The Tariff Hotline Is Open & We Are Taking Your Calls | Ask An Expert
In this episode of Omni Talk Retail’s Ask an Expert series, Chris and Anne welcome SPS Commerce’s Emily Curran and Rob Schiefelbein for a deep dive into how retailers and suppliers should respond to shifting tariffs and trade conditions.
Key Moments:
- (1:20) Meet the experts: Emily and Rob from SPS Commerce
- (2:11) SPS Commerce’s role in simplifying supply chain connections
- (6:00) Advice for startups in retail pilot programs
- (8:05) Transparent communication strategies with retailers
- (10:00) How to calculate true tariff exposure
- (11:00) Diversifying your supply chain
- (15:00) Total landed cost explained
- (16:45) Leveraging bonded warehouses and FTZs
- (18:00) Common methods to itemize tariff costs
- (21:00) Tracking SKUs and auditing data accuracy
- (28:00) Applying the 5S methodology to retail data
- (30:00) Final tips for retailers and suppliers
#RetailTariffs #SupplyChainManagement #SPSCommerce #OmniTalkRetail #RetailStrategy #TariffStrategy #RetailData #AskAnExpert #EDICompliance #RetailInnovation
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Hello, welcome to another exciting and hallucinating episode of the Omnitalk Retail Ask an Expert series.
Speaker B:I'm one of your co hosts for today's interview, Anne Mazinga.
Speaker A:And I'm Chris Walton.
Speaker B:And we are the founders of Omnitalk, the fast growing retail media organization that is all about the companies, the technologies and the people coming together to shape the future of retail.
Speaker B:Chris, we have been fielding all kinds of questions from our listeners looking for us to do a segment on tariffs.
Speaker B:And it's a topic that seems to be most top of mind with everybody right now.
Speaker B:And so, in true Amitax style, we took inspiration from popular culture and figured if there's a hotline for helping people prepare turkeys on Thanksgiving, Chris, there should be a hotline for retailers preparing for tariffs.
Speaker B:Don't you agree?
Speaker A:Well, yes, I do, Ed.
Speaker A:Well said.
Speaker A:Damn right is what I'd say to get this started.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Good call.
Speaker B:So in order to do this the right way, Chris, we're, we're a.
Speaker B:We're a refined, an acquired taste, I would say.
Speaker B:So we had to find the right partner to be up for our antics and the partner who also has the best expertise on this topic.
Speaker B:So we've invited SPS Conferences Director of Product management Emily Curran and senior supply chain strategist Rob Shufflebein to the show to help with some of the questions that they've been answering for their retail and supplier clients and to take all of your questions live today.
Speaker B:So, Emily, Rob, welcome to the show.
Speaker B:Emily, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker B:I'm excited to have you on.
Speaker B:This is your first time, right?
Speaker C:Correct.
Speaker C:This is my first time.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:And Rob, you too, you're a first timer as well.
Speaker D:Yes, thank you.
Speaker D:Excited to be here.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker A:All right, well, before we get started, just a quick reminder for those watching us all live on LinkedIn right now, this is a quote hotline after all.
Speaker A:So please ask your questions of Emily and Rob at any time via the chat session window in LinkedIn to the right of your screen if you're on your desktop.
Speaker A:All right, Emily and Rob, before we dive into the questions, I would love for each of you to share a bit of your career background for us and talk.
Speaker A:Talk about your role specifically at SPS too.
Speaker A:So, Rob, let's start with you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So thanks for having me.
Speaker D:I, I've been at SPS for three years.
Speaker D:I'm a senior supply chain strategist in retail implementation.
Speaker D:I advise retailers, distributors, grocers, manufacturers, all of the above on trends, best Practices and solutions for their respective industries.
Speaker D:I grew up in Denver, Denver, Colorado where I worked many retail jobs growing up like my parents before me, my grandparents, both front and back of store.
Speaker D:Eventually I found my way into manufacturing and then into global supply chain and solutions with Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops.
Speaker D:That really takes care of the last 17 years for me.
Speaker A:All right, so retail in the pedigree in the background.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:All right, Emily, how about you?
Speaker C:So I've been at SPS Commerce for 15 years.
Speaker C:That whole time I've been in customer facing roles, particular working with brands or suppliers, buyers as we call them.
Speaker C:Throughout my journey I started in support and then kind of made my way into sales as a sales engineer and then landed in product about eight years ago.
Speaker C:So within our product organization, I focus on our fulfillment solution or offering, which is really how brands and retailers can collaborate and connect in order to exchange that vital supply chain information.
Speaker C:Or another way to say it is they can be EDI compliant and then if we want to go all the way back, you know, my very first job that I ever had was actually working in a warehouse where I was responsible for kind of taking in all the products or materials that came in, repackaging them, white labeling them essentially and then putting them on the shelves.
Speaker C:And when I was lucky, I got to do some of the picking and the packing as well to get those orders out.
Speaker C:I don't know if that's what necessarily spawned my love for a supply chain, but here we are.
Speaker B:Oh my God, I love how you.
Speaker A:Said when I was lucky I got to do the picking and packing.
Speaker A:That was awesome.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's, that's the, that's the prize job that you want to do the picking and packing.
Speaker B:Well, Emily, just real quick too, for those who might be encountering SPS commerce for the first time, what does SPS Commerce do specifically?
Speaker B:And the talk about a little bit the types of clients that you're helping with some of the tariff related questions day to day that we're going to cover today.
Speaker C:So sps, we are a provider of cloud based supply chain management solutions.
Speaker C:So we are working with retailers, distributors, grocers, suppliers, three PLs, you know, really any other trading partner that you can think of that's necessary for supply chain.
Speaker C:And we're not only helping those customers or partners connect to each other, but also collaborate and, and it's really about the exchange of data.
Speaker C:So like I mentioned, you know, there's purchase orders there, shipments, there's invoices, there's all this pertinent information that a retailer and a supplier need to communicate in order to make sure the goods get from point A to point B.
Speaker C:And we're helping facilitate that data exchange.
Speaker C:And really it's based on our network.
Speaker C:We've got a global network and platform to simplify that.
Speaker C:So if you think about it from like a supplier perspective, we're working with everyone from that emerging startup brand to that enterprise organization.
Speaker C:So same thing on the retail logistics side.
Speaker C:So no matter where they're at in their journey, we're here to really provide them consultation and help to not only make EDI and order management easier, but also facilitate any onboarding and really help drive business efficiency.
Speaker A:All right, so we've got a lot of questions to get to.
Speaker A:And so to kick things off, we're going to open up the hotline and we're going to start with questions that were submitted to us before today's event.
Speaker A:And as your questions are coming in, Robin and Emily will ask, answer them via text as best they can too.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So the first question I have, and this came up on a podcast that Ann, I did recently, it was kind of an offshoot of the topic, but say I'm a startup, I'm a startup company and I'm participating in a retailer's quote unquote, local brand pilot, as we are hearing so often about these days.
Speaker A:How do I.
Speaker A:How do I need to think about what the retailers need to do to be prepped for the impact the tariffs are going to have on, on my ability to produce products and at the price points we've previously agreed to for.
Speaker C:Startups or those emerging brands especially, this is top of mind, especially when some of them are just breaking into retail and there's so much they need to understand.
Speaker C:So the first thing that I would recommend, and what we're actually hearing from customers too, is just be upfront and transparent, right?
Speaker C:Like, this is a partnership.
Speaker C:I think everyone is aware of what is happening in the supply chain right now with tariffs and any supply chain disruption you can think about, you know, there are things you can plan for, there are things you can't plan for.
Speaker C:So no matter what, I think it's really important that you're just transparent and upfront and let your retailer know how these tariffs are potentially going to be impacting not only the cost of what you might need to sell your product at, but maybe any of the production as well.
Speaker C:And if there might be any shifts to lead times or your ability to deliver an order on time or in full So I think the more you can just be upfront and manage that collaboration, you can, you can navigate that together.
Speaker C:And then the other thing I would say is again, especially for emerging brands, the reality is they're probably going to have to change price, right?
Speaker C:You're not going to be able to necessarily move your manufacturing or make some of these long term strategic decisions.
Speaker C:So if you are looking at adjusting your price, just be thoughtful.
Speaker C:Maybe you only adjusted on one of your products within your line versus all or maybe there's very intentional amounts.
Speaker C:We were working with a smaller CPG company that mentioned, you know, for now they've got enough inventory on hand so that anything they have right now isn't necessarily going to be impacted.
Speaker C:But as they're getting new shipments of their product over the next few months or so, they're really going to have to take a look at their, their margins and they weren't as worried it because they felt like they were a premium product.
Speaker C:So if they were to increase their price by $1, it wouldn't necessarily have that much of an impact or they felt like the customer would still be able to pay for it.
Speaker C:But the reality is someone's adjusting the price somewhere which is going to impact the consumer.
Speaker C:So again I think it's be transparent, just be able to back up your decisions with the data and make sure you and your retailer are on the same page.
Speaker A:Rob, any color you'd add here.
Speaker D:As a startup, my cash flow is paramount and likely very restricted.
Speaker D:I don't have a lot of negotiating power, production scale.
Speaker D:Like I said, capital is limited.
Speaker D:I don't have the financial wherewithal to absorb these costs so I'm going to have to pass them through to the retailer and to the customer.
Speaker D:So generally speaking I'm going to rely on many of the things that Emily just stated.
Speaker D:Transparency and relationship management, the things that have helped me get through previous supply chain disruptions, those are going to guide me through this one as well.
Speaker D:Really making those objective data driven decisions that I can reference, shared information with my partner and go from there.
Speaker D:I would also add that I want to get the best feel for my actual tariff cost.
Speaker D:So I want to look at details in my orders and with my suppliers.
Speaker D:So going back tier two, tier three, mapping my supply chain if I can, to assess where are my countries of origin and my countries of manufacturer, where are my, what are my incoterms, whose importer of record, what are my transit methods, my HTS codes and all of those attributes that USCBP is going to use to calculate my tariffs so that I can use those values where appropriate in discussions with my retail partner and then from there again, make those transparent, objective and data driven decisions.
Speaker A:Got it.
Speaker A:So there's really two things I take away from this conversation.
Speaker A:One is come to the table armed with the information that you know of at that time.
Speaker A:That's one.
Speaker A:And then secondly, it's open up the kimono.
Speaker A:Like, don't try to keep information, you know, to yourself.
Speaker A:Be honest and upfront about.
Speaker A:Here's where it's impacting me, here's how I'm thinking about it and here's what we need and let's have a conversation about what we need to do about it together.
Speaker A:Because we're all in a tough spot and we've got to figure it out.
Speaker B:What about what Rob, you were just alluding to when it comes to diversifying your supply chain?
Speaker B:What should I be thinking about as a, as a supplier, small or large?
Speaker B:Emily, maybe start with you.
Speaker B:You're.
Speaker B:You're nodding along here.
Speaker B:And then we'll go to Rob.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, I, I love Rob, that you hit on the diversifying the supply chain.
Speaker C:Because to be honest, regardless of tariffs or not, that's something all suppliers should be constantly evaluating and looking at is, where are my risks?
Speaker C:You know, where is my product coming from?
Speaker C:Who are my suppliers?
Speaker C:How does it get here?
Speaker C:So that's where, like I completely agree there has to be some type of risk assessment and that's where I would recommend starting.
Speaker C:So look at all of those points in your supply chain.
Speaker C:Are you putting all your eggs in one basket and relying on one supplier for the key ingredient that you need within your product?
Speaker C:And is there an opportunity to diversify your suppliers?
Speaker C:Maybe for others, it's looking at how you can expand your network to go to different regions, for example, so that way you're not relying too heavily on one single sour.
Speaker C:So that's where I would say once you've assessed where your risks are, then how do you start to use that information to spread that risk out?
Speaker C:Because if something does happen, and let's face will, nothing ever goes perfect in supply chain, you are at least prepared, you're aware, and then you can have plan B in order to mitigate those risks as much as possible.
Speaker C:I know the other thing that has been top of mind for a lot of brands or suppliers is how do I move my production out of China, for example, to a different region.
Speaker C:So again, maybe not possible for every single supplier, but if it is something that works for your business, how can you start to source materials from different countries or look at local suppliers if possible?
Speaker C:So again, just in the conversations that we've been having with so many of our customers, we actually had one that was starting to think ahead when some of the talks of the tariffs were coming in terms of how do they move their manufacturing from Hong Kong and started diversifying that supply chain across Vietnam, Mexico and India.
Speaker C:So that way, tariffs, yes, they're going to happen.
Speaker C:There's going to be cost adjustments, but it's not going to be a complete shutdown for them where they have to start or stop all reorders.
Speaker C:And that was something that we've seen across the board too.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Prices are insane.
Speaker C:A lot of suppliers or brands maybe can't justify passing that cost to the consumer.
Speaker C:So as Rob mentioned, the cost is going to get passed somewhere and typically that's going to be us as the consumers.
Speaker C:So again, how do you maybe start to make some of those strategic moves to spread that out?
Speaker B:That makes sense.
Speaker B:And Rob, would there be any other tips that you'd have for suppliers as they're thinking about the ways to go about making some of these decisions, when they should start thinking about this?
Speaker B:Because I, I, we, it seems so straightforward what Emily's talking about, but I imagine there's still a lot of suppliers who aren't doing this until they get to that point.
Speaker B:But are there anything, any advice or, or tips that you'd share that people should be thinking about as they're kind of planning this, the strategy that Emily's laid out?
Speaker D:Yeah, a couple additional that come to mind that I usually work with retailers, but also some suppliers and I would advise them the same way in this regard and that's understand your total landed cost.
Speaker D:With your total landed cost in mind.
Speaker D:You have that frame of reference for assessing any different scenarios, any diversification strategies that you're considering.
Speaker D:You have that gauge of the potential impact.
Speaker D:So I would say with your total landed cost, consider your product cost, your customs, your insurance, your freight, any other ancillary fees and your overhead, that's going to be the, essentially your formula for total landed cost.
Speaker D:From there, if you have a China plus one strategy and you're now assessing broader near shoring or even reshoring, then start to weigh those intangibles and also things that you can quantify, a lot of which, like Emily stated, so, you know, weigh the trade off between what tariffs can I expect to pay now or am I already paying versus if I'm going to nearshore or reshore I might have a higher unit cost, however, can I offset that with faster overall order cycle time, lower lower inventory carrying costs and a lower lead time reduction?
Speaker D:Can I quantify that?
Speaker D:Potential operational compatibilities?
Speaker D:Perhaps there's more intellectual property protections, maybe there's other quality levels or lower risk that I can quantify there as well.
Speaker D:There's a lot that goes into that equation.
Speaker D:But I would also consider, try to consider all of that if you're looking into diversifying.
Speaker D:And then the last point is if you're looking at near shoring or reshoring, you might be eligible for some programs now that you weren't before.
Speaker D:For example, flowing product into a bonded warehouse or a foreign trade zone, also called an ftz.
Speaker D:You might be eligible for duty deferral or duty drawback, depending on if you're using a foreign trade zone for additional processing, you might be able to defer tariffs indefinitely.
Speaker D:For example, there are carrying cost trade offs that you want to waive as part of that decision.
Speaker D:So it's not something to be taken lightly, but you might qualify.
Speaker D:Perhaps you have even inverted tariffs where the tariff that you pay to bring a product into the country is going to be higher than what your finished good might be once you've processed it on U.S.
Speaker D:soil.
Speaker D:So you have a lower tariff on the finished good than you would have already paid.
Speaker D:You can get a refund in that.
Speaker D:So things like that that you want to consider.
Speaker D:And I'll go back to my last question, just about understanding your tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers.
Speaker D:If there's been passages of ownership along the chain before it came into your possession, like if you're a distributor, for example, you might be able to leverage a program called For Sale where you're paying duties based on the initial value of the product and not all the markups that have occurred along the chain.
Speaker D:So those are things you want to look into, work with, possibly work with a trade attorney or US cbp, your customs broker to look into that and make sure you're not overlooking any expensive mistakes.
Speaker D:But it will be time well spent.
Speaker A:Wow, my head is about to explode already.
Speaker A:All right, Rob, so I started off by asking you about the impact on small businesses, small businesses selling into retailers.
Speaker A:I'm curious as does this approach differ for a mid size or a large scale enterprise versus like a smaller retailer?
Speaker D:I don't necessarily think it does in the regard of transparency and relationship management when it comes to tariff visibility and data driven objective decisions.
Speaker D:Something I'm going to keep coming back to here.
Speaker D:It would probably be A good point for me to pause and call out what I've seen used most frequently in order of popularity for, for citing tariff related costs so far.
Speaker D:So to start with would be surcharges.
Speaker D:Now these are spanning the gamut from every line, every order line, detail surcharge to a consolidated line, item surcharge to cost of goods that have been increased.
Speaker D:But at the line level it's noted that there's been a surcharge or there's a Memo that indicates for example, item costs have been raised to reflect the 25% tariff on aluminum.
Speaker D:So surcharges by far the most popular thing I've seen.
Speaker D:Whether you're an enterprise retailer or a smaller retailer, working with your suppliers.
Speaker D:So calling out those costs again very clearly and visibly within your order flow and your invoicing that has best served retailers and suppliers across the board.
Speaker D:So you have that single source of truth to reference along with that.
Speaker D:Aside from the surcharges, the next most popular method I'm seeing is standalone invoices.
Speaker D:So think like a service invoice, something for a product that's or a service that's not in inventory.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So calling out the tariff on a standalone invoice, I've also seen used adjustments, think a debit or a credit adjustment depending on the direction of the transaction and what's been agreed to in the terms and conditions of an annual contract or vendor guide.
Speaker D:And quick plug, write up a vendor guide if you don't have one, a supplier management guide between the retailer and supplier so you have it called out going forward in the case of supply chain disruptions.
Speaker D:This is how we'll start to address these costs.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:I'm also seeing this or heard of this.
Speaker D:I haven't actually seen this yet, but it makes sense to me.
Speaker D:And that's an ad hoc report.
Speaker D:I believe that, you know, every company right now is probably running some sort of ad hoc reporting to understand what SKUs are being impacted by, what tariffs, what's still out there and what do they expect to pay.
Speaker D:It might make sense to share all or some of that with your trading partners in the same way that you're exchanging certificates of origin, materials sheets, safety data sheets, certificates of compliance, those are all being heavily scrutinized by US cbp.
Speaker D:So it might make sense just to add this information to that pile.
Speaker D:So these are some of the methods I'm seeing regardless of the size of the retailer right now.
Speaker D:And again, in that spirit of transparency and objective data driven decision making, think of your retailers, suppliers we're allies right now we need to work together, co develop strategies for mutual benefit or in this case at least mutual cost sharing.
Speaker A:Got it, got it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And no doubt you've actually create, you've given some ideas to some of our audience to create some of their ad hoc reports on their own just from this webinar.
Speaker A:Rob too, I'm guessing.
Speaker B:Well, and, and Rob, I'm curious, like as tariffs are changing so frequently, you mentioned this like yeah, all the way from like you know, data like country of origin or what the, what the, like the plan is when X, Y and Z happen in your supply chain.
Speaker B:How do you, how are you managing that on like a massive scale when you, when your SKUs are having different tariff impacts to them, like all this stuff is happening all at once, you have these ad hoc reports.
Speaker B:But when we start to think about like, like broader, more broadly and future state, like how are you recommending that people start to track this information and really get down to that SKU level data?
Speaker D:Yeah, good question and potentially a very daunting one depending on the size of your SKU base.
Speaker D:So I will try to keep it really simple and reiterate much of what I've already stated.
Speaker D:And that's tracking from the source because garbage in, garbage out.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So from the source, ensure you have a standard operating procedure SOP for managing HTS codes.
Speaker D:Essentially what is it, the country of origin, so where is it from?
Speaker D:The importer of record, the incoterms and the transit method.
Speaker D:So who's bringing it in, who owns it and how are they bringing it in and ensuring these are all being again tracked completely and correctly from the source.
Speaker D:I would also reference something I do on a regular basis, the US CBP website, because that's going to keep you up to date on all of the current tariffs in effect, whether they've been announced, delayed or are expecting, are under review and expecting an announcement in the future.
Speaker D:So those are all I think good, really good tips to keep in mind going forward and trying to keep it simple.
Speaker B:Emily, are you seeing suppliers that you work with like start to move towards what Rob's talking about?
Speaker C:Yeah, I think when you, when you look at a lot of the suppliers that we work with, I mean everyone has a skew list, a bill of materials, you know, you know, the components that are going into your product.
Speaker C:Now again, I think going back Chris, to your question about mid market enterprise versus small, I think that scale and complexity does vary and change so it might be easier to track, you know, if you're only selling three SKUs versus a thousand percent.
Speaker C:A lot of these customers have teams organized around their products, their SKUs.
Speaker C:I mean everything from the product development, the market research to the supplier sourcing.
Speaker C:And a lot of that is tracked.
Speaker C:It's just a matter of where is it tracked?
Speaker C:Is it tracked in a system that's actually accessible?
Speaker C:Is it in 50 million different places?
Speaker C:So I think if anything, if suppliers don't already have rigor around their item management practices, this is probably something that should be top of mind for them.
Speaker C:And I would just echo what Rob said.
Speaker C:At a minimum, what's your country of origin?
Speaker C:Where are these components coming from?
Speaker C:And kind of map that back to understand the impact it might have on your tariffs.
Speaker C:But I'd say overall, I think a lot of suppliers have that in place and that's where just communicating that information electronically makes it a little bit easier and where I think it'll actually be interesting to see if, if retailers start to push for more transparency and visibility and sharing that information where maybe historically it hasn't had to be shared or it's been shared manually.
Speaker B:And Emily, I am, I'm thinking back to like when we've talked to sps in the past about like when things like sustainability kind of became more important and so they wanted to know, retailers wanted suppliers to start to denote things like, like country of origin, like materials that are being used in the products.
Speaker B:Is, is this tariff line item or SKU based line item, country of origin, these kinds of things?
Speaker B:Are, are those as like simple to add into the reporting that you've already got built up?
Speaker B:Or like, are there still hurdles that people are starting to get or need to get over in order to like make this completely transparent to everybody from, you know, manufacturer all the way down to retailer?
Speaker C:I know, I hate this answer, but it's also my favorite answer.
Speaker C:But it really does depend in terms of like if you think about the, the technology stacks across suppliers, retailers.
Speaker C:There's so many different systems that exist out there.
Speaker C:So if the systems are already built in a way where like that information is already part of like your master item data or already readily available in the system, then usually it makes it really simple to just start to pass that through.
Speaker C:But if that's not something that's part of your system, you have to get it from somewhere.
Speaker C:So either then do you need to modify your system to track it or do you need to combine multiple data sources together?
Speaker C:So that is where, you know, a lot of times what we'll see is until A retailer, a partner is actually going to require that information to be sent.
Speaker C:You know, I think Fisma is a great example where you're starting to get into more of the traceability, the lot code information, depending on what type of supplier you are now there's going to be more of a focus on sending it.
Speaker C:So again, I wouldn't be surprised if like the tariff information starts to become more status quo or at least like the origin or something that would contribute to understanding the impact on tariffs.
Speaker C:How everyone within the supply chain can execute on that might kind of depend on where they're at within their technology strategy or item strategy.
Speaker C:And if that data is there and available.
Speaker B:Got it.
Speaker A:That's a great, that's a great question, Anne.
Speaker A:But you know, it also raises the point too, Rob, which I'm curious to get your thoughts on too, is let's say I've got the best collection of data out there to get an understanding of all the different dynamics at play here.
Speaker A:How do I actually make sure that the data's right?
Speaker A:Like incorrect, Like I might have all the right fields, but like, how do I audit it to make sure that it's actually right?
Speaker A:And I'm not, you know, necessarily paying more than I need to be.
Speaker D:So I'm going to always rely on one of my initial educational undertakings in retail, which was lean, lean methodology.
Speaker D:And in this case I'm going to fall back on 5s.
Speaker D:So if you're not familiar with 5s, it's sort shine set in order, standardize and sustain.
Speaker D:This can be applied to many aspects of life, and I certainly have.
Speaker D:But in this case, I'm gonna look at my data.
Speaker D:I'm gonna 5s my data.
Speaker D:It sounds pretty basic, but that's what I'm gonna look at.
Speaker D:I'll look at my SKU data and I'm gonna establish a process for following 5s with my data.
Speaker D:I'm gonna look at my sources of truth.
Speaker D:And some of these were alluded to by Emily in the last question.
Speaker D:And that's my erp.
Speaker D:Whether that's homegrown or off the shelf, it's my item master, my vendor master.
Speaker D:It's all of those solutions, all of those references that are going to get pulled from into my order and my line item details.
Speaker D:So if it's not correct at the source, as I said last time, it's going to be corrupt and it's going to be missing.
Speaker D:It's going to be a wreck in production, in real life.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So because some of this is so basic, I would look at automated workflows, possibly AI that can manage some of this for me, so that I'm really only looking at the exceptions.
Speaker D:But that's how I would begin managing my all of my SKU data.
Speaker D:Whether that's a handful of SKUs or thousands, tens of thousands of SKUs, just approach it through 5S and go from there.
Speaker A:What were the 5S's again, Rob, real quick.
Speaker D:Sort shine, set in order, standardize and sustain.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And use that in your daily life too.
Speaker A:All right, great to.
Speaker D:Good to know.
Speaker A:I got to look this up and look into it.
Speaker A:I'd never heard that term.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:Well, I want to tell everybody one last chance reminder to get your questions in for Emily and Rob.
Speaker B:I want to conclude with what the number one piece of advice is that you would give to retailers right now.
Speaker B:You mentioned five S's, you mentioned automation, Rob.
Speaker B:But what's the number one thing you would tell people to focus on right now that will make the biggest impact for their business when it comes to dealing with things like tariffs?
Speaker D:Okay, so I've kind of alluded to this already, but here I think if it's going to be one thing and one starting point.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker D:It's going to be an exercise to help you understand what are my true tariff costs, and that is assessing the accuracy and the granularity of your invoices.
Speaker D:I've seen many examples where invoices are not fully detailed and it's mostly reflecting an item cost and date and other header details around the invoice.
Speaker D:Where the reality is the true item cost upon which the tariff will be calculated and measured is buried along with other ancillary fees like import fees, currency translation, transfer fees, shipping fees.
Speaker D:There's going to be a lot that's bundled in there.
Speaker D:And if you haven't worked with your supplier, speaking as a retailer now to break those out and clearly identify those, it would be an exercise you would be very wise to do.
Speaker D:Now ask those questions.
Speaker D:They might be some that your suppliers haven't asked themselves yet.
Speaker D:So even if, and even if you think you qualify for usmca, the likelihood is somewhere in your supply chain there are foreign source materials that you need visibility to.
Speaker D:And you need to understand the true cost by going through that exercise to break down your invoices and understand if it's opaque.
Speaker D:If I don't know, I need to know and I need to know sooner than later to avoid a costly mistake and corrective action later on.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker B:Really straightforward, Rob.
Speaker B:I appreciate that Sentiment.
Speaker B:Emily, what about on the supplier side?
Speaker B:What would be the number one tip for, for them outside of clearly outlining what they are, what the charges are in their invoices?
Speaker C:What I would advise for suppliers is just start by knowing your exposure and take small incremental steps.
Speaker C:I think the worst thing you can do right now is just quickly overreact, especially with how quickly the tariffs and decisions seem to be fluctuating.
Speaker C:I think it would be ill advised to make some long term decisions based on something that may be temporary or change.
Speaker C:So that's where I think it's, it's going back to the basics of make sure you know your exposure, how your business is impacted and really start to identify the products, the components, the materials that might be most effective and that way you can pinpoint some small, really again, practical steps to take.
Speaker C:So I go back to the pricing.
Speaker C:I think that's, that's honestly probably the easiest thing for businesses to do right now, whether or not, whether or you want to or not.
Speaker C:But you have a choice right now to like hold that price steady and just kind of maintain your, your margins there and, and see what happens and really focus on loyalty or you take a few adjustments to price right now so that you can continue to not only, you know, keep your business afloat, but it gives you also the, the time to make those long decisions about diversifying your supply chain.
Speaker C:I think that's one thing I've heard from a lot of our customers is a lot of the advice that's out there isn't really practical, especially for those, those smaller organizations because again, not everyone can just pick up and move where they manufacture their product or go find new components.
Speaker C:So that's where I think a lot of suppliers are going to need to lean on pricing strategies.
Speaker C:But that doesn't have to mean just increase your price and maybe again you work with your retailer on some promotions and you were going to do a 25% promotion but now you drop it to 15% or you look specifically at SKUs within your assortment to get creative and, and really just again goes back to the data and being transparent.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's, that's a great point, Emily, to end on because you know, knowing the way the situation is currently the regulations have probably changed just in the 30 minutes we've been doing this webinar so.
Speaker A:Well, thank you guys so much for being with us.
Speaker A:You know, if people want to get in touch with you guys seem like experts on this topic way more than Anna and myself.
Speaker A:And so hopefully our audience got that impression, too.
Speaker A:If people want to get in touch with you guys, reach out to you, get SPS Commerce help with any of this.
Speaker A:What's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker A:Emily, let's start with you.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:So you can find me on LinkedIn.
Speaker C:Emily Curran P S.
Speaker C:So that is one way to get in touch with me.
Speaker C:Otherwise, happy to share my email, it's E.J.
Speaker C:curran.
Speaker C:So that's E J C U R R a n@spscommerce.com awesome.
Speaker A:And Rob, same question to you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:And likewise, reach out to me on LinkedIn or email.
Speaker D:RJ Shufflebein S C H I E F E L B e I n pscommerce.com right.
Speaker A:You got to spell that one for sure.
Speaker A:All right, well, thank you both for being with us.
Speaker A:Thanks to everyone that tuned in to watch this conversation live.
Speaker A:And thanks to you if you happen to be listening in later.
Speaker A:And as always, on behalf of all of us here at Omnitalk Retail, as always, be careful out there.
