I want to use this article to expanded further on my article in November and December regarding Ecommerce (Vendor Direct to Consumer) by exploring two areas that are inherent to Direct/Drop ship and that’s manage Changes and Returns.

Well, we’re at the end of the first quarter of 2011. The economy is looking better. You’ve got your 2011 projects underway. For many of you, you read a few of my articles in the last 4 -5 months and have decided that one of the projects would be add more suppliers to your Electronic Trading program, add another transaction to your library of EDI documents. Or maybe you’ve committed to management that you’ll support a new method of orders or distribution, such as Factory Direct or Cross Dock. Now you’ve realized “how am I going to get this done?”

While one could think that the Economy was slowly coming back, we’re stopped by indecision with our government officials again resulting in a drop in the stock market of over 500 points last Thursday. With that, many retailers will likely go back to the planning committees to discuss if they should rethink their plans for footprint expansion. If your company has had plans for store expansion and is now putting those on hold, I’ll again remind you that regardless of conditions of the Economy, everyone should always be looking at process improvements. And with that you should be considering starting or expanding trading with your partners electronically.