"Both sides would get what they wanted; that has always been our mantra." That sounds like a worthy goal in any relationship. How successful in real-world practice, though, is cultivation of the retailer-supplier pairing?

One of the world's great luxuries is education: you learn valuable lessons without having to pay all the costs of experience yourself. This particularly applies now to the problem of "e-tailing": it's clear that online and mobile purchases will be an important part of successful businesses. It's also evident that companies which make mistakes can waste millions in sales and years of good will: J. C. Penney, for instance, recently lost over a billion and a half dollars in market capitalization in three days as a new marketing strategy stumbled.

It's time for grocers to adopt Advance Ship Notices (ASNs)--but the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) of 2011 isn't the most pressing reason.