Blog: September 2015

If you haven’t yet, you’re probably going to get an RFP or RFQ from a big customer that requires a company store with punch out (or “PunchOut”) capability. What exactly is a punch out store anyway? And why should you care?

A lot of large corporations use procurement software to control how goods are purchased. If you’re in the marketing department at one of these companies and you need to buy some pens, you log in to these systems —Ariba, Coupa, SAP, Oracle or one of many others—and place your order in there.

The primary advantage of these systems is controlling cost. They manage budgets, limit spending and try to make the purchasing process as efficient as possible. However, they don’t do things that some e-commerce stores can do, and that’s where the “punchout” comes in.

When you build a company store for a customer, it often contains complex products like apparel that will be decorated with one or more company logos, name drops or other customizations (all of which are easy to setup in storeBlox CS, of course!). Instead of configuring and buying these products in one of these applications, a punchout allows the buyer to temporarily exit to buy these goods in your company store—which can handle all that decoration a lot more easily—then pushes the transactions back into the procurement system.

If it sounds complex, it is! There are a lot of moving parts, but the good news is that storeBlox CS supports punchouts with nearly every major system using the cXML standard.

At eBlox, we’re pros with punchouts, so if you’ve got an opportunity and need some help answering questions, digging into technical details or building a punchout strategy for your customer or prospect, give us a shout!

Categories: General

Tags: ariba company store coupa e-commerce oracle procurement punch out punchout SAP