Success Stories

Activant Trading Partner Connect Helps Distributors Shed Costly Dead Stock and Save Money

"Dead stock can be poison to any distributor," says Earl Hubbard, inventory control manager at Quality Mill Supply, an Indiana-based MRO distributor. "If you have too much, you're in trouble. It can put you right out of business."

Todd Panici, operations manager at Action Industrial Supply, a Michigan-based general industrial supply distributor, agrees. "You're taking a huge loss when you have dead stock sitting on your shelves," he says, noting that, until recently, there weren't too many options for distributors to unload dead stock. "It was next to impossible to get rid of dead inventory," he adds. "Sometimes, we'd donate it to a white elephant sale. Other times, we couldn't do anything but throw it away and write it off. We've been in the business a long time, and up until now, there really wasn't a good way to get rid of dead inventory."

The "up until now" Panici is referring to is Activant Trading Partner Connect.

Activant Trading Partner Connect is designed to streamline the commerce process between distributors, their manufacturers/suppliers, and end-users, and increases sales and improves customer service while reducing operating costs. An added and proven benefit of the Internet trading network is that it also has the ability to drastically reduce a distributor's dead stock.

Case in point: When Quality Mill Supply received a list of dead and inactive stock items available for sale from Trading Partner Connect members, Hubbard saw several items of interest available from Action Industrial Supply, and contacted Panici.

During their discussion, Panici realized that Quality Mill had a large number of abrasive belts that he had just sold out of and that one of his customers desperately needed. Turns out that those belts happened to be dead stock for Quality Mill Supply.

Panici estimates that he saved at least 25 percent on the purchase, boosting his bottom line while helping a customer. The transaction also saved Quality Mill Supply from a trip to the liquidator. "We would have only gotten five to 10 cents on the dollar for those items," Hubbard contends.

Long-Term Results in a Short Time

Though Action Industrial Supply is relatively new to Trading Partner Connect, Quality Mill Supply has been a member of the Internet trading network since its inception in April 2001. "Joining Trading Partner Connect has more than paid for itself," Hubbard contends. "We've received a complete return on our investment. Already, we've sold almost $30,000 worth of dead stock on the network and have probably bought more than $20,000 from other distributors. We use it day in and day out." Panici predicts that Action Industrial Supply's investment in Trading Partner Connect will soon pay off. "I can see our dead inventory dropping by 30 or 40 percent," says Panici, "which is excellent, because in the past it wasn't going anywhere."

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