Sports Image Selects SPS' Service to Improve VMI Process

Sports Image, a designer and provider of custom decorated apparel and accessories with more than 1,300 retail partners, has selected SPS' Trading Partner Intelligence service to improve its vendor managed inventory (VMI) process.

According to SPS Commerce officials, the service provides Sports Image's inside sales staff with online access to store-level inventory reports and interactive analyses, resulting in improved sales for its retail partners.

Trading Partner Intelligence it is a completely outsourced service, with SPS Commerce providing the technology, staffing and data integration, and contacting retailers to secure data as needed.

Sports Image delivers apparel and related items that are branded with local high school team colors, mascots and logos to local or chain grocery retailers.

"Based on their extensive merchandising expertise, our inside sales staff is highly skilled in meeting our customers' unique needs. However, until recently, our staff spent too much time and energy calling stores to gain a true inventory picture," said Kris Koberg, president and CEO at Sports Image.

Koberg said that to support the company’s growth, Sports Image tried several approaches to gather this information and provide it to the sales department more effectively. All of these approaches were too manual or not scalable.

“We selected SPS' Trading Partner Intelligence service last year as it leverages our retailers' 852 EDI transactions to provide our staff with online reporting and analysis of store-level data. It is exactly what we needed to boost our revenues and those of our retail partners," he said.

SPS Commerce officials said that its Trading Partner Intelligence service gives consumer goods suppliers insight into their supply chain operations by aggregating and analyzing data from multiple sources--including data from retail customers, 3PLs, carriers, sourcing companies, QA firms, carriers, brokers and other trading partners.

Officials said that the Trading Partner Intelligence service for VMI helps business users better identify and understand point of sales (POS) data across customers, products, categories and locations.