Evaluating a Replacement for a 12-Year-Old System

The Challenge

Feature requests went unanswered. Critical integrations - including electronic trade documentation for international shipments through FedEx - were declined because they were “too complicated.” The demand forecasting algorithm hadn’t been updated in over a decade. There was no support for handheld barcode scanners, which meant warehouse staff were still walking to fixed touch-screen stations for every scan.

The operation was sophisticated. They managed receiving workflows where manufacturers shipped different pack configurations than what was ordered. A 90-pack ordered from a vendor might arrive as three 30-packs under different SKUs, and receiving has to resolve that against the original purchase order. They also wanted to start reading the expiry date carried in the 2D barcode, which they were not doing at the time. Their existing system handled some of this, but extending it further was no longer possible.

The owner wasn’t looking for a cheaper tool. He was looking for a platform he could grow into for the next decade - one that could handle robotics integration, AI-driven demand forecasting, and the operational complexity of a multi-country optical business.

Why SkuNexus

The evaluation was thorough. The owner spent more than two hours on the call and worked through 2D barcode support, carrier integrations, demand forecasting, handheld devices, and substitution during receiving.

Not every answer was yes out of the box. Demand forecasting, for one, was described as work in progress rather than shipped. The owner said afterwards that the mix of standard functionality and development work was what he found interesting.

“Everything I’ve thrown at you, you’ve been able to basically indicate that you can do either out of a box or with a bit of development, which is quite interesting for us.”

O&C Owner & CEOInternational Optical Retailer

What the Session Covered

Order Routing Across Entities

The session covered routing orders through decision rules rather than by hand, including how single fulfillment and multi fulfillment are decided and how allocation is audited.

Replacement SKU Receiving

This was the requirement the owner raised directly: a 90-pack ordered from a vendor arrives as three 30-packs under different SKUs, and receiving needs to reconcile the substitute against the original purchase order.

Expiry Data in the 2D Barcode

The owner raised the 2D barcode as a future step rather than current practice. It carries the product barcode plus expiry, and he wanted the receiving scan to capture that data instead of the barcode alone.

The FedEx Gap

The incumbent had built the FedEx integration most of the way and stopped short of electronic trade documents, which blocked international FedEx shipping for an international shipping business. The owner named that refusal as the reason he started looking.