TrueCommerce Purchasing Groups feature for its digital commerce platform

TrueCommerce, a global provider of trading partner connectivity and integration solutions, has announced the Purchasing Group feature for its Nexternal eCommerce platform. Purchasing Groups provide buying and approval controls for B2B customers to self-manage purchases within their organization at a Merchant’s online store. It works by allowing Master Customers to create Purchasing Groups that comprise of sub customers.  The Master Customer controls the approval status awarded to each sub customer, approves appropriate orders, and has visibility to all of the orders placed by their organization. Merchants who enable Purchasing Groups in their Nexternal online stores give their customers complete control of the B2B purchasing and approval process.

“The established online order management processes are being reinvented almost in real time, and the current challenging economic situation has made them even more fluid,” said TrueCommerce president Ross Elliott. “Agile self-management of customer communities is a definite competitive advantage, and we have made additional technology investments to offer this option to our customer base.”

The Purchasing Group feature key benefits include:
TrueCommerce Nexternal is a component of TrueCommerce Foundry - a broad set of unified commerce services and apps that connects customers, suppliers, channels, and systems. This platform revolutionizes supply chain visibility and collaboration by helping organizations make the most of their omni-channel initiatives through business P2P connectivity, order management, collaborative replenishment, intelligent fulfillment, cross-functional analytics, and product information management.

• Business customers can monitor and control their spending 
• Order notification and approval workflow reduces the B2B buying process friction when a business purchase approval is required
• Unique login for each customer within the group eliminates the need to share credentials and  sacrifice security for efficiency
• Roll-up group reporting allows customers to collectively evaluate and track the group’s purchase history
• Group members can add comments to approved or rejected orders for communication clarity
• Master Customers can set up multiple groups with different approval rules and members

"B2B digital commerce is inherently more complex than the typical eCommerce scenarios we are all used to. B2B sellers must offer their sellers granular workflows, where teams of buyers, with various roles and permissions, collaborate on orders," says Jordan Jewell, Research Manager for Digital Commerce at IDC. "TrueCommerce's addition of purchasing groups will help B2B merchants on the Nexternal platform enable more complex buying journeys that their clients need."

The solution leverages TrueCommerce’s Global Commerce Network that includes over 92,000 pre-connected retailers, distributors and logistics service providers. A true managed services provider, TrueCommerce manages the onboarding process for new trading partners as well as the ongoing management of trading partner specific mapping and labeling changes.