Category: Electronic Commerce – EDI

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Home Depot B2B EDI “support” is a model of Asian outsourcing failure.

Home Depot outsourced it’s B2B and EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) support to India, Pakistan or somewhere in Asia long ago.  It’s a model demonstration of the failures that can come from outsourcing.  The long running jokes about Indian call center support embraced by US technology and telecommuncations companies have spread across almost all areas of I.T.   This particular failure on the part of Home Depot is of particular importance because it causes disruption in their vendor supply chain.

Honorable mention goes to Home Depot for their selection of unqualified candidates to work in their B2B support center.  Not only are they generally unhelpful and unknowledgeable regarding things like their own EDI mapping specifications, but Home Depot has found it acceptable to hire those who ONLY speak Farci or Urdu with almost zero ability to speak English.  This is no exaggeration or matter of interpretation.  My guess is the top of the totem pole in Atlanta probably isn’t even aware how bad the situation is with this language barrier.  I challenge anyone in their stateside senior management to call their own B2B support department and hold a conversation.  Our organization has been required to call in our Indian and Pakistani product managers to sit on calls and speak with the HD B2B support staff in their native language because they genuinely did not know the words in the English language to communicate high level technical information to our internal EDI staff or our application vendors.  This is when you know they’ve gone too far in their quest to offset costs.

Predictably Home Depot could play the “we can’t find U.S., Canadian or European workers with the skill set to fill these roles”.  Well, you didn’t find them in India or Pakistan either.  Furthermore the document specifications and translation sets are written in English code, specifically XML. If they can’t speak it my guess is they couldn’t read a map or the specification sets during training either.

We are at a point of impasse in our organization right now when it comes to turning up a new trading partnership for Home Depot Canadian distribution centers even though we have a signed supplier agreement because we literally can’t find anyone in Home Depot B2B who can communicate with us in English.  Furthermore when we engage our language translators they still can’t grasp technical concepts well enough to even provide us proper document specifications for their domestic and international programs.  This is why Home Depot’s long running B2B outsourcing initiative deserves a resounding FAIL.

Home Depot has millions of dollars to fix this problem and insure faster supply chain integration.  Apparently the decision not to fix the problem is completely based on trying not to pay U.S., Canadian or European technical specialists the wages such B2B and EDI expertise demands, opting instead for cheap, unqualified, outsourced Asian call center operatives who are at best ineffective in their roles and in many cases detrimental to vendor supply chain integration.

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Ripped off on Amazon. Bought a $3100+ switch. Received an End of Life 7 year-old switch worth $50

And Amazon couldn’t help despite the same thing happening to others according to reviews of the same seller called MC_A2. We shelved the switch upon receipt in February, intending to deploy it later in the year. The box had a UPC Code on it that said “Cisco CS_3850”. We ordered a 3850. When we finally opened the box we received a Cisco 2950, a switch that’s been End of Life for over 6 years.

So I called Amazon to let them know of the bait and switch. Another reviewer “Ron S.” had the exact same review in January 2018. Bought a 3850, got a 2950 in a 3850 box. The seller MC_A2 had a review history of shipping the wrong product going back to 2015. I failed to read these reviews, my fault. However, with such a review history why does this person still have an active Amazon seller account? Seems Amazon does as much policing of it’s sellers as it does the counterfeit merchandise all over their site. We canceled our Prime account on July 7th and I was considering re-subscribing. Not now, not ever. I will never purchase another item from Amazon ever. They are proving to be as dangerous as the early days of eBay and I let their customer service know. Notice how they point me to the manufacturer for a solution when this was a 3rd party reseller account. Amazon’s response wasn’t even competent.

“Hello Amy,

I’m sorry to hear your Cisco Catalyst WS-C3850-48P-S Ethernet Switch was not as expected. In my experience, the quickest way to have this issue resolved is to contact the manufacturer directly. You can find the manufacturer’s contact information here:

The manufacturer may require a proof of purchase, such as an invoice, before they’ll send you a replacement part. You can view and print an invoice for your order from this link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/summary/print.html?orderID=114-9803718-8015459

If you’ve contacted the manufacturer and they can’t help, please send us a summary of that correspondence and we’ll work on another solution.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

We’d appreciate your feedback. Please use the buttons below to vote about your experience today.

Best regards,
Kyla O.
Amazon.com”

“It’s quite alright. We canceled our Prime account on July 7th anyway and won’t be back. $3100+ is a real punch from a bait and switch seller with a review history of ripping people off while Amazon allows to continue to sell with a 100% negative rating in 2018, bait and switch review history going back as far as 2015. I am also the IT Director for (retracted) out of NC. That’s who I procured the switch for. I will no longer be buying anything on Amazon for the organization either. Not so much as a phone case. With a history of not catching counterfeit products, a proven ability to be ripped off as easily as the early days of Ebay, reports of horrible working conditions for employees I cannot understand Amazon’s success. Pop culture success is all it comes down to, just like Apple. Inferior but praised by the masses. I’ll tell this story in full, with proof of how I (we) were ripped off by an Amazon Seller in hopes it will discourage anyone else from shopping on the site. I know you laugh at such assertions with full Amazon arrogance but I can assure you it will make at least a few people reconsider their unjustified faith in your website. And after all is hyped to the max that’s all it is, a retail website. One that is increasingly difficult to sell through (ya, I support AS2 EDI connections to Amazon for reseller accounts as well) and now has proven it is less secure for buyers than many, many other retail sites. Such as serversupply.com where I just procured the replacement switch. I’ll think of Amazon as I’m throwing the 7 year old unit we lost $3100 on into the trash. Then I’ll post this reply to customer service on my blog as warning to others that YES, it is possible to be completely ripped off on wonderful Amazon without recourse”.

And a follow up:

“Oh and by the way I did contact Cisco, the manufacturer.  Why would they help?  Why would they know what the hell I’m talking about?  This bait and switch product came from a 3rd party reseller, MC_A2, who has nothing to do with Cisco.  A reseller you continue to allow to sell on your site despite a review history of bait and switch.  This is a matter of Amazon policing sellers about as well as you police for counterfeit products.  You rely on 3rd party sellers for 40% of your sales and it seems as long as you get your percentage you don’t care who they’re ripping off – let ’em hang out and play right?”

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Oh ya! SPS Commerce is operating “in the red”. Losing over $1 for every $100 in sales!

And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving batch of E-Commerce ignorance. I guess their vendor-ransom model isn’t working out like it used to yet they continue to increase executive compensation. Gangstas gonna get paid first right? Even if they aren’t making sales. This is a great win for the vendors in the supply chain world wide. May SPS Commerce wither and die as investors who know nothing about EDI continue to be boondoggled by these charlatans with their maniacal business model. They are a plague upon the supply chain and I could post even more, new communications with SPS that would leave many who truly know about EDI shaking their head. Incompetence and in-effective document testing continue to rule their days and yes SPS, I have the proof. Just stop undermining the E-Commerce industry with your practices and incompetent technicians and you may stave off the inevitable. I also won’t be removing any more comments on this site posted by your former employees who attest to your failures first hand. Sounds like everyone’s catching on to you. It was inevitable.

Seeking Alpha says “Avoid” SPSC: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4164342-sps-commerce-avoid

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More evidence of costly, ineffective EDI Document testing by SPS Commerce

Here’s another email between an EDI Analyst and a map developer regarding an SPS customers documents after they made the choice to let SPS hijack their customer base for an ineffective testing ransom.  Will it ever stop?  Will the incompetence and gouging ever be outed?

Hi Margarita,

 

We’re still trying to sort out the issues we’re having with these ALL*** Invoices since switching to their new connection.

We received the below communication from them advising the required freight charges are not showing on the 810 and that these should come through the SAC loop. The Specs for this is attached for your reference.

 

I’m not sure why this is happening? as I copied the Tested TP kit when switching to their new EDI Connection. So everything that was tested and confirmed as passed should match. I’m beginning to think SPSCommerce did a poor job with handling ALL***’s document testing because when I look back to TEST invoices, none of them included this SAC segment. Therefor it should have failed during the testing period.   

 

Reminder: We do not receive POs via EDI for this TP.

TDOC Name: ALL_810_4010X_TRIM2

 

Example of 810 (All Pro New)

ISA*00*          *00*          *01*044381234      *ZZ*ALLPROCORP     *180105*1008*U*00401*000000036*0*P*>

GS*IN*044381234*ALLPROCORP*20180105*1008*70*X*004010

ST*810*000000005

BIG*20171229*INV0670665*20171228*366884***DI

REF*SW*SOD0141885

N1*SE*Trimaco, LLC*92*7950

N1*BY*Miller Paint Co. – AllPro*92*5240

N4*Puyallup*WA*98373-2414**SN*0195

N1*ST*Miller Paint Co. – AllPro

N3*14207 Meridian E*Bldg C

N4*Puyallup*WA*98373-2414

ITD*01**2*20180128***0*****2% EOM/Net 15th

DTM*011*20171231

IT1**64*EA*8.85**MG*84075*BP*84075

CTP***8.85

PID*F****One Tuff Wiping Cloth  75/box 8bx/cs

TDS*69647

CTT*1

SE*17*000000005

 

 

 

 

Thank you,

 

Desireé ******* | Systems Analyst – EDI | *******, LLC

D: ***.***.***

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Current Projects

  1. Installing a NetApp FAS2020 filer with an active-active controller configuration.
  2. Migrating recently acquired EDI accounts to Trimaco’s site ID and qualifier.
  3. Procuring a new Dell Latitude for more extensive Windows 7 testing.
  4. Spinning up LUNs on the new SAN to move SQL data on to for testing.
  5. A Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains 10 upgrade.
  6. Upgrading vSync too…
  7. Procuring a new PIX firewall to replace our legacy unit (the sh running config is extensive).
  8. Deploying two laptops to the field (hopefully the last XP units).
  9. Upgrading Label Matrix / Label View.
  10. Remodeling our bathrooms at home.
  11. Kitchen counters maybe?
  12. Nothing else because I can’t handle it in February or March.  I’m booked.
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SPS Commerce proves what a joke they are….again.

I’ve decided to post this email string from Amanda McFarlane at SPS Commerce.  Read through it and decide for yourself just how useful and effective SPS Commerce is as an “outsourced EDI solution”.

Please note that I was told that we must complete the testing detailed in the email by a certain date or face fines and penalties, imposed by SPS Commerce, and potentially jeopardize our relationship with OUR customer who is detailed in the email string.

I’ll let the email speak for itself as to SPS Commerce’s effectiveness.  Never have I loathed a company and their business practices as much as SPS Commerce who claim they are “the intelligent way to work with trading partners”.  Since when is ineffective, unnecessary, fake document exchange testing “intelligent”?

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