punchout Archives - EqualLevel

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The Power of PunchOut: Enhancing Your Sales Strategy with a PunchOut Store

August 17, 2023September 5, 2023

As more companies embrace eProcurement, it is important to utilize and understand how implementing a PunchOut store can help you drive sales, improve customer satisfaction, and streamline your supplier business strategy.

What is PunchOut?

PunchOut catalogs are eCommerce storefronts that allow institutions, government agencies, and corporate buyers to access and purchase a supplier’s products directly from their procurement systems. Similar to an online catalog where you would shop for clothing, PunchOut speeds the ordering and approval processes for issuing purchase orders.

PunchOut catalogs have specific requirements that make purchasing simple

Traditional B2B or B2G purchasing methods can get time consuming and difficult to manage, requiring buyers to visit multiple supplier websites independently. By creating an integrated experience between buyers and suppliers, PunchOut ensures cost-efficient, error-free transactions and strengthens vendor relationships.

Benefits of PunchOut

The PunchOut process brings numerous benefits to both buyers and suppliers. For buyers, having a unified storefront offers a user-friendly, streamlined shopping experience, reducing manual data entry and the risk of errors. Additionally, it ensures compliance with procurement policies and budget controls. For suppliers, PunchOut fosters closer relationships with buyers, leading to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. It also simplifies the process of managing product catalogs and pricing, as updates are reflected in real-time on the buyer’s procurement system.

Step-by-Step PunchOut Process

Though it may seem complicated, the PunchOut process is actually very simple. Here’s the breakdown on how it works:

1. Initiation:

The PunchOut process begins when a buyer logs in to their eProcurement system (e.g., an eProcurement platform like EqualLevel Marketplace, Ariba, Coupa, etc). From their dashboard, they initiate the punch out process by selecting the preferred supplier they wish to connect with. This session allows real-time interaction and data exchange between the two platforms.

2. Shopping:

In order to shop, a buyer is “punched out” to their supplier’s website, seamlessly navigating to the catalog within the eProcurement system. With EqualLevel GO, supplier’s eCommerce websites become built-in extensions of their buyer’s procurement system.

Within the PunchOut catalog, the buyer can browse through the supplier’s products, view detailed descriptions, compare prices, and add items to their cart. All product information, including pricing and availability, is retrieved in real-time from the supplier’s database.

3. Cart Transfer:

After the buyer has finished shopping, they add selected items to a cart within the PunchOut catalog. When they are finished, the buyer’s cart will be transferred back to their eProcurement system to await approval.

4. Approval:

Back in the buyer’s eProcurement system, the cart content is reconciled, allowing their organization’s purchasing authority to review the order.

5. Purchase Generation:

Once the cart is approved, the buyer’s eProcurement system automatically generates a purchase order using cXML coding language containing the information from the PunchOut session. This order is sent to the supplier to fulfill, completing the purchase process.

PunchOut with EqualLevel

PunchOut is a transformative technology that revolutionizes the procurement process for all businesses. By integrating a buyer’s procurement system with their supplier’s catalog, PunchOut enhances user experience, improves operational efficiency, and empowers organizations with valuable data insights to make informed decisions.

With EqualLevel GO, we ensure a seamless and user-friendly PunchOut shopping experience, enabling your buyers to easily access, purchase, and checkout from your catalogs within our system. Our platform has full PunchOut capabilities and empowers clients with unparalleled cost efficiency. Get set up with a personalized PunchOut store toexpand your connections with unlimited access to EqualLevel clients, automate andsimplify the purchasing process, eliminate manual errors, and reduce administrative overhead. Choose EqualLevel to promote your business’ eCommerce excellence.

Further reading:

For more information on PunchOut, including guides and other tools, check out punchoutcommerce.com.
Click here to learn more about EqualLevel solutions and how they can help you!

Our team of experts is always happy to help, contact us to get started.

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Blog

GPO Utilizes eProcurement Marketplace to Bring Vendor Catalogs Under One Umbrella

May 1, 2023August 24, 2023

For GPO Catholic Purchasing Services (CPS), the use of PunchOut sites, where suppliers are responsible for their own product listings, is imperative. Handling the descriptions, photos, and other product details for their 200 vendors’ tens of thousands of products, on top of their other critical duties, would prove overwhelming for CPS’s seven employees. Instead, CPS utilizes EqualLevel’s eProcurement marketplace to bring all of their vendors’ catalogs under one umbrella.

About Catholic Purchasing Services

Founded in 1988 and located in Newton, Massachusetts, CPS began offering products at a discount to their members via a printed catalog before moving their catalog online in 2010. While CPS’s procurement service is offered through the Catholic Church, membership is open to 501(c)(3) faith-based organizations of all denominations. 25 percent of the market share, which is comprises churches, schools, and nursing homes, are CPS members.

CPS brands and partners include KI, OSV, Smith System, National Public Seating, Staples, Xerox, Sherwin Williams, Slabbinck, School Health, Virco, Quadient, Root Candles, Cavanagh, Cintas, and School Specialty, among many others.

EqualLevel’s eProcurement Marketplace

In 2019, CPS conducted a search for a robust eProcurement system that could be integrated with their existing ERP, NetSuite SuiteCommerce. The organization was impressed with EqualLevel’s partnerships with Staples and other large suppliers. The idea of leveraging EqualLevel’s relationships to offer more vendors and products to their members was appealing. “EqualLevel was by far the best value for the investment,” said O’Hara. “We looked at a lot of other sites that were more expensive and they could not deliver the connections that EqualLevel’s marketplace already had built right in,” she continued. “The technology behind their platform is sound. It gives us a sense of security knowing that EqualLevel is hosting everything and has robust security and connection.”

With just one click, EqualLevel’s solution gives CPS’s roughly 9,000 members access to hundreds of vendors and their products, at special contract pricing and with extended terms. “With EqualLevel’s PunchOut sites, we don’t need to host SKU’s–that’s all done via the suppliers. The marketplace largely supports itself so we don’t have to worry about anything except marketing the site,” said Mary Schell O’Hara, CPS CEO since June 2022.

Growth

CPS’s site includes six critical vendors brought to the marketplace through partnerships with EqualLevel, including Staples. The ability to offer these vendors’ products at a discount to members has had a significant positive impact on the organization’s growth and draw. Since adopting the EqualLevel marketplace in 2019, CPS’s growth in numbers of transactions and dollars has been 25 percent year over year, even with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic factored in.

Sung Oh, EqualLevel’s Vice President of Technical Operations & Support, said of the relationship, “We have enjoyed our partnership with Catholic Purchasing Services and are proud of the tailored marketplace solution we have created to meet their needs. We’ve integrated with their WordPress and NetSuite SuiteCommerce applications for ease of access and a streamlined shopping experience for their members.”

Onboarding New Suppliers

CPS continues to work closely with EqualLevel to bring new vendors to their marketplace. They recently added a partner of many years, Regency Lighting, after receiving requests from members to add a lighting supplier to the site. CPS has been working with Regency Lighting and EqualLevel to connect the supplier’s PunchOut site to the marketplace. “Sung and his team are very easy to work with. We have had no issues with technical help and expertise. The support they have offered has been tremendous,” said O’Hara. Regency Lighting will go live on CPS’s site in early 2023.

The Future for CPS and EqualLevel

In the future, CPS hopes to take advantage of some of the marketplace’s other functionality, including the built-in approval workflow component. This piece allows members to analyze and control spend, as well as put approvals in place. “We are planning to grow the platform by adding new suppliers. We want to leverage EqualLevel’s partnerships and also bring on new vendors. We definitely have EqualLevel in our long term plans,” O’Hara concluded.

For more information on Catholic Purchasing Services, visit www.catholicpurchasing.org.

Click here to read how EqualLevel has helped other cooperatives and GPO’s.

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Case Study

Small Business Sees Yearly Sales Increases Since Creating PunchOut Store

September 19, 2022October 17, 2023

There are not many businesses today that can claim to have employed five generations of people from the same family but, after being in business for over 113 years, Midwest Technology Products can say just that. Today, Midwest Technology Products works exclusively with educators worldwide, providing quality products, furniture and supplies for makerspaces and fab labs, as well as Career & Tech Ed and STEM instructional spaces. In 2013 when their customers started transitioning to eProcurement, which favored vendors with the capability to PunchOut to their marketplaces, Midwest Technology Products knew it was time to create a PunchOut store for their 500-page catalog.

About Midwest Technology Products

Located in Sioux City, Iowa, Midwest Technology Products is a small (just under 20 employees), woman and minority-owned business that offers 11,000 products from 700 vendors. Through their unmatched customer service, they have built relationships with a broad network of school purchasers including teachers, administrators, purchasing agents, and curriculum directors.

Unlike a lot of their competitors, Midwest provides consulting for the layout and equipment requirements of their clients’ projects. They have designed and installed hundreds of specialty workspaces filled with durable, trade quality tools and equipment and their project management team can see a project through from specifications to coordinated delivery. They also offer kits, so customers have everything they need to make labs or makerspaces on their own. In addition, their products are unique; many of the items in their catalog cannot be found anywhere else online.

Midwest Partners With EqualLevel to Create eCommerce Site

In 2013, in order to continue to reach their customers who were transitioning to private marketplaces, Midwest Technology Products partnered with EqualLevel to create a PunchOut store. EqualLevel’s catalog management software, EqualLevel GO, offers small OEMs or distributors who may have limited IT capabilities the opportunity to establish a PunchOut catalog store, or PunchOut store, that integrates with ERPs. This allows the products from small companies to appear alongside those of their bigger competitors in the eProcurement marketplaces of large-scale buying organizations such as purchasing cooperatives and school districts.

To transfer their catalog, Robin Peterson, former President, was tasked with creating the line item data for Midwest’s 11,000 products including creating key words, sourcing images, and writing short- and long-form descriptions. The information was then sent to EqualLevel and through EqualLevel GO, they were able to create Midwest’s PunchOut store.

PunchOut Opens Doors

Midwest’s PunchOut store has opened doors that were previously closed to them due to their lack of eCommerce capabilities. They have been able to get in front of public sector organizations as well as other markets previously inaccessible to them. It has also improved their bottom line in other ways. Just through having all the specifications of their 11,000 products online, they have been able to reach more customers and make more sales. “Even when people don’t order through the website, and call in an order instead, our eProcurement marketplace has still served a purpose as a marketing tool. Most of the time the client will have used the site to learn and discover first, before picking up the phone to order.”

Since engaging with EqualLevel and transitioning to eCommerce, Midwest has not looked back. “Every year since creating our PunchOut store we have seen sales increase,” said Peterson. By utilizing EqualLevel GO to facilitate the creation of their eCommerce site, they now reach more customers in their target market than ever before.

Blog

How EqualLevel GO “Levels the Playing Field” for Small & Disadvantaged Businesses

August 19, 2022October 26, 2023

When making purchases, procurement professionals expect the same functionality they experience as consumers shopping online at home. They want a seamless experience between their purchasing or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, and their approved vendors’ most up-to-date product and pricing information. In order to do this, businesses need to have a PunchOut store or the capability to PunchOut. Because this can be technologically complex, public sector organizations often inadvertently favor larger, more sophisticated vendors with this capability, and small businesses can get left in the dust.

“Every year since we have had our PunchOut store, sales have increased.”

Robin Peterson
Midwest Technology Products

How can small/disadvantaged vendors compete against the big guys, especially if don’t have an online presence already?

EqualLevel GO gives small OEMs or distributors, who may have limited IT capabilities, the opportunity to establish a PunchOut catalog store, or PunchOut store, that integrates with ERPs. This allows small companies to appear alongside their larger competitors.

A PunchOut store is a web-based, supplier-managed catalog storefront. The PunchOut store can be custom built on top of an existing eCommerce site or, more commonly, managed for the supplier by a third-party solution provider. Buying organization employees can access the supplier’s PunchOut store directly from their eProcurement marketplace, also known as “punching out” to the supplier’s site, or “PunchOut.” PunchOut allows the organization to maintain full control over order approval and payment.

How PunchOut works

The customer connects, or “punches out,” from their company’s system to a supplier’s eCommerce site. The PunchOut site identifies the buying organization and displays the appropriate products and prices. The shopper searches and selects goods they wish to purchase and adds them to their cart on the PunchOut site. At the end of the shopping session, the shopper checks out, which sends descriptions and prices of the goods placed in their cart to their ERP system.

Benefits of EqualLevel GO

EqualLevel GO’s PunchOut commerce site is scalable, easy-to-use and administer, and is provided at no charge to sellers when combined with EqualLevel’s buy-side eProcurement Marketplace solution.

EqualLevel GO customers experience tangible benefits, such as:

Increased Average Order Value

A PunchOut catalog store, combined with up-selling and cross-selling, is a powerful combination that increases total and average order value. Suppliers can show related and complementary products in their PunchOut store shopping cart and can anticipate and make adjustments that will increase the average sale.

Greater Ability to Attract Big Customers

When it comes to gaining large customers, a PunchOut catalog store is a win-win. Big enterprises are often on the lookout for suppliers who can allow them to order directly through their ERP procurement system. For many large organizations, PunchOut is a ”must-have” for engagement.

Improved Sales Productivity

A PunchOut catalog store streamlines the sales process because it produces more accurate orders. This means less time is spent correcting orders, which improves response times and overall productivity.

Improved Customer Relationships

By simplifying the purchasing process, suppliers strengthen customer relationships by receiving and responding to orders more quickly.

Click here to learn more about EqualLevel GO.

Further Reading

Small/disadvantaged customers like Midwest Technology Products, GBEX, and El Paso Office Products have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, EqualLevel GO to ensure their products are showing up in the search results of big buyers. Below are their stories:

Supplier Spotlight: Midwest Technology Products

Supplier Spotlight: El Paso Office Products

Supplier Spotlight: GBEX

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Blog

Time is Money: Learn How to Save Both with an Online Procurement Platform

March 16, 2021October 12, 2023

Manual and paper-based procurement processes have been plagued with inefficiencies. Whether it be requisitioning, ordering, invoice reconciliation, or payment processing, the outdated, inflexible, and costly purchasing systems in use restrict the ability to conduct broad-based procurement with the supply community. But what if there was an “easy” button for the procurement process? EqualLevel’s online procurement platform allows organizations to quickly implement a cloud-based, multi-vendor, procure-to-pay marketplace that ensures compliance and can be accessed anywhere, at any time. With increased transparency, efficiency, and compliance, the marketplace enables organizations to conduct business in the office or remotely, and it provides greater access into an approved, fully digital supply network.

Over the last two decades, eCommerce has exploded in the consumer world with companies like Amazon making buying almost anything as easy as 1-2-3. By digitizing the procurement process, the shopping experience for businesses can be just as simple and can lead to increased savings and operational efficiency.

The marketplace seamlessly integrates with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems so that all approved suppliers/vendors and all goods and services managed by procurement are located in one easy-to-use, easy-to-administer system. It spans the entire procurement lifecycle, from punch-out commerce solutions to shopping for goods or services, approval workflow, catalog and contract pricing, purchase order automation,and receipt-invoice matching.

The Benefits of An Online Procurement Platform

Organizations that have implemented an eProcurement marketplace have quickly recognized the many benefits of digitizing the procurement process. To list a few:

Efficiency: By automating a significant portion of the procurement process, an eProcurement marketplace leads to faster cycle times and improved productivity. The elimination of paper and manual steps also frees up time for employees to focus on more value-added activities.

Cost Saving: Cost-saving with an eProcurement system comes not only from ordering through preferred vendors but also from increased spend visibility. The EqualLevel Savings Advisor (ELSA) analyzes quotes to ensure the best value and uses machine learning to become smarter with every purchase. Utilizing a real-time, federated search across punchout sites, similar to Travelocity or Orbitz, data is collected from distributed sources and artificial intelligence (AI) technology uses this data to identify savings opportunities.

Compliance: Implementing a one-stop, multi-vendor punchout marketplace of all approved suppliers and contracts ensures compliance with state and federal regulations. The system automatically creates a three-bid process to determine product price, select the supplier (among approved vendors), and create the requisition or shopping cart for approval.

Transparency: eProcurement also makes it easier to conduct and analyze reports on procurement systems in order to ensure that the procedures conform to established policies. Real-time visibility into what supplies employees are purchasing and from which vendors provides valuable business insight and eliminates maverick spending.

Innovating an outdated procurement process with an online eProcurement marketplace provides a single, seamless platform to facilitate the shop-order-pay transaction. It provides employees with a more streamlined and efficient experience so they can optimize every dollar spent and every moment doing so.

When it comes to procurement, time is money. Neither time nor money should be wasted. Isn’t it time for your organization to hit the easy button and jump in?

Learn more about the EqualLevel eProcurement marketplace here.

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