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B2B procurement involves big-ticket transactions and complex processes of sourcing the goods.

Traditional B2B procurement professionals face challenges like long purchase cycles, inefficiencies, and misaligned communication between the buyers and the sellers. If your business struggles, in the same way, it is time to look beyond the traditional procurement process and adopt solutions that simplify your online purchase.

PunchOut technology simplifies B2B transactions

PunchOut serves as an electronic communication system between the buyer’s eProcurement system and a supplier’s online store. This makes it easy for buying organizations to browse, select and compare supplier’s catalog items directly through their eProcurement systems.

A PunchOut website resembles an eCommerce website but adds unique functionality to communicate with procurement systems through cXML (Commerce extensible Markup Language) or OCI (open catalog interface) standards.

Punchout Integration – How Does It Work?

Here’s a quick overview of how PunchOut communication takes place:

1. Connect: Buyers log into their procurement application, where they initiate the PunchOut connection and the respective supplier’s data is transferred into the PunchOut catalog.
2. Shop: Once connected, the buyer browses the store, adds items to the shopping cart, and checks out. At checkout, the shopping cart is redirected to the buyer’s eProcurement application.
3. Purchase Order: Once redirected, the PunchOut solution checks approvals, budget applications, and accounting information. After full approval, the buyer’s ERP sends the order for the fulfillment process.
4. Shipment Notice: To track shipment, the PunchOut catalog sends Advanced Shipment Notice (ASN) to the buyer.
5. Invoice & Reporting: Once the delivery is complete, PunchOut generates electronic invoices and sends them back to the buyer organization for financial approvals.

How Can Companies Outsmart Competition With eCommerce PunchOut Catalogs?

You no longer have to be a big-time distributor to compete in the eCommerce industry. As the cost of B2B eCommerce technology has dropped, even small and mid-sized distributors can now run successful businesses. Especially if they offer Punchout Catalog Integration.

Suppliers can offer PunchOut integration in two ways:

• Offer add-on PunchOut module that integrates the eCommerce site to procurement systems
• Switch your eCommerce platform to an advanced platform that offers PunchOut-enabled stores

And to further go toe-to-toe with competition, sellers can extend PunchOut capabilities in the following ways:

1. Make the integration simpler

As for eProcurement, companies rely on popular procurement platforms like Coupa, Ariba, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, etc. So, for the Punchout Catalog to work, it should be compatible with all these platforms.

Buyers don’t want extensive onboarding, so suppliers should ensure the PunchOut solution offers easy eCommerce integration. On top of that, it’s a bonus if there are custom integrations in case the buyer has a homegrown procurement application.

2. Provide B2C Touch in Purchasing Process

One of the significant eCommerce trends is the shift in the behavior of B2B purchasing agents. Having grown up as online consumers, they prefer the B2B eCommerce purchasing process.

Integrating with PunchOut catalogs will enable the suppliers to provide the eProcurement system buyers B2C experience — rich content, faster product search and comparison, and a transparent checkout process.

3. Offer Adaptability to buyer’s eProcurement platforms

The majority of purchasing organizations plan to invest in an eProcurement solution to help govern the purchasing process and align the company’s goals with its employees’ usability. This puts the sellers without PunchOut catalog integration at a loss.

Moreover, it’s not cost-effective to rope in custom integrations for every specific buyer. In many cases, PunchOut-ready websites are required for suppliers to bid on opportunities. This makes the PunchOut integration more important than ever.

Benefits That PunchOut Catalogs Offer

Suppliers benefit greatly from PunchOut capabilities and gain a competitive edge, most notably:

1. Cost effective

Often midsized organizations are burdened with thousands of pending transactions because of a lack of an efficient procurement solution. PunchOut catalog integration offers greater visibility into their expenditures and consolidates spending to preferred vendors with negotiated contracts.

In addition, the PunchOut integration offers the best of both worlds – automatic syncing of the buyer’s eProcurement platform and seller’s eCommerce website, thus freeing suppliers to work on value-generating business aspects.

2. Real-time availability

Because PunchOut is managed by the seller, buyers don’t have to import product data like in the CIF catalog manually. This makes way for a real-time shopping experience with all the latest updates about the pricing, discounts, inventory, promotions, and more. Any changes in the catalog are reflected in the buyer’s eProcurement system, empowering the purchasing process.

3. Scalability

The supplier’s catalog works like normal online shopping carts where multiple items can be added from as many vendors as desired to the cart. Suppliers can accept electronic purchase orders and automatically create corresponding orders in the system. PunchOut catalog offers scalable solutions to fastrack the cart approval and order fulfillment process.

4. Order precision

The PunchOut catalog doesn’t require buyers or sellers to manually maintain product information, unlike hosted or CIF catalog. As a result, the buyer’s eProcurement system will always be equipped with accurate information to prevent redundancies throughout the purchasing process.

Any changes regarding quantity, color, and size are reflected in the procurement system which is then converted into cXML or OCI formats depending on the platform, accelerating the cart approval workflow.

5. Fraud monitoring

The traditional procurement systems often encountered underground purchases, where illegitimate products, not on the procurement list, were bought by employees using the company’s name and money.

PunchOut catalogs prevent any damage to the brand reputation as the transactions involve an approval workflow. Once approved, the cart becomes a purchase order and follows the usual eCommerce transaction process.

Streamline Procurement Process With VARStreet PunchOut Solution

If you wish to integrate the PunchOut catalog into your business, you should consider VARStreet. VARStreet is one of the leading B2B eCommerce platforms that offer a tightly integrated experience to your B2B customers.

JD Edwards PunchOut Catalog Integration – This integrated procurement system has features like inventory optimization, material planning, supplier selection, and assessment.

Peoplesoft PunchOut Catalog Integration – This web-based procurement system integration has a built-in mechanism to control spending and workflow management.

Jaggaer PunchOut catalog Integration – Best for commercial, manufacturing, and life sciences companies, Jaggaer brings visibility into the entire procurement cycle, from source to pay.Need more PunchOut solutions? Click here to get an overview of all VARStreet’s diverse set of PunchOut integrations. And if you want to understand the whole procedure, contact VARStreet’s PunchOut experts.

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