A complication to this matter is fact that different retailers exclude certain information from either their EDI or their portal or both. For example, higher end department stores tend to exclude On Hand and Dollars from their EDI. Others, such as Dillard’s do not offer Dollars on their web portal or in their EDI.

If you are interested in a list what retailers do and do not provide in EDI and/or web portal, please click here to submit that request.

Since important information may be missing from either the portal or both, we have agreed to add a feature that would marry the data from both. We are also looking into ways to automate the extraction of POS data from vendor portals, as we have done with their EDI.

One final note: Some or our clients have asked for the ability to enter Out the Door Dollars themselves. So far we have resisted this idea as we feel it to be dangerous. Any amount entered would be an estimate or guess or based on a survey of a limited number of doors. If this number is off and the vendor bases a discussion on it, they could jeopardize their credibility with their retail partner thus defeating the whole purpose of such analysis.

What do you think?