Suppliers

What a Supplier Needs To Know About Joining Buttonwood

New suppliers on Buttonwood are invited to join by one of our Trading Station clients. In order to be successful, suppliers need to show that they can support our clients’ business objectives on a consistent and reliable basis.

Buttonwood is a best of breed service. Other industry service providers seek to consolidate hundreds of suppliers who offer undifferentiated products and services in a searchable database. Buttonwood believes in driving business to suppliers who have demonstrated a proven ability to create value through successful eCommerce and order management initiatives.

Some of the questions that you should be able to answer before you speak with a distributor about eCommerce and order management are:

  • Can you define a unique selling proposition for your product line?
  • Can you briefly explain your product safety, sustainability and social compliance practices?
  • Can you identify any ways you’ve used eCommerce successfully in your business in the past?
  • Do you have any specific financial or marketing goals for a Buttonwood implementation?
  • Is your approximate annual sales volume in promotion products sufficient to sustain the additional investment in eCommerce and electronic order management?

How can Buttonwood help me as a supplier?

Reach forward thinking, fast growing, industry savvy distributors

Many distributors are looking to reduce order processing costs while improving their eCommerce offering. Buttonwood supports and ever growing network of distributors that represent almost 1 billion dollars of industry volume. Distributors on Buttonwood maintain thousands of individual websites that receive hundreds of thousands of page views per month. Buttonwood processes thousands of orders per day across our patented software as a service platform.

Consolidate eCommerce investment

Suppliers receive multiple requests from distributors to provide electronic products data and offer integrated order management solutions.  Buttonwood provides a one-stop solution for suppliers who want to offer eCommerce and order management solutions to their clients.

By working with Buttonwood suppliers can do the following:

  1. Offer product data, inventory levels and contract pricing in an easy to use format that can be adapted to most distributors needs.
  2. Receive online orders both on their website as well as electronically from distributors.
  3. Provide order status and invoicing information in an easy to use format that can be adapted to most distributor needs.

Does Buttonwood cost any money?

As long as your working with one of our Trading Station Clients you do not need to pay Buttonwood. Buttonwood does not offer unpaid support to suppliers who do not have a Trusted Supplier designation on our application. If you require any support for your Buttonwood implementation you can purchase that support on a time and materials basis in 10 hour increments for $175/hour. Should you wish to use our services for all your clients you may purchase a Buttonwood Trading Station.

How to become a Trusted Supplier on Buttonwood

In order to become a Trusted Supplier on Buttonwood you will need to demonstrate an extended ability to support our distributors business objectives on a consistent and reliable basis.  Trusted Suppliers are given a significant preference is the search rankings on Buttonwood as well as technical support on our application.

What does “support distributors business objectives on a consistent and reliable basis” mean?

Buttonwood and it’s clients are engaged with a select group of suppliers who demonstrate an exceptional commitment to innovative merchandising, proactive customer service and world class supply chain management processes.

Buttonwood Technology Group helps distributors send more business to fewer suppliers and lowers the cost of doing business with those suppliers.

The following service level standards outlines the business objectives of this ecommerce and order management initiative.  A suppliers ability and willingness to adhere to these objectives drive the success of the decision to integrate with Buttonwood.

1.    Enter Products into Your Buttonwood eCatalog

Enter products your company sells into your Buttonwood eCatalog so that our distributors can sell your products via our eCommerce Solution.

2.    Maintain Accurate Pricing, Inventory and Availability

Maintain your unique pricing relationship with each of our distributors on your Buttonwood eCatalog accurately and agree to make a reasonable effort to honor any price obtained using data from your Buttonwood eCatalog. Offer inventory levels on a yes/no or quantity basis and remove any products which are no longer offered.

3.    Merchandise Products with Available Specials and Closeouts

Make any specials product and pricing offers available to our customers and salespeople via your Buttonwood eCatalog.

4.    Enable Products with Virtual Logo capabilities

Make your products virtual logo enabled via your Buttonwood eCatalog.

5.    Electronic Orders

Accept orders electronically via your Buttonwood eCatalog. These orders can be delivered via email to a supplier designated email address or via some other electronic means such as XML.

6.    Order Acknowledgements

Provide an electronic order acknowledgement via your Buttonwood eCatalog stating that the order has been received and will be produced according to the pricing and specifications contained on the purchase order as well as shipped on the requested ship date and via the requested ship method. This Acknowledgement should be provided within 2 business hours.

7.    Electronic Proofs

Once you receive completed artwork you will respond electronically via your Buttonwood eCatalog with a proof within 24 hours.

8.    Production Alerts

Send electronic production alerts via your Buttonwood eCatalog to document any changes or adjustment to an order in a timely manner.

9.    Order Status Notification

Provide electronic confirmation of the ship date via your Buttonwood eCatalog on the day before the order ships.

10.  Shipment Costs and Notification

Provide tracking numbers and shipping costs via your Buttonwood eCatalog on the day you ship an order.

11.  Invoicing Notification

Provide final costs for an order via your Buttonwood eCatalog and accept payment from a distributor calculated using those costs.

Why do suppliers need to be invited?

Unlike many other promotional product industry service providers Buttonwood believes that driving more business to fewer suppliers is what creates profitable growth for a distributor.

Buttonwood encourages suppliers to leverage the relationship with one of Buttonwood’s existing customers to learn more about the platform and establish the basis for a successful implementation.  By working with one of our customers and identifying your shared goals you will be able to better understand the opportunities available to your on Buttonwood.

Past experience has shown that simply adding a supplier’s products to Buttonwood doesn’t always lead to a successful outcome. We also need a commitment by a supplier to support an ongoing effort to help our distributors remain successful. One of the best ways to make sure that a supplier can reliably support Buttonwood clients is to have them demonstrated that ability with one of our Trading Station clients.

What should a supplier talk to a distributor about before they join Buttonwood?

First you should define what you hope to achieve from your relationship with the distributor.  Talk about which products you hope to sell online, your sales targets for this products and how you hope to meet their end user client’s objectives using your supplier product offering. It’s important to measure what you’re trying to achieve so all parties can align their expectations with well defined outcomes.

What steps should a distributor take to start the process of inviting a supplier to join Buttonwood?

Once you’ve identified the supplier you want to work with and establish some shared goals and objectives you can ask them to follow these steps to get started.

To add a new supplier to Buttonwood please follow these steps:

1) Send Buttonwood a new site request with the supplier site name. This site name is an 8 character site name for the supplier usually a UPIC or some similarly descriptive. Do not use identifying numbers from other companies.

2) Work with that supplier to define your business objectives on Buttonwood. These might include defining the products you wish to sell on your sites and working with your supplier to establish sales targets and resource commitments.

3) This supplier will initially be restricted to working with your company until they have gained some experience working with the Buttonwood platform.

4) Buttonwood has support options available to suppliers once they have established a relationship with your company. You can ask them to contact us via the HELPDESK to explore our various support options.

All of us at Buttonwood wish you tremendous success in growing the eCommerce channel of your business and in presenting new and exciting offerings to your clients.