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Agence Vitriol is a private import agency whose mission is to increase the accessibility of foreign craft beer in the Quebec market. Its products are distributed through various channels: private importation via the SAQ, on the shelves of SAQ branches, and on the open market for non-alcoholic beers.
Upon launching their imported alcohol-free beer segment, Agence Vitriol started looking for a solution to better collaborate with their distributor around order and inventory management.
The standard at the time - i.e. emailing invoices to the distributor and maintaining a separate Google Sheet to track inventory - simply didn’t cut it. The small team of Agence Vitriol already had two other distribution channels to look after, so it was necessary to find a solution that would be more time-efficient so as not to overwork the team.
Via the PivoHub order management module, Agence Vitriol only needs to accept an order for it to become visible to the distributor, which bypasses the need for constant e-mail exchanges.
As soon as the order is placed, the products it contains are immediately subtracted from the inventory and reserved for delivery. Agence Vitriol sees the quantities available in its own warehouse, at its distributor, in transit or saved for delivery.
Managing a shared inventory with their distributor, a task that seemed daunting at first, is now mostly automatic. At most, a few minutes per month suffice to make the occasional inventory transfer.
By joining PivoHub, Agence Vitriol also benefited from great visibility with retailers. Today, nearly half of the orders received are placed by the buyer via PivoHub, which saves a lot of time for Agence Vitriol representatives, enabling them to focus their efforts where they are most impactful.
“PivoHub is like the main street for craft beverage shopping. The demand is already there, so it's essential for anyone on the supply side to be there too," says Éric Michaud, partner at Agence Vitriol.
For Agence Vitriol, the efficiency gains resulting from the implementation of PivoHub translated into better profitability of the alcohol-free segment as it removed the need to hire a dedicated resource for administration tasks.
“If I had to do my job without PivoHub, I would be really burnt out. "
