At Pepper, we've long supported the core go-to-market toolset that Convenience Distributors need to boost basket size and save reps time - but that's only half the story.

Over the last quarter, we've made a number of improvements to the core convenience workflows that operators and distributors use day in and day out, and I'm happy to share our progress with the wider world. Specifically, we've added support for Convenience store planograms, created intuitive credit request flows, and made an offline mode to help distributors when service drops. Let's dig in.

Easier Tag Printing with Planogram support

Setting up a new customer, or even just resetting an aisle, can be a big endeavor. You’ve got to coordinate the right set of people and equipment and set aside a chunk of time. The last thing you want is for software to get in your way. 

We originally designed our tag printing workflow for the one-off print, great for sales reps to reprint a handful of faded or damaged labels in a pinch, but clunky for a more involved use case. 

When we introduced tag batches earlier this year, we saw how much easier the bulk print workflow became. But as we observed customers using it for their largest print jobs, we knew we could do more. 

So earlier this summer, we rolled out planogram support. Here’s how it works:

• Distributors can import planogram files that organize items in the catalog by store aisle or any other named grouping. 
• Once imported, when a user creates a new batch, they can choose to import items from the planogram, easily adding in one or more whole aisles to their batch.
• Once imported, users can make edits to the batch if they want to add or remove a few tags, and then print. 

Offline data that stays fresh on auto-pilot

Pepper has always been an online-first solution. This means that catalog, pricing, and inventory data stay fresh and that users can collaborate in real time on orders, check-ins, and shelf tag batches.

But many C-store distributors operate in areas with limited cell reception and spotty WiFi. Even some that operate in urban areas encounter situations where their customers have dead spots in their store. In these cases, operators and sales reps need to be able to continue their work without disruption, and also without the hassle of having to manually pull the latest catalog, inventory, and pricing data to keep everything up to date.

Last month, we rolled out a big upgrade to our offline mode. Now customers and reps can sync accounts for offline access, enabling them to build orders with scanning, and print tags while offline. In designing this, we sought to marry the best of Pepper’s online-first approach with seamless offline access. Here’s what it looks like:

• Users can easily choose which accounts to sync for offline access - this downloads catalog, pricing, and inventory data to the users device for access while they’re offline
• Once sync’d, the app automatically updates the data for those accounts on the user’s device at a regular interval to ensure it stays fresh. This happens on autopilot in the background, and doesn’t block usage of the app. No more having to remember to update and wait for the download to finish. 
• While online, the app defaults to its regular online-first functionality to enable two users to collaborate on orders or check-ins. 
• When the user loses connection, the app seamlessly enters offline mode, using the automatically refreshed data on the device to allow the user to go about their work without disruption.

Marrying delivery-related credits with guarantee-related returns

Ah, credits! Every C-store distributor’s favorite topic, right? 

For almost every distributor we talk to, processing credits is a necessary evil, and something that’s fraught with mistrust, abuse, and frustration. For good reason, distributors are constantly experimenting with different policies, business logic, and tools to provide their customers with the service they value while protecting their bottom line.

A particular challenge that we see distributors negotiate as they try to bring their credit workflow online is marrying different business logic for guarantee-related returns and delivery-related issues like mispicks or items damaged on delivery:

Want to enforce a tie to the invoice for delivery-related issues? Well that generally doesn’t make sense for your guarantee returns. 

Want to restrict credits to just guaranteed items? Now you have a split process with your customers calling in delivery issues. 

Want to let everything through? Now your warehouse team processing the returns has to play the bad guy and everyone is frustrated.

With our recent upgrade to our credit request workflow, we made it a priority to allow distributors to marry different policies for different situations to enforce the rules they need while empowering folks on the front line to provide great service to customers. Here’s how it works:

• Distributors choose the business logic they want, depending on the type of credit: what item restrictions to enforce, whether to require an invoice, and what window of time to enforce.
• When customers or reps search for or scan an item to request credit, Pepper’s system computes eligibility by reason code and surfaces guarantee and fulfillment info with each item to enable users to make the right selection.
• Any rules set by the distributor are enforced in the interface, making it easy for the user and giving distributors peace of mind.

If you’re at CDBX next week, come find the Pepper team! We’d love to show you these capabilities and many more that we’ve been hard at work on in the last few months.

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