Toronto, ON - Sep 11, 2024 - Local Line is pleased to announce the launch of our integration with ECRS, a leading Point of Sale platform for independent grocers and food co-ops. This integration allows ECRS users to integrate their ECRS Gateway module with Local Line, enabling grocers to place all of their orders with local suppliers right from their ECRS account.
This integration provides a two-way sync between the ECRS and Local Line platforms, providing up to date inventory, pricing, and delivery information from every supplier. Once connected, each grocery department (produce, deli, etc) can expect to save 6-8 hours per week on their ordering process. Instead of spending time doing manual data entry from ECRS into Local Line, grocers can eliminate hours of weekly paperwork and reduce inventory errors in the process.
“I’ve been so excited about this for so long”, says John Crane, General Manager of Portland Food Co-op in Maine. “ECRS is how we sell our products, and Local Line is how we buy and pay for our products. Historically, these two systems have been silo’d, which means everything gets entered twice. Having them integrated is the biggest push toward efficiency that we’ve experienced in a very long time.”
Sourcing local food is an important way for small, independent grocers to differentiate and compete against the big box stores. But ask any small grocer and they will tell you that managing dozens of local suppliers using only emails and phone calls is time consuming and error prone. It’s impossible to know up to date inventory and pricing, and it’s easy to make mistakes when receiving and reconciling deliveries. Not to mention, knowledge of local supplier relationships quickly becomes silo’d, without a natural way for that knowledge to be shared amongst the team. With this new integration, all of those problems are instantly solved.
“We’ve been working closely with the ECRS team and a handful of our grocery customers on perfecting this integration, which will save independent grocers time and headaches when it comes to ordering local food. We’re excited to play an important role in helping increase local food purchases from the farms that sell on Local Line” says Cole Jones, Local Line’s founder & CEO.
The process for turning on the integration is simple. First, Local Line matches up your suppliers in ECRS with your suppliers in Local Line. When that’s finished, ECRS ingests each suppliers up to date product list, pricing, and delivery info from Local Line. Before the integration is turned on, Local Line runs multiple checks and places a few test orders. From there, the integration is turned on and your ECRS orders will be sent directly to your local suppliers via Local Line. All in, the integration time from start to finish takes 3-4 days to set up.
For grocers who would like to explore setting up this new integration, click here to schedule a call with your Local Line rep.
Local Line is the leading commerce platform for the local food system. Headquartered in Toronto, ON, Canada, Local Line supports thousands of farms and food producers sell all kinds of food buyers including restaurants, grocers, distributors, and end consumers. Wholesale food buyers rely on Local Line for access to local farms and suppliers and use the Local Line Sourcing Network as a way to simplify and scale their local food procurement.
ECRS is a US-based, Certified Evergreen™ transaction and retail solutions provider, with a successful track record that stretches over 30 years. ECRS future-proofs local and regional retailers to win in today’s market, while preparing them for tomorrow’s opportunities. ECRS’ revolutionary CATAPULT® POS system is the market’s only truly unified transaction platform, running in thousands of locations across North America. With CATAPULT, the point of sale, self-checkout, deli scales, fuel pump, pharmacy, web-store, inventory, customer loyalty, back office, e-commerce, and enterprise management all share one single transactional logic. Unified Transaction Logic™ empowers retailers to prosper by providing actionable business intelligence across their enterprise. Unifying hardware, software, and services, ECRS offers friction-free, cost-saving solutions that increase customer engagement while transforming the consumer experience.
