BuildLink – Using Supplier Portals For Ongoing Vendor Data Collection

Buildlink is a cooperative buying group with over 50 stores. The Buildlink group wanted to develop their eCommerce offering in response to the changing retail landscape. They pursued a strategy of building individual websites to showcase each of their member's stores.

In the early phases of the project, it became clear to BuildLink's agency Eva Systems, that sourcing supplier data would require too much time and resource to do in house efficiently given the broad product range.

At this point, they engaged Vesta eCommerce to source the supplier product data to populate the online stores with products.  

The solution for Buildlink centered around Vesta's Vendor Portals. Each Buildlink supplier was individually contacted and supported by the Vesta onboarding team to set them up with their supplier portal. 

"Without Vesta's relationship management of suppliers, we just wouldn't have the manpower to drive as many sign-ups as we have achieved." - Greg, Eva Systems.

Suppliers upload their product data to the portals in whichever format they have it. This flexibility is more straightforward and quicker than other vendor portals, which require suppliers to meet complex requirements for upload. This simplicity increases supplier engagement and compliance. 

The supplier data maps to the retailer's fields before being validated for errors, such as duplicate fields, missing attributes, or attributes in the wrong format. Suppliers are notified of errors to fix before the data flows through to Buildlink. 

This process dramatically improves the accuracy and completeness of the supplier data Buildlink receives.

The product information from all suppliers is brought together in the Vesta retail portal. This easy to use platform gives Buildlink a central place to store the data, track and accept updates, and enrich. This product data catalog is then available to fill Buildlink member's eCommerce stores with products.

A vital aspect of the solution is maintaining Buildlink's product catalog accuracy over time. Achieved by suppliers re-uploading their product data and images to their Vesta portals as they have updated information. The Vesta team continues to support and communicate with these suppliers with advice and reminders to upload.

Buildlink has established 96 vendor feeds and collected 35,000 products. Vesta has enabled Buildlink to provide its members with an extensive range of digital products to compete in the online retail space and meet their customers changing preferences for ordering online. 

Buildlink has gained enormous efficiencies as they continue to receive product updates in real-time from suppliers. With over 16,000 individual product updates and changes received from vendors in a month, requiring no manual work to integrate into their catalog.  

These benefits have resulted in productivity savings of close to one FTE for Buildlink, accompanied by a growing and thriving eCommerce business for the Buildlink group.  

"Vesta's supplier portals have made it easy for us to source the product data we need to build our network of multiple websites. The time savings have been enormous, both in sourcing the original data and the ongoing updates as suppliers change their range. It's allowed the BuildLink Group to list a larger product range online seamlessly as our suppliers update their database."

- Greg Hall, Buildlink