the reach this point on the adoption curve. catalog data – ACES. Luckett reported e-cat companies daily if needed.” But especially as we navigate through that the number of “good” ACES data a difficult economy, the adoption of Capitalizing on their data-agility, files received by Activant was up 62 standards-based technology yields the Dorman has taken the bold step of percent in 2008; the number of rejected benefits that will tip the scales in favor ceasing the production of paper catafiles was down 43 percent for the same of the early adopters. logs (except by customer request), period; and the total number of ACES saving over $500,000 per year. To view the entire AAPEX technology files in the production Activant catalog seminar, visit Technology at www. is up 572 percent in the past three GCommerce has carved out an aftermarket.org years. The company reports receiving important role in the aftermarket by ACES data from 383 unique companies. connecting trading partners through our order entry department – now we have five. That’s with increased volume of SKUs, increased volume and increased orders. I’m a big fan of automating orders.” etary databases and now manage all of their applications data in an AAIA standards format. AFTERMARKET INSIDER | DECEMBER ‘08 • JANUARY ‘09 | 23 http://www.aftermarket.org/Technology.aspx
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.