damn! i'm in the wrong business. i'm going to start one of these. here's the deal: you mail me a document on paper, i'll run it through my shredder for compliance and send the results back to you to see if you can load the resulting document. i'll do it for five bucks a document, and you pay the first class postage.
can't be any worse than what sps is offering! fwiw, this is not a new business plan. it's been around for five or six years. only now are the hubs hitting the mom and pop trading partners that feel this squeeze play. previously they dealt with the top 10% or 20%, and those customers ate the certification charges as a cost of doing business. and sps offers this service for free to the hubs. they make their money from the spokes. i also know - first hand - of a deal where they built an entire website back end and offered it to a hub ... for free. the hubs like nothing more than free development and support. Bob Ball wrote: >We too have had recent dealings with SPS Commerce. Last month we became >certified with a customer we had been trading EDI with for more than five >years. Now because SPS is their "outsourced" EDI managers, we had to test in >documents that the customer probably may never use. Previously with a >different trading partner, we went through a whole set of common >transactions (810, 850, 856, 860, 997) and, of course, had to pay their fees >for doing so, became certified, then we had to go through another test with >the same customer as "phase two" of the process. As Jeff mentioned, the data >we received was totally useless and became more of an exercise in futility. >This customer does not have the capability of processing the 810 or the 856 >yet. So while SPS got our money for testing these documents, our customer is >not even using them. > >The most recent test process finally included valid data, but we ended up >paying twice as much for one type of transaction (in other words, instead of >paying, lets say $150.00 for the complete test series of common documents. >We now had to pay $300.00 for "Ship-To DC" purchase order, Another $300.00 >for a Ship-To DC / Mark-for P.O., and another $300.00 for a Drop Ship P.O.). >Because we considered the relationship we have with our customer a valuable >one, we had to suck-it up and deal with it. It turned out that we were able >to process all but the Drop-Ship P.O. (because of some requirements to the >packing slips that the customer wanted were not requirements we could >satisfy). So we tested the remaining two P.O. types. In that series of >documents was a 753 - routing request, in which we would get back a 754 - >routing response, and we would have to return an additional 753 response to >their response with information that is contained in the 856 that we would >also transmit back AT THE SAME TIME. All this customer could do 3 months ago >were 850's and 997's. They could not even send us our UPC's in the 850's. We >set up a cross reference table with their SKU's. Three months later, >apparently according to SPS, they can now handle an 810, 850, 856, 860, 864, >997, 753, 754, and a returning 753. Wow, isn't technology great. It'll be >interesting to see how many of those documents we really have to trade... >I'm still waiting to go through the "phase two" of this certification >process. > >"forced testing experience" is an interesting, and accurate expression. >Unfortunately, I doubt if this will be the last we hear from them. > >Bob Ball >EDI Administrator >Hi-Tec Sports USA > > -----Original Message----- >From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of >Timothy Cronin >Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 11:37 AM >To: Jeff Garwick; Kotoyan, Michael; [email protected] >Subject: RE: [EDI-L] Excellent EDI Article from Line 56 > > > I've had more than one forced testing experience with SPS Commerce. Even >though we tested with them once for one customer, we had to go through it >again for the next. And the tests were the same. They didn't vary by >customer. > > The people who ran the test were not conversant in the actual >implementation guidelines of the company they were representing and the data >wasn't either. We could not possibly process the fake data they sent us >through our applications. We sent back transaction that matched the order >they sent us, but all that proved was that we can manually create EDI >transactions with a text editor. > > They did not use the sender IDs that would be used after go live so all of >the set up we did was throw away. So the test accompished nothing. > > > > Jeff Garwick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have had my run in with SPS Commerce for the first time last year. I >hope > it was the first and the last. I have never dealt with such an > organization. Lucky we are in an industry where any fees other than VAN >is > very uncommon. A few months ago I actually received a phone call "Sir >would > like to participate in a survey on SPS Commerce"? Who me? I would love > to!!! > > > > _____ > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Kotoyan, Michael > Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 3:53 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [EDI-L] Excellent EDI Article from Line 56 > > > http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?articleID=6946 > <http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?articleID=6946&TopicID=2> > &TopicID=2 > > This is an excellent article about some of EDI industry's most famous > racketeering techniques. > > > . > Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: > <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> > Access the list online at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L > <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L> > > > > > _____ > > YAHOO! 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