FAQ : 1. We already have a well-running program implemented, why should we consider using Service Syndicate? Distribution Control/Flexibility - Service Syndicate pre-qualifies and categorizes all potential buyers, making your discount buyer policies a one-time setup rather than an ongoing battle. These qualified buyer types can easily be changed at anytime to reflect changing inventory and/or sales and marketing policies and initiatives. Abuse Control - Buyer limits can be imposed on individual programs, centralized within the Service Syndicate marketplace places sub-category (i.e. 3 handbags/4 pair sunglasses per year) limits on every buyer. Furthermore each buyer is subject to cumulative order limits of 10 orders per month and 40 orders per year. Reach - one of the primary reasons for your discount program is to build the strength and visibility of the brand through associations with opinion leaders and retail employees. No matter how many customer service reps, field reps, and even dedicated discount/sponsorship administrators you hire, they will never have the reach and instant responsiveness of the Internet. Expand the visibility and effectiveness of your discount program and you automatically strengthen your brand. Buyer Convenience - buyers can access your program pre-qualified, eliminating the hassles of follow up calls/faxes with a supplier sales, marketing, and/or customer service representatives to get the discount process started and fulfilled. All order confirmations and updates are via automated emails. Cost effectiveness - running an effective discount-direct program requires valuable human and financial resources, you already know that. Service Syndicate not only brings you potentially far more qualified buyers, but we bring them at no cost and with no phone calls. No design, printing, and mailing of collateral costs, and no valuable rep, manager, and/or customer service resources are drained to take orders. Service Syndicate hosts your marketplace for free, and simply charges a commission on orders generated, at less than what you'd pay to bring in and fulfill those same orders using conventional methods. Stock control - an online program enables administrators to easily and effectively keep your product availability up to date. This greatly reduces un-fill able orders and the frustrations and phone calls that result. For a nominal monthly fee Service Syndicate will provide this service for you using your internal left-to-sell reports. Market data - get real-time program results anytime with the online inquiry-reporting feature. The earlier you get your product out to Service Syndicate members the sooner you'll know what's going to be hot at retail and what adjustments will be needed to your production and marketing plans. 2. We currently have a discount program in place, can we keep it? Not only can you, we recommend it, at least when first starting out with Service Syndicate. For most companies the personal relationship between sales reps and key store employees, and between sales and marketing managers and their industry contacts, are crucial for obvious reasons. Service Syndicate takes the pressure off these relationships and allows your people to concentrate on the most important relationships. 3. How does Service Syndicate make money? Service Syndicate collects revenues on actual orders generated for suppliers. Service Syndicate charges the buyer a $1.99 processing fee for orders up to $100, $2.99 for orders $100 to $300, and $3.99 for orders over $300, which is added to the order total during "checkout". From the supplier Service Syndicate collects a 15% commission on the order value before freight, processing fee, and any applicable sales taxes. Note that approximately 3% of this goes to credit card payment processing charges incurred by Service Syndicate. 4. Can we advertise on the site? Yes. While we don't place any advertising on your catalog pages, advertising space is available on the search portions of the site. For more details please contact ad sales at info@ServiceSyndicate.com 5. How do we get paid? When an order is confirmed for shipment Service Syndicate bills the buyer's credit card and makes the credit to your supplier account for the proceeds of the order minus the processing fee and commission. All supplier accounts are paid out on a bi-monthly cycle, net30, Service Syndicate makes payments to each supplier with a positive account balance for the previous billing cycle. Any additional contracted service or advertising fees (future services) are deducted from the account before payment. 6. We want our buyers to know they're getting something special, how do we limit the type of buyers that can order from our program? A key feature of Service Syndicate is the ability of suppliers to easily control what type of buyers have access to their programs and what pricing they're entitled. As part of the registration process, every authorized buyer account is categorized by their type. For each catalog you activate, you will indicate which specific buyer types within each buyer categories is allowed access to your catalog. For each business type/category you may also designate a specific pricing tier - for example 10% off "base" pricing. These designations can be changed easily at any time to suit your changing marketing and inventory situations. This gives suppliers an unparalled ability to redirect their marketing and distribution targets instantaneously and without any added expense. 7. How do you prevent buyer abuse? Buyer Agreement - For each Buyer Account an Administrator is authorized and accepts responsibility for monitoring the use of their account as specified in the Buyer Agreement. Failure to abide by the terms of the agreement or respond to inquiries from Service Syndicate regarding possible abuses will result in immediate suspension or termination of their entire buyer account. Buyer Limits - authorized buyers are subject to three levels of buying limits. The first level is set by suppliers on their individual programs. The next two levels are set by Service Syndicate and sets caps on every product sub-category as well as total order limits per month and per year. For more details see the buyer limits. These limits will be modified as required based on supplier feedback. Note that these limits do not override specific buying limits activated by suppliers on their programs (see below). Ship To Address controls - for each catalog the supplier can specify whether or not they wish to allow for Ship To addresses other than the Buyer accounts address. Forcing orders to be shipped only to the respective retail or other business address discourages non-authorized buyer abuse. Respectively buyer account administrators can also indicate "Ship To Business Address Only" for all orders placed by their account members. Maximum quantities - for each catalog the supplier can set maximum quantities per sub-category for buyers. For example 2 handbags per buyer from the Spring/Summer 2006 catalog. 8. What about retailers concerned with these discounted sales cutting into their sales? Service Syndicate isn't changing the discount concept, which is a legitimate brand-building tool that ultimately benefits retailers by driving consumers to their stores looking for the latest hot brands. Service Syndicate authorizes industry access only, and it is the suppliers that ultimately control what industry buyer types have access to their programs. Service Syndicate suppliers have a significant advantage in providing that path to these important opinion leaders thus benefiting the retailer. 9. Will Service Syndicate inventory and ship our products? No. While to do so would give us much greater control over our service, it would also significantly compromise the primary benefits we are offering the industry, such as distribution control, full brand reach potential, and a level playing field for all suppliers, and for industry buyers, the best possible selection at the best possible deals. Because we are not owned and/or operated by a large consumer e-tailer, we have no incentive to inventory and/or preferably promote the products of any individual vendors. To be involved in making distribution decisions would simply go against the business practices required to be a truly neutral service to the entire industry. Control over the actual fulfillment of orders provides suppliers the final option for a buyer qualification check, the ability to prevent inventory that is needed to fill a retailer order from being sold at discount, and to add buyer information to their database(s). Brand Reach and Selection - While Service Syndicate orders are important, fulfilling retailer orders are almost always higher priority. Suppliers simply cannot afford to make excess allocation mistakes with discounted products and as a result must limit the products and their quantities made available for our orders. Conversely to act as a distributor, Service Syndicate would be required to make "purchasing" decisions based on inventory and fulfillment costs and liabilities weighed against "forecast" sales for every product supported. Newer and less well-known brands and products would be put at a significant disadvantage. These restrictions severely limit the potential number of brands and quantity of products that would be made available to buyers. Supplier opportunities to broadly expose their brands and product lines through this opinion leader market would also be drastically reduced. Best Deals - As a supplier you are well aware of the high overhead costs involved in distribution. To replicate this simply means much higher operational costs, which would have to be passed on to buyers. This defeats the whole purpose of encouraging industry employees to try new brands by offering them a deal that can't be beat. We are offering this service with no membership or access costs and no added margins; simply a low supplier commission and a very low processing fee to buyers to cover credit card and transaction expenses, as a result our service can pass on prices at truly discounted levels. 10. How will Service Syndicate keep track of inventory availability? There are four levels of inventory maintenance: 1 - Passive - inventory is automatically updated when items are cancelled as unavailable. 2 - Supplier Manual - supplier administrator has access to a one-page inventory update page that allows them to quickly scroll through all items and update availability via check boxes at both the model/style and sku levels. 3 - Service Syndicate Manual - upon provision of availability/left to sell reports Service Syndicate will update supplier programs for $.10 per model/style. 4 - Automated - catalogs can be updated automatically by sending Service Syndicate a specifically formatted flat file. Please contact us for details.