Retail Industry
If we had to name one single industry that has contributed most to the widespread adoption of EDI, it would probably be the retail industry. A retailer's decision to embrace EDI meant that the retailer's suppliers needed to embrace EDI as well if they wanted to keep the retailer's business. Considering that the vast majority of large retailers have an EDI purchasing system in place, affecting thousands upon thousands of suppliers, it's easy to see the impact the retail industry has had on EDI across all facets of business.
Many retailers use the VICS (Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standard) subset of the ANSI X12 standard, which are EDI transaction guidelines that have been defined specifically for use in the retail industry. Some of the common EDI transactions customized by VICS and exchanged by Softshare's clients within the retail industry are listed next.
| ANSI X12 Standard |
UN/EDIFACT Standard |
| 810 invoice |
INVOIC invoice |
| 816 organizational relationships |
N/A |
| 820 payment order/remittance advice |
PAYORD payment order |
| REMADV remittance advice |
| 824 application advice |
BANSTA banking status |
| 830 planning schedule with release capability |
DELFOR delivery schedule |
| 832 price/sales catalog |
PRICAT price/sales catalog |
| 846 inventory inquiry/advice |
INVINQ inventory inquiry/advice |
| 850 purchase order |
ORDERS purchase order |
| 852 product activity data |
INVRPT inventory report |
| 855 purchase order acknowledgment |
ORDRSP purchase order response |
| 865 purchase order change acknowledgment/request |
| 864 text message |
N/A |
| 856 ship notice/manifest |
DESADV despatch advice |
| PRODEX product exchange reconciliation |
| 860 purchase order change request |
ORDCHG purchase order change request |
Softshare is very familiar with these EDI transactions, and our various EDI solutions support all of them.
Our enterprise integration solution, which consists of Softshare Delta, our data translator, and Softshare ECS, our e-commerce communications server, provides for seamless integration of EDI into your overall business processes. Softshare's professional services group can assist with implementation or provide training if you want to develop your own data translation maps.
If your company is not ready for full-scale EDI integration, you can connect to your retail partners using Softshare Athena, our Web EDI solution. Athena is forms-based, making the exchange of EDI documents similar to that of e-mail.
Several of the more well-known retail companies that Softshare software users exchange EDI documents with are listed next. The highlighted companies are some of those that we have created forms (i.e. trading partner kits) for, and you can click on them to learn more about their EDI programs.
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