I would like to substitute a product

I would like to substitute a product

You don’t need to offer all the PPEs available on the market to meet all your customers’ needs. Indeed, many PPEs possess similar characteristics, which make them easily substitutable. Managing product substitution represents a key expertise. By providing the customer with an equivalent product you already sell, you avoid adding a new product to your offer, you protect the interests of your own company, and limit your stocks. To make this expertise accessible to all, Deck is equipped with product intelligence that allows you to identify possible substitutes for each product in your database.

Substituting a product

In order to show you how Deck helps you find, understand and substitute any product on the market, let’s take the following example:

“My client uses ‘PU800’ gloves. I don’t know this specific glove and I am trying to offer them an alternative that suits their needs, while meeting the objectives set by my company.”

First of all, in order to find the product your customer is asking for, you must carry out a search using the search bar.

Once your reference is found, simply click on it to access the product page. On the right side of the product page, you’ll find the amount of available alternatives.

By clicking on the alternatives, you will find all the gloves suggested as suitable substitutes.

Focusing on the entity's products

The difficulty at this stage is that there are many technical alternatives to this product. While all these market alternatives may meet your customer's needs, not all of them will meet your objectives. If your company has already defined a product perimeter for your entities, substitutions are automatically limited to products within the perimeter of the entity you’re currently in.

While our demo environment suggests 191 substitutes, the environment of fictitious distributor “RED” only lists 28 substitutes compliant with its sales policy. MAPA will only offer alternatives in its own range, i.e. 5 products.

If you wish to take another look at all substitutes available on the market, simply click on “Search outside the focus” to open up a search and view all alternatives.

Sorting substitutes

While many products can substitute for the PU800, they aren’t all equivalent. The sorting index set up by your company ranks substitutes according to their suitability with your company’s objectives. An A.1 product already in stock and manufactured by a partner manufacturer will thus be given priority over a B.3 product, which is not in stock and does not come from a partner supplier.

Changing criteria

A substitution works like a search by criteria. The criteria taken into account by our algorithms are summarised at the bottom of the substitution module.

To view or modify this search, simply click on “Edit search” at the bottom of the substitution module.

You will find the corresponding search by criteria, which describes the product you are looking to substitute for. As with any search, you can then edit, remove or add filters to refine your substitution search.

The perimeter filter was automatically added, and represents the focus of the search. If you want to broaden the search outside this focus, simply remove this filter.

In brief, you can find the product requested by your customer (search by reference), find all the technical alternatives within your entity (focus), and promote the technical alternatives that comply with your company’s policy (sorting).

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Substitution in Deck: how does it work?

Products are classified in families according to criteria defined by the Deck Product Team (family, coating, waterproofing, standards, benefits, etc.). Products of a same family are supposed to be substitutable.

A few examples to better understand substitution:

- Criteria vary from one product family to the next. For example, thickness isn’t usually a concern when substituting for a knitted glove, but it is essential when substituting for an unsupported disposable glove.

- Products are not necessarily mutually substitutable: some products can provide additional benefits compared to gloves from the same family (e.g. tactile gloves). A tactile glove can substitute for a non-tactile glove, but a non-tactile glove can’t replace a tactile glove.

I don't see any substitute for a product, is that normal?

Case No. 1: You don’t have access to the substitution module. If you do not have access to a product substitutes from its page, we advise you to check the profile with which you browse the site. Indeed, the substitution module must first be activated by the administrator of your account. Don’t hesitate to contact them to submit your request.

Case No. 2: There is no product in the focus defined by your entity. You can click on “search outside the focus” to widen your search to all products in the database (see section above: “Focus on the entity's products”).

Case No. 3: We do not have enough information about the product you wish to substitute for. You can “edit the search” to add any missing information and/or contact the manufacturer to invite them to share more information with us.

Case No. 4: If a substitution option exists, it is not in our database or we don't have any information regarding this substitution. Send us an alert regarding the product or invite the substitute manufacturer to get in touch with us so that we can add it to our database. Once your reference is found, simply click on it to access the product page. On the right side of the product page, you’ll find the amount of available alternatives. By clicking on the alternatives, you will find all the gloves suggested as suitable substitutes.

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