Introduction (0:00 – 1:40)
Ben Prager: First, hello and welcome to the first instance of Duoplane’s Vendor Lunch and Learn series. Today, we’ll be going over a brief introduction to Duoplane, highlighting some in-app features that could be helpful for you and your retail partners. I understand that some of you may have questions as we work through today’s information. Please hold your questions until our Q&A period or post them to the chat. As many of you may already know, Duoplane is an order management software that allows retailers to automate splitting and sending orders to their suppliers while enabling those same suppliers to easily sync back shipment information and product data such as inventory. Additionally, Duoplane allows retailers to track vendor invoices, giving them insight into what is owed to each supplier at any time.
Ben Prager: What makes our platform unique for vendors is how we can work with almost any file type or communication method you prefer, making it less costly and time-intensive to set up and send orders. For the vendors that don’t want to exchange platforms, we have a robust selection of e-commerce shipping management and inventory management software that we integrate with so that you can send order tracking and inventory. Now, I will share the Duoplane app to walk through some of the features that could be helpful to you all as vendors. Please remember that some of the features you’ll see today may be optional and need to be enabled for your retail partnerships.
App features – Order Routing (1:40-8:10)
Ben Prager: So here I am on a sales order that was imported from Shopify. So we’ve taken the sales order from the e-commerce channel, and based on the line items, we’ve identified the suppliers that can supply them. If we have an order where multiple suppliers can fill the same product, we will apply logic to determine who we should create POs for. By default, the logic will be based on the lowest wholesale cost and who has it available. However, we can customize this logic based on the current supplier, geographic location, and other factors. Now I will send these purchase orders manually to our vendors, but retailers can send orders in many different ways. In Duoplane, you would all have vendor records similar to this with your retail partners. Here, we can specify how we send you orders, receive shipment information, and get inventory.
Ben Prager: Retail partners can automatically create POs and send them to you immediately. We can batch orders and send them at various intervals throughout the day or schedule them according to your requirements. We can specify what days and hours of the day we should send you orders. The delivery methods we work with are by default email. Still, we can post orders to a remote file server or a web page or use one of our vendor connectors apps like Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace, ShipStation, Shippo, Skuvault, and Sku Labs.
Ben Prager: By default, the file format we send is PDF, but here we can specify a different format, like CSV. We have a file column mapping tool where we can determine what the file should look like. We can easily customize the column headings and fields. These are all drag-and-drop, so if you want a different order, it’s easy to change. As a vendor in our portal, you can always customize the change of problem state. For example, you can change the status if you cannot fulfill an order within the communicated time frame.
Ben Prager: Now, I’m going to create a shipment. In the vendor portal, you can select the carrier that will fulfill the order and provide tracking and vendor invoice numbers if you have them. You can modify the quantity in the shipment and provide any shipping and handling costs or taxes. When I click “Save Shipment,” it will trigger two events. First, it will push the tracking number you provided to your retail partner. Second, it captures the order’s wholesale costs, shipping and handling costs, and taxes. If we return to that retailer’s order and refresh the page, we can see that both items have shipped. Now, there are other ways we can receive shipments here in Duoplane. As a vendor, you can automate this a lot more easily.
App features – Shipment Feeds (8:10-10:05)
Ben Prager: We can select how we want to receive that shipment information by entering our vendor record for a furniture vendor here and our shipment feed settings. So rather than going in on a one-by-one basis via the vendor portal, you could provide us a file with single or multiple shipments. We work with a more extensive array of different file types, as well as delivery methods. So, no remote access is that you manually go in and upload that file via the vendor portal. Instead, we could achieve the file from a webpage or permanent remote file server, or you could push the file into Duoplane via an inbound email. Or it could be using one of those vendor connector apps I mentioned earlier.
Ben Prager: Regardless of how we receive the file, we can map out the file to understand where we would be reading information from in it. For example, suppose you were to provide information such as shipping and handling costs. This could be included in that shipment feeds file, allowing Duoplane to capture invoice data and share that with your retail partners. They would understand at any given time what’s owed to you.
App features – Inventory (10:05-11:15)
Ben Prager: Now, the last thing I wanted to show was our inventory. In Duoplane, we work with many file types and connection methods. We offer the same sort of file mapping for our POs and shipment feeds. So, for our inventory, so that we understand this data from your catalog and your retailer’s catalog and can match these products via this, you need any product reference in the file they provide. Whatever the column heading is that would represent quantity available, we need to know that column heading. Maybe it’s not “Quantity Under Square Available,” it’s perhaps “Qty.” Additionally, we can take in wholesale cost data and backward data.
Case Studies – Knocking, Rover, Union Jack (11:15-12:40)
Ben Prager: Now, I’m going to jump back into our presentation, and we’re going to cover some of our key customer success stories.
Ben Prager: First up we have Knocking. Despite working with hundreds of vendors and managing hundreds of thousands of orders being split and sent across their partners, Duoplane’s robust vendor integrations allow their vendors to be set up and sync information to them in hours rather than days. For Rover, Duoplane has simplified syncing and tracking from all of its suppliers for over a decade. We enabled vendors to reduce the manual workload on their end by using their preferred file types and connection methods. Additionally, Duoplane enables inventory tracking through inventory and synced inventory levels with their retail partners. With Union Jack, Because Duoplane can easily customize the order data being sent to vendors, it allows them to have confidence in connecting and sharing information without the need for manual manipulation by the retailer or vendor. Additionally, invoicing through Duoplane has enabled the retailer to stay in tune with the amounts owed to suppliers for the orders fulfilled.
FAQ (12:40-13:55)
Ben Prager: As we move into our Q&A period, I’d like to address some critical questions suppliers frequently ask. The first one is, “If I write a new retailer, how fast can I connect? Can we copy existing connections over to the new retailer?”
Ben Prager: The good news is that you can connect quickly if you want to bring a new retailer on board, mainly if we can copy your existing connections to the new retailer. So, if you let us know that you want to use the same file type and communication methods, we can set you up in hours instead of days. We don’t have to establish new connection methods or share file templates. Instead, we can take your existing file type and communication tool and copy it over to the new retailer.
Ben Prager: Additionally, suppliers often ask if retailers can find them using Duoplane and if they can find retailers using their software. Unfortunately, based on feedback from both parties, we do not offer a way for each party to find one another through Duoplane. Instead, they would need to come to Duoplane with existing relationships. However, if this interests you, we would love to hear from you.
Q&A (13:55-15:57)
Ben Prager: Now, I would like to open up our question-and-answer period. Does anyone have any questions that we can help clarify today?
Ben Prager: Yes, certainly. I wanted to talk briefly about how Invoicing works in Duoplane. When shipments are fulfilled in Duoplane, we can either take the invoice number provided by the supplier or automatically generate an invoice number and capture the fulfilled shipment as an invoice. This invoice captures the wholesale cost data, shipping and handling costs, and taxes as long as that information is provided to us. We store this data in Duoplane; the retailer and vendor can see it in their portals. In addition, it is easily searchable and can be downloaded as a CSV. For retailers using QuickBooks or Zero accounting software, we integrate with those accounting platforms and can push these invoices into their accounting software as unpaid vendor bills.
We can move on to our closing remarks if there are no further questions. So, I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you all today. It has been great to show you around our platform and give you a broader understanding of how we can support you and your retail partners.
Closing Remarks (15:57-17:09)
Sina Djafari: Thank you, Ben and everyone, for joining us today. We appreciate it. Our team at Duoplane is focused on improving the vendor experience, from hosting sessions like this to building out new support resources and releasing new features and integrations. We’d love to hear any feedback you have for us on how we can be more helpful. This is our first lunch and learn, so we’d love to hear feedback on how to improve live sessions like this, new features you want to see, and comments about things you like or don’t like about Duoplane. Any feedback is helpful. We’ve compiled a short feedback form that we’d love for you to complete. It’s on the QR code on this page. We’ll also send out an email as a follow-up to this, including a link to the feedback form.
Thank you again for your time today. I hope you found it helpful, and please let us know if you have any feedback or questions. Last call for questions if anyone wants to bring anything up. On that note, thank you again for joining us; the communication line is always open. We would love to hear from anyone.
