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PRIME DISTRIBUTORS is the largest and most established food distributor in the Caribbean Islands, headquartered on the beautiful island of St. Martin. The company has a thriving operation that includes wholesale food service, cash and carry and a club store. When Prime Distributors sought to quickly expand its offering to include an online shopping platform, one solution rose to the top — erpCommerce™ from Pixafy.

Pandemic panic accelerates action

“We were planning to launch an eCommerce initiative later in 2020, but the pandemic changed everything,” explains Jared Ramkellowan, eCommerce/IT Manager for Prime Distributors. “Instantly tourism stopped, drying up our wholesale and food service operations, and in person shopping dropped off, threatening our cash and carry and club businesses. We needed a robust eCommerce solution we could get up and running in a very short period of time.”

ERP integration powers the experience

Prime Distributors relies on Sage X3 as its ERP solution and sought an eCommerce solution that would deliver integration. “We wanted Sage X3 to be our single source of the truth,”says Ramkellowan. “It holds all of our customer and all of our inventory information. We didn’t want to have to duplicate that information in an eCommerce application and then work to keep the two systems in sync. That’s one of the main reasons we selected erpCommerce™.”

The solution’s tight integration with Sage X3 proves its value in multiple ways. erpCommerce™ facilitates bi-directional synchronization of the data between the store site and Sage X3. For example, as new customers visit the online store and place orders, the solution creates the orders in Sage X3 automatically. As inventory SKUs are added or changed in Sage X3, the item information, including pricing and availability is passed through to erpCommerce™ in real time.

“As customers shop through erpCommerce™, we know their shipping and billing addresses, their credit terms, their customer-specific pricing and how many of each item we have available — all from Sage X3,” explains Ramkellowan. “Once the order is placed, it passes automatically into Sage X3 for fulfillment, and upon shipment, erpCommerce™ is updated with the details.”