Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, the national organization dedicated to the health and growth of independent specialty retailers, announced a partnership with NuORDER whereby the NuORDER buying platform will be available to Grassroots retailers and offered for free to vendors beginning this fall. The move, said the group, “will bring the same level of efficiency and digital sophistication to the retail buying process that vendors have built into their selling process.”
Specifically, NuORDER will provide the Grassroots Outdoor Alliance an online platform that enables buyers to visualize their assortment by any data point, providing a broad and deep views into what’s available and what they already have committed to, as well as establishing a common platform that allows them to more closely collaborate with the brands supplying that merchandise, explained the announcement. The integrated buying experience will also include centralized, digital linesheets and catalogs and the ability for collaboration in real-time between vendors and buyers.
“The goal here is to directly improve the bottom-line financial health of retailers by improving their ability to visualize, budget, plan and buy from multiple brands at the same time,” said Rich Hill, president of Grassroots Outdoor Alliance. “The traditional assortment selection and merchandise buying process will be vastly improved on this platform.”
The Grassroots Outdoor Alliance partnership with NuORDER is the latest step in the group’s campaign to invest in digital technologies that streamline the end-to-end process of wholesale buying. The NuORDER buying platform will strengthen and replace two of Grassroots Outdoor Alliance’s ongoing technology initiatives, including Grassroots ConnectHub — the free online resource center which was launched after the cancellation of spring 2020 trade shows — and their digital workbook commitment, which began taking steps in 2019 to eliminate the use of paper workbooks during the sales process.
Grassroots said its independent retailers will be able to utilize NuORDER’s technology to easily identify gaps in their product assortments, as well as spotlight opportunities to spend more of their buying power on relevant new merchandise. NuORDER currently provide similar solutions to Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue.
“The partnership will be a win-win for everyone.” said Heath Wells CoFounder of NuORDER. “It will help drive full price sell-through, faster order turnarounds, and a collaborative digital buying & selling process.”
“Independent outdoor retailers need tools like NuORDER to help them work smarter — and harder — The potential of having a universal order writing tool helps them make better decisions, helps us be better partners with our vendors, and reduces our excess and non-functional inventory that no one wants,” added Hill
