Argentina Supermarket Shelf Act: How to Start Exchanging Business Documents with Your Retail Clients

The new Supermarket Shelf Act, approved by Argentina's Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP), came into effect on May 15. It affects all areas covered by supermarkets from 800 square meters. Thisimplies the reorganization of spaces and the diversification of brands based on a greater participation of small and medium-sized companies as suppliers.

With the implementation this new act, suppliers have the challenge of working with a large number of national retailers and maintaining a stock in accordance with the requirements for arranging products on the shelves.

What’s the objective of the Supermarket Shelf Act?

The purpose of this new act is to achieve a more diverse offer of products and brands. Implement an equal distribution of the different suppliers and guarantee access to micro and small-sized businesses, cooperatives and family farming, among others.

Consumers will have access to more regional or craft products from micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, products from family, peasant and indigenous agriculture, products from the popular economy and products from cooperative and provident associations.

Another objective is also to ensure that product prices are clear and transparent for consumers.

What is the Supermarket Shelf Act proposing?

The Supermarket Shelf Act affects different categories of products: food products, beverages, personal hygiene products and household cleaning products. The government has compiled a list with all of them.

Rules are established for the display of products in shelves

Each product category must have a minimum of five suppliers. In a shelf with products of similar characteristics and different brands, no company can occupy more than 30% space. 25% should be reserved for micro and small-sized businesses and an additional 5% for products originating from family, peasant or indigenous agriculture. The supermarket own brands are treated in the same way as any supplier.

EDI platform for clients

The new Supermarket Shelf Act may make logistics difficult for those suppliers who must expand their client base. Many of these new customers will be department stores and being part of the supply chain can be a challenge when it comes to exchanging business documents such as invoices, purchase orders, remittances, stock reports and more.

How can you comply with the new regulations and being efficient at the same time? The EDI portal allows you to make commercial transactions with all your clients through an EDI web solution, which can be integrated with your management system or not, regardless of the technological level of your organization. It is especially suitable for exchanging documents with most of your clients.

With this solution, you can:

• Receive purchase orders from customers automatically. After receiving the notice of the availability of new orders, access the portal from where you can consult, download and print your orders. Accessing the EDI portal and managing these orders generates notifications that are received by the client, allowing them to have permanent control of the status of the processing of their orders.
• Know the traceability of the invoice issued. Once the order is processed, the supplier accesses the EDI portal again and, based on the purchase order, proceeds to issue the invoice using the data entry screens. This record takes into account the data of the original order, simplifying its issuance and making it easier to compare it with the order for its automatic integration in the accounts payable application
• List the different clients to create appropriate flows depending on the type of customer and products, involving them in the issuance and treatment of more or fewer messages depending on the type of relationship they have with the retailer promoted by the portal.
• Scale the solution to provide it with greater benefits by adding new workflows, such as receiving from your customers the stock reports and logistics data of the product available at their points of sale or warehouses (INVRPT), or notifications of receipt for goods that arrived at your destination (RECADV).
• Implement new EDI messages to improve logistics chain traceability: remittances (DESADV) to inform the client that a product leaves the manufacturer's warehouse, or the product catalog (PRICAT) with information about them, details, prices, etc., among others.