Archive for March, 2018

How to Stay Competitive in the Retail Market

Tuesday, March 6th, 2018

 

Today’s post is by Gayl Southard, Administrative Consultant, SafeSourcing.

Target is introducing same-day delivery.  Birmingham, Alabama and South Florida rolled out same-day service on February 1st, quickly followed Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Target plans to have this service in all stores by the end of 2018. “Same-day delivery was at the top of our list when we were thinking about ways to make shopping at Target even easier,” said John Mulligan, Target’s executive vice president and chief operating officer said in a statement.

Shipt, an on-line grocery marketplace retail giant, was purchased in December for $550 million. By using the Shipt app, Target customers can purchase over 50,000 items from Target. Amazon currently dominates 38 percent of all online shopping. Amazon customers are used to speedy service, convenience, and low prices. Target wants to capitalize on this market.

Amazon does offer its own grocery delivery service called Amazon Fresh; however, they scaled back the number of locations it’s offering it once they purchased Whole Foods. It seems people are still willing to go to the grocery store and buy in person. Target is anxious to capture and keep this delivery market. Target will also deliver grocery essentials, home, electronics and other products. By the end of 2019, it will also include all Target’s major product categories.

Enrolling in the Shipt program costs $99 per year. That’s cheaper than AmazonFresh, which costs a $179.88 per year, on top of a $99 Prime membership. The move comes as analysts speculate that Amazon might want to buy Target.1

Allow SafeSourcing to help your business be more competitive with your sourcing needs. For more information on SafeSourcing, or on our Risk Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you.

Sources—————————————————————-

1 Ben Popken, Business, 2/1/2018

 

 

 

You can’t just implement another companies SOP when you begin to use e-procurement tools.

Friday, March 2nd, 2018

 

This is an oldie but goodie from our Archives. It’s still pretty true today.

All companies like to throw around the term best practices. Who’s best practice is the question that companies should ask as well as who says these are the best practices. Successful learning organizations don’t just throw the baby out with the bath water when they begin to use new tools. There are procedures your company has followed for years, many of which are necessary and other that need to evolve. There are procedures that your new e-procurement solutions providers support and have used successfully with other companies that may make sense. An integration of these practices that work will become your new Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) as applies to your implementation of e-procurement within your organization.

A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is an established process or group of processes that an organization carry’s out in a given situation on a routine basis. These procedures tend to be very specific to the business functional area being impacted.

So, how would you go about implementing e-procurement tools SOP into your organization? Begin by asking your solutions provider and if you don’t get a simple straight forward answer call SafeSourcing.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.