Vendor portals always strive to create the most convenient and favorable conditions for the customers, as their main goal is to strengthen and promote their own brand. Therefore, direct purchases of products from vendor portals are popular among the rest of the business chain representatives.
What is a vendor portal?
A vendor portal is a place where suppliers (small, medium, and big businesses) post their products and buyers find suitable goods themselves as well as buy them directly. The main objective of the vendor portal is to create a convenient platform for procurement participants as well as increase the transparency of procurement procedures and their automation. The vendor portal provides:
- Open access to procurement in all connected regions.
- A simple and clear mechanism for participation in procurements.
- Absolutely free participation, without fees and commissions (depends on vendor portal).
- Electronic contracting.
- Opportunity to analyze the market and potential competitors.
Suppliers can sell anything they like in the vendor portal. The main thing is that customers need it. Now on the vendor portals, there are more than 2.5 million goods: from desk calendars to sophisticated medical equipment. For example, with the help of the vendor portal, buyers can monitor the market, see the offers and prices of different suppliers. The same can suppliers. They even can determine what is in demand among buyers.
Suppliers can upload offers to the vendor portal and update them in packs right from their Excel spreadsheets. And in order not to miss any purchases, they just subscribe to the right categories. When something suitable appears on the vendor portal, they get an email.
The portal also analyzes procurements in which suppliers have participated and suggests similar ones. For example, if a supplier has already supplied printer paper to some organization, it’ll receive an instant notification as soon as someone needs office supplies again. If there are any technical problems with the portal, the support service helps to solve them.
How is a vendor portal useful for buyers and suppliers?
The vendor portal saves buyers time. They don’t have to meet with suppliers, stand in a queue, and sign a bunch of identical papers. This is because vendor portals work only with electronic documents that are definitely not lost and are always available for the participants of the purchase.
Through the vendor portal, buyers with consistent and predictable demand can get access to a great number of reliable suppliers. These suppliers don’t need to spend money on advertising, promotion, or calling potential customers – they just need to register for free. And these advantages attract most of them.
Suppliers get a lot of benefits working through the vendor portal.
Firstly, with the help of the vendor portal supplier can make itself known by posting information about its goods.
Second, the vendor portal is an additional sales channel that can bring supplier profits and new customers.
Third, the vendor portal can be used to analyze the market and price offers of the competitors. Fourthly, the price information on the website is regularly updated, unlike the prices in open sources and on the websites of competitors.
The vendor portal is a very convenient place that provides benefits to both businesses and suppliers. Both sides benefit from the interaction on the vendor portal.
Benefits of working through the vendor portal for businesses and suppliers
The first great advantage of the vendor portal is the possibility to involve small and medium businesses in the purchases.
The second great advantage of the vendor portal is the use of electronic document management in the single secure information space.
A convenient visual presentation and a single showcase for all purchases are also among the advantages of the vendor portal.
Pros of vendor portal for suppliers:
- Participation in the procurement management process by assessing the transparency and visibility of transactions.
- Mass downloads or processing of vendor offers from information systems.
- Up-to-date information thanks to mass updates of price lists.
- Opportunity to participate in procurements in any region.
Pros of vendor portal for buyers:
- The ability to choose the most reliable partner by objective information.
- Comprehensive rating, displaying suppliers depending on the quality of contracts and reputation.
- Selection of optimal quality-price ratio offers.
- Up-to-date and reliable data.
These are general advantages. Now let’s talk about certain benefits of cooperation with foreign suppliers through the vendor portal.
1. Improved visibility and turnover
Using vendor portals can provide complete visibility from invoice submission through receipt, approval, status, and payment. The vendor portal can ensure that suppliers` information is updated regularly.
2. Self-service
The vendor portal helps significantly reduce the number of emails, faxes, and phone calls related to receiving invoices and payment statuses that employees would otherwise have to deal with. This frees up their time, allowing them to focus on higher-priority tasks.
3. Increased reliability through automated notifications
The vendor portal can also be used to set up automatic notifications. This reduces the need for staff to remember and track dates while ensuring that all stakeholders are informed on time so that processes are not delayed.
4. Standardized processes
The ability of companies to track their suppliers and collect consistent data can be greatly enhanced when processes are standardized, and supplier portals can help streamline this process. A portal can provide a consistent approach to tasks such as data collection when working with different suppliers.
Vendor portals can help companies identify and eliminate bottlenecks. Bottlenecks result in workflows that take much longer than they should, and vendor portals make the entire process much faster and more efficient.
5. Improved document sharing and access to information
Vendor portals help companies share documents, which again improves efficiency in terms of communication and compared to the time it takes to email. Buyers and suppliers also get an opportunity to view shared data together, which allows for greater collaboration.
