Re: EDI vs E-Commerce Question - Pardon my ignorance...

It sounds that your company, like ours, does not market to the masses.  We 
market to manufacturers.  And yes I believe that traditional EDI is still 
strong.  We don't see people ordering much product from us this way.  There are 
even EDI interfaces to check order status.  And it's more effective this way.  
Deal with the exceptions.  However we will probably open up some extranet 
applications to allow customers to check out their order status.  For example, 
while I am sure that UPS has an EDI way to check on the status of a shipment, I 
have used their web site to check on an order status.  




CLEWIS@IQUEST.NET on 08/05/99 03:02:04 PM
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Subject:        EDI vs E-Commerce Question - Pardon my ignorance...

Hi Folks !

I'm at a small company and while we aren't quite ready for E-Commerce
JUST yet (just came off a Unix box and onto the AS/400 this past
January...) we are trying to learn all we can. We are a wholesale
distributor.

One BIG question I have is if a supplier decides to allow PO entry over
the internet how this works. Currently everything I've seen is you fire
up your browser and hit a site and get screens to input info.

This is A MAJOR manual process with all KINDS of possibilities for
errors, etc. No linkage back to companies native database, etc.

With EDI ordering on the other hand, you would enter a PO through your
NORMAL process/package and if EDI capable, the order would go out that
way. Your data base is updated and they get the info they need...

OK, so I MUST be missing something here with E-Commerce, PLEASE
enlighten me !! :-)

TIA,

Chuck

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