Store Closings

2010 is starting off with announcements of more store closings. Foot Locker plans to close 117, Sam's Club 10, Ann Taylor 163, Macy's 11, Blockbuster up to 960, Borders and Waldenbooks 200, f.y.e. 149, Food Lion 15, and Movie Gallery up to 1,000. While 2010 should prove to be a more positive year for retailers, these store closings are likely a strategic move in terms of profitability. Suppliers should pay close attention to orders for the targeted stores and verify whether they should be shipped in light of these announcements.

Increased Port Traffic Expected

The National Retail Federation and IHS Global Insight are forecasting a rise in containerized imports according to Port Tracker, their monthly report evaluating traffic at ten major U.S. ports. This is good news as increased imports means Retailers are ordering more merchandise - an expectation that sales will rise. Things may be looking up in the retail industry and for the economy as a whole.

CPSIA Workshop

The Consumer Product Safety Commission held a two-day workshop on CPSIA last week focusing on testing programs and product labeling. Numerous interested parties attended to render feedback to the CPSC about the challenges they are facing. Currently, the CPSC is accepting comments by January 11, 2010 on testing; instructions for submitting comments are at the end of the workshop agenda. Session recordings and presentations are now available on the CPSC site at http://www.cpsc.gov/about/cpsia/cpsiatesting.html.

GXS and Inovis Tie The Knot!

Yesterday, GXS and Inovis announced an agreement to merge some time in the first half of 2010. While change is hard, the merger could be good for suppliers. GXS and Inovis are two of the most commonly approved EDI service providers for major retailers and instead of having to do business with one, the other, or both at the same time, suppliers will have a single entity to work with. This could translate to lower costs with an expanded range of service offerings at their fingertips. For more on the announcement, see http://www.gxs.com/inovis/.

Federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Reform

After reading an article on TSCA reform, I couldn't help but notice the similarities to the CPSIA - particularly the need for manufacturers to provide the EPA with information proving their products are safe. Most manufacturers, in one way or another, have been affected by the CPSIA and the hinderance it created, especially in terms of manufacturers having their products tested for lead and phthalates content that were never designed for nor should ever come in contact with a child and then having to obtain and maintain proof of their products' safety to the CPSC upon request. The premise for TSCA reform sounds good - to place the burden on chemical companies to prove the chemicals within a product will not inflict harm - however, the surrounding language seems to place more of the burden on the manufacturers themselves. Right now, the call for reform is just that - a call; only a hearing has taken place. Stay tuned, though - no one knew CPSIA would turn out to be the monster it has... This could go either way.

How Are You Using The Clearinghouse?

Keen as ever to improve the Clearinghouse in order to further facilitate your ability to stay abreast of and organize changes to retailers' requirements, we'd like to hear from you regarding your use of the Clearinghouse on a regular basis. How is the Clearinghouse assisting you with change management? Do you log on to the website to review the details of changes that occur or do you just use the abridged information that appears on the e-mail alert? How often do you review changes in the Clearinghouse? And do you have any "it would be great if the Clearinghouse had..." ideas that you'd like to share with us?

We'd love to hear from you! The Clearinghouse was designed to help you manage changes to retailer's requirements with ease, accuracy, and timeliness. We offer demos to individuals or groups and we have an FAQ document available on the site. Look forward to your feedback!

Internal Communication in Vendor Companies

I received a very interesting question the other day that, I believe, warrants more discussion. The question pertained to how vendor companies are handling the process of collecting and then dispersing compliance requirements to all necessary parties within their organizations. The main concerns are that compliance information is not always received timely, not always updated in their organizations timely, not interpreted by associates properly, or not being followed as required.

This certainly evokes other questions of importance that essentially every vendor should be asking:

• Do you have a process in place for obtaining compliance requirements for all of your trading partners?
• Once you obtain these requirements, how are you communicating updates and changes to affected departments/associates within your organization?
• Is the process you have in place effective and if not, what are you doing to "seal the cracks"?
• Is the process you have in place easy to use for those who must respond to the actions that must be taken?

Furthermore, what are your peers doing that you can implement to make your process easier and/or more efficient? Are there software applications out there that can address this issue?

Over the years, many of you have been kind enough to share your solutions with me. The best ones I’ve encountered are the password protected websites or intranet sites that some vendors are using for internal communication. Essentially, the vendor has a website set up that associates within their organizations have to check on a regular basis (similar to how vendors have to check retailers’ sites now). The sites often house full copies of their retailers’ guides, internal instructions on systematic or procedural changes that must take place, etc. To monitor site traffic, a log-in report is provided to vendor compliance and follow up can be done if certain associates aren’t logging in regularly. It is also possible to implement this type of thing to lesser degrees such as via a dedicated share folder in Outlook or via a share drive on your company's network. Another successful avenue is the implementation of weekly meetings with the various departments responsible for the PO to cash cycle (or beyond, if necessary) to go through all things compliance related. Usually a master list of assignments is kept and each item is updated as to status every week.

Additionally, I'd like to note that there is no longer a limitation on Clearinghouse access; you can now set up as many people in your company as you’d like for Clearinghouse alerts. The more people in your organization that are "in the know" about compliance requirements, the better. Might as well get them hot off the press!

So, what are you doing to address this in your company? Do you have a process that works or a solution you can share? Please do!