The Fish Wholesalers’ Business Association (GMP) has implemented an initiative to modernise the sales process between wholesalers and retailers. The initiative has seen the creation of a purchaser’s card, a document which will be required from now on when buying products at any of the Central Fish Market businesses.

The card replaces the stamp which retailers had used until now to validate delivery notes and invoices. The difference is that, with the card, the ‘validation’ is digitalised, meaning that the purchaser is identified before placing an order. For sellers to enter the order of any customer on the computer and therefore process the delivery note or invoice, first the card has to be passed through the card reader at each computer terminal.

“This measure ensures that the customer is properly identified,” said GMP chair Leandre Serra, “because without the card there is no sale, guaranteeing that only sector professionals are purchasing at the Market."

The implementation of the card involves the complete computerisation of the sales process, eliminating handwritten delivery notes and invoices. This improves business operations, speeding up processes and eliminating errors (there is no longer any need for handwritten delivery notes to be later entered in the computer) and improves real-time control of aspects such as stocks, the important matter of traceability and the day’s invoicing and sales.

Positive for purchasers
Retailers have welcomed the initiative. With the card they obtain the computer-generated delivery notes straightaway (which are also easier to read than handwritten notes) with information on all their purchases and the expenditure involved for each business.

“It’s a positive change, something we need to adapt to the new times,” said the chair of the Fishmongers’ Guild of Catalonia Carlos Galve. “I have no doubt that the new system will operate smoothly if wholesalers and purchasers work together."

Sales computerisation
The purchaser’s card is the culmination of a project led by the Fish Wholesalers’ Business Association that began three years ago with the aim of computerising all the sales processes and procedures involving wholesalers and retailers. First a computer program was implemented in each of the 53 Market businesses that respected the peculiarities and operational requirements of each company but unified all the data on sales made during the night.

This facilitated a new tool for retailers to consult all their purchasing details over the GMP’s intranet application the same day.
The project to install the computer terminals (a total of 200 computers) in the sales points began in late 2010, with the goal of computerising the whole of the purchasing process and being able to establish the cards for the retailers.

The entire project has involved an investment of over a million euros and enjoyed financial support from the Catalan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Food and the Environment.