Read the Case Study Showing How Generating Purchase Orders with Supplyve is more than 500% Faster than using Microsoft Excel
Our Methodology
We set out to understand how much quicker it is to generate a purchase order with Supplyve versus the classic way of adding products to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and exporting them.
To ensure objectivity, we excluded certain parts of the ordering process that vary drastically depending on who is running the store - such as physical movement from shelf to shelf, time spent navigating competing excel sheets, etc.
The Replenishment Process
Generating a purchase order starts with understanding what stock your store is low on. The standard method involves walking over to each products’ on-shelf location in your store, whereas with Supplyve, shelf exploration is as easy as a few clicks. Given how much the standard method can differ depending on the store - smaller versus larger stores, whether or not store operators have inventory functionality in their POS, or even how distracted the store operator is during the process - we’ve decided to only focus on the actual order generation process itself.
Let’s break it down into 3 steps:
The process of adding products to a list.
Reviewing and finalizing the list.
Sending it to the correct vendor.
For step 1, we wanted to properly understand the average amount of SKUs included in each order. Comparing across 50 invoices from four different United States groceries, we found the average to be 28 different product SKUs. With an average of 30 seconds per product, including the time to locate any given barcode, that's a total of 14 minutes just to add 28 products to a standard Excel list. Comparatively, adding products with Supplyve took 4 seconds per product - that’s just below 2 minutes.
The standard method of step 2 can take anywhere between one minute to the total time it takes to perform step 1, depending on the method of Purchase Order used. In test cases, using existing excel templates supplied by the vendor means reviewing an order can be just as time-consuming as generating the order. Sampled users were forced to review nearly the entire product catalog to verify which ones had been marked off. On average, we put this process at an average of 4 more minutes. With Supplyve, reviewing orders is as instant as switching to a cart tab and scrolling down, a maximum average of a half minute.
Step 3 under the standard method involves saving a file, locating the file, attaching a document to an email, selecting the correct supplier point-of-contact, and sending. This is by far the quickest step, but still can take an average of an extra 1 and a half minutes. With Supplyve, time-to-send is a matter of clicking “send” and selecting a supplier contact, a maximum of 30 seconds.
The Result
Supplyve comes out at 3 minutes, and the standard method at 19 and a half minutes.
That's 6.5 times faster, or 550%, to order through Supplyve!
Again, we completely ignored the actual time it takes to walk around a store under the standard method, which can add quite literally hours to the time-to-purchase. With Supplyve, you can simply see how many products you have remaining in any given aisle, and do not need to approach a single shelf.
For perspective, this means a store operator spending 30 hours a week can shrink that time to much less than 5 hours a week! That means 25 additional hours to deal with customers, spend with family, or handle stockouts and earn 20% extra per month. Sign up now and order better forever!