POST 1 EDI - WAY

Through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and point-of-sale data sharing programs, the internet provides various cost saving opportunities to supply chains.  Although the idea of data sharing was new, businesses were able to quickly capitalize on the benefit offered through point-of-sale programs which linked their company’s production information with vendors.   This allowed manufactures to keep inventories low while reducing costs associated with carrying inventory at manufacturing, plant, and dealer locations. Wal-Mart was one of the first adapters of this process.  They were able to perfect the just-in-time (JIT) model by linking their buying processes to their outside vendor’s computers.  When stock levels became low vendors were notified immediately by the point-of-sale systems which were directly connected to the cash register scanners at different store outlets. 

Through social media channels merchants that use EDI can also promote items that they have an overabundance of stock or they sell to sites such as overstock.com to offload.