How to Connect to Home Hardware with EDI and WooCommerce for Dropship

In this guide, we will go through the steps to connect {{WooCommerce Store}} with Home Hardware for a standard dropship model. This will allow {{WooCommerce Store}} to continue to use WooComemrce for managing products and orders, while Home Hardware will communicate with EDI. The objective is to provide a transaparent and fast onboarding process for {{WooCommerce Store}} to start selling Home Hardware products. EDI setup can be a black box, require a lot of unnessary sales call, and have a lot of human blockers - we will demostrate it does not have to be that way.

Although this guide uses, {{WooCommerce Store}} and Home Hardware as examples, the same steps can be applied to other EDI retailer and Suppliers using WooCommerce (or other platforms). If you are {{WooCommerce Store}}, follow it for connecitng with Home Hardware. If you are Home Hardware, we can generate similar guides for other suppliers. If you are connecting to a non-EDI retailer, we have another product to make that easier.

Home Hardware Stores Ltd. is an independent home improvement retailer located in Canada. ome Hardware offers a wide selection of housewares, hand and power tools, plumbing and electrical materials, paint and painting supplies, sporting goods, automotive and farm items. Home Hardware locations also carry giftware and seasonal items, including lawn and garden products.

{{WooCommerce Description}}

For this guide, we will also focus on the Dropship business model.{{Support of Dropship}} We have a [standard wholesale model here]({{Link to Standard Guide}}). For retailers, dropship can be extremely effective for making sure your customers get what they want without taking on the risk of holding inventory. For suppliers, dropship can be a great way to expand your reach and get your products in front of more customers. We often see our customers introducing this dropship model to test new products, to make their product catalog more elastic for a changing world, or support programs like Buy Online, Pickup In Store, endless aisle, or other omnichannel strategies.

All steps below are for the supplier to follow. For the retailer, it follow your standard EDI onboarding process. Hendricks will act as translation layer between WooCommerce and EDI.

Step 1: Setup your Hendricks Account & Integration

Sign up for a [new Hendricks account](https://app.hendricks.so/signup?utm_source=guides&utm_campaign={{WooCommerce Code}}-home-hardware-dropship&installTemplate=woocommerce-homehardware-dropship). You will be redirected to an onboarding page that you can create an Organization that will represent your business.

TODO - Screenshot of Onboarding

Once onboarding is completed, it should have created a new install for the "WooCommerce <> Home Hardware Dropship (EDI)" integration. We have done the heavily lifting of going through the Home Hardware EDI specifications and created a template for you to use.

TODO - Screenshot of dashboard with new install

Step 2: Understand What's Being Transacted

On your page, you should be able to see the following:

  • Files & links related to onboarding to HomeHardware
  • Settings for your install.
  • Difference between Home Hardware & Generic WooCommerce <> EDI Integration

You will need to go through the files and links to understand what is required for you to work with Home Hardware. If you already have an existing trading relationship, great, you will still need to understand what's in those files.

Next, we will go through the settings for your install. This is where you will configure how Hendricks will communicate with Home Hardware.

General

The first section is "General", and only has one setting - "Trading Role". This is where you will select if you are a Supplier or Retailer. For this guide, you will be a Supplier.

EDI

The next section is "EDI". There are a few fields that you will need to set.

TODO - SFTP TODO - EDI files TODO - WooCommerce API

Difference between Home Hardware and Generic WooCommerce <> EDI Integration

There are a number of sudtle differences between Home Hardware and a generic WooCommerce <> EDI integration. The main differences are: how products and variations are referenced and information provided in the EDI files.

For indentifying products and variations, Home Hardware has a UPC code, Buyer Catalogue Number (9 digits), and a Vendor Catalogue Number (13 digits). WooCommerce doesn't make it easy to add additional identifiers to variations. We will need to create "Product Catalog" in Hendricks to map these identifiers to WooCommerce products and variations. We will pass in the SKU, and it will return the UPC, Buyer Catalogue Number, and Vendor Catalogue Number.

You will need to fill out this CSV for each product being offered:

1
2
3
refId,action,links,attributes
sample_sku1,update,,upc,0799439112766,buyerCatalogueNumber,123456789,vendorCatalogueNumber,1234567890123
sample_sku2,update,,upc,...so on

The basic structure is the reference, the action (update or delete), links (external websites), and attributes. Each attribute is a key-value pair. The key is the identifier, and the value is the value of the identifier.

Step 3: Connect WooCommerce to Hendricks

TODO - WooCommerce API

Step 4: Understanding the Processes for Home Hardware

The files that are being transmitted are:

  • Purchase Order (850)
  • Purchase Order Acknowledgement (855)
  • Invoice (810)
  • Advance Ship Notice (856)

TODO - Review each process

Step 5: Testing with Home Hardware

TODO - Testing

Step 6: Go Live

TODO - Go Live

Step 7: Ongoing Monitoring

TODO - Viewing files.

Conclusion

That's it! Most EDI providers will promise you the world before onboarding you to a piece of software written in 1995. We believe that EDI can be simple and transparent. We hope this guide has shown you how easy it can be to connect your WooCommerce store to Home Hardware. If you have any questions, please reach out to us under the Support tab on your dashboard.

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