When it comes to choosing your suppliers, it should be high quality over quantity.
For folks looking at new suppliers, we encourage you to consider these six points before placing your orders with the suppliers:
1. Innovation amongst suppliers
It's important to work with vendors that believe in the benefits of change.
Look for those suppliers that are keen to experiment, learn and adapt but also have the capacity to teach and implement new practices in your own company.
2. Suppliers with deep pockets
You don't want to be commit to anything before completing a financial health check on a potential new supplier. This stands especially true for smaller ones.
3. Diversity in terms of suppliers
In the same token that you should have a diverse supply chain, you want the same from your vendors. Try to get your hands on as much information as possible on their supply network and foresee any potential risks you could mitigate and prepare for. This also helps in building supply chain resilience.
4. A global presence amongst suppliers
A global network of suppliers can help you to protect against the impact of local supply shocks and support your own expansion plans.
5. Suppliers using the right technology
You should be working want to be working with suppliers who are using tech based solutions to make processes, updates and interactions as smooth as possible. It becomes easier to work with suppliers that use the best purchase order tools on the market.
Imagine a world where there was automated order processing and real-time order status.
6. Sustainability
Sustainability should be a top of the list priority for all retailers and should be on top of the mind of your suppliers as well.
Find vendors that are enthusiastic about working towards sustainable goals and help you to implement the infrastructure for making this a reality.
We discuss all these points in a community webinar with Limited Supply Slack D2C group.
After considering these six points, it's also important to choose the right purchase order management app to make it easy to create, track and manage purchase orders for these suppliers.
