MBA Forums

Hi Stan,
I know I have brought this up a few times in the past but cannot access the old forum.
Have you looked into having the people who enter the descriptions, enter them differently?  I know I wrote a detailed explanation in the old forum as to why it is not working good as it is now.  Maybe you can go back and look at the old posts and see the suggestion I made.  I would REALLY help make things less confusing. 

Yes, if it was the same post I am thinking about, there was a problem with not enough type/shade info.  If you have a couple of recent examples I could pass them on and see what more can be done.

One problem is with space/width of the name/description/shade/size.  Some Avon product names are very long and you just can't fit it all into the space available.  Even if I made the fields wider it wouldn't helps as the Order/Invoice is only so wide and we can't fit it on the printed page without making the font so small it would be hard to read.

Cheers,
Stan

When I enter my own products into MBA I don't use all those extra fields such as color or size, but put all the needed info into the description field only. 
Below is a list of a few items from my last order.  One thing AVON's site does do is lists each item with abreviated descriptions so all the needed information for each product is within that one field.
You can check all the products online to see how they list them.
You don't need any additional space to enter the detailed description, you just need to choose the information more descriptively and abbreviate so it can all be in one field.  For example, rather than just say Nail Enamel, which does no good, The item, brand and color can be put into one description as shown below.


MBA                      AVON
Nail Enamel                     Glass Refl N/E Spice 
Be Spontaneous      Be.Spont Edt 1.7 
True Color Blush      Tru/Clr Blsh Earth Rs
Speed Dry Nai Enamel      Speed Dry N/E Bronze
Speed Dry Nai Enamel      Speed Dry N/E Plum
Speed Dry Nai Enamel      Speed Dry N/E Copper 
Advance Techniques       Adv Tech 2/1 Shmp/Cond
Advance Techniques      Adv Tech Protectn Shmp
Advance Techniques      Adv Tech Protectn Cond 
Advance Techniques      Adv Tech Anti-Dandruff
Advance Techniques      Adv Tech Smooth Shmp
Advance Techniques      Adv Tech Smooth Cndtnr

Most of the products in MBA are confusing because of the way it is broken out on the entry form.
By making the "decription field" more descriptive and eliminating the color/size fields, all the information we need to see will show up on the purchase order and other reports we run, as well as the look ups.  Going to the customer look up to see what they ordered in the past so we can place a reorder, does no good when all it says is Nail enamel...we need to see the rest of the information as well. 

The MBA descriptions/shade/size & page number are taken from the Brochure description.  On the Customer Invoice the fields are concatenated into one long description.  Sort of a Customer centric point of view as thats how they see the product described in the Brochure.  What you are saying is there is a second description list on Avon site that is abbreviated into a Rep centrict view.
The list has to be generated from the Brochure (for product number, price & page number) so the only way to get the Rep version is to do it twice (once to get a page ordered list and then the second time for the website description) or stop and look it up on the net.  I doubt the girls will go for that. There is typically 2000+ items in a MBA USA brochure.  It would be nice if this info was available from Avon (say as text or excel file) as it would be easy to write a routine to replace all the description with the Rep fiendly ones.

Cheers,
Stan

Sorry, I did not mean the descriptions should appear exactly as they do on Avon.
Are these gals just looking at each brochure and entering the information directly from there?  They could still put the information into the one field, by just abbreviating it so that is can be more descriptive.  Maybe I am the only one that finds this to be a problem. 

No you are not the only one. I do find it a little annoying also.

Specially when the put the wrong colour for the wrong code, like the Glimmerstick Cosmic Brown and Saturn Grey. I have found this one to be wrong on many occassions.

Linda B Aussie

Yes, the USA info is from the books (already in page number order, note - AUS comes from the PO form). I created a program that copies the previous campaign in as a starting point (cust way down on the data entry) so they just have to enter the Page # and maybe change price. If the description is wrong it just keeps getting copied.

If you find one with incorrect description (say for example wrong Shade) please email me about it so I can change it for next campaign.

Cheers,
Stan

I must agree with the other Reps...I find the product description horribly long winded...when I enter the description I use a lot of abbreviations...for instance Color Trend to C/T and Advance Techniques to A/T...just simple things like this would make it so much easier and I am sure that Customers will know exactly what the product is.

Faye

Glad to see I am not alone....was starting to feel like a nag! hehehe!
I really think you can do away with all the fields for the size, color, etc and just abreviate in the description field.

I probably shouldn't say anything because I may be the only one that feels this way.  However, I'm putting my 2 cents in.  I like the long description of the products.  I use every field.  I can't stand abbreviations.  I was not brought up in an abbreviation world as it is now.  Anyways, I'll go along with however it is done.  This is just my opinion.

Have a great day!!

Mary

Hey Mary,
You have every right to state your opinion....don't feel bad about it..glad you did.  I have a question for you, cuz maybe I am missing something.  If you use all the description fields, how do you know what specific product you are ordering.  For example, if you look at the purchase order, you cannot see what the product actually is.  Usually all you see is the name brand...for instance it may just say Beyond Color.  No other information is shown there since the color, which is what I really need to see, is in one of those other fields that does not show on the purchase order and many of the needed areas.  And because of this, I have had wrong products uploaded to Avon. 

Also when I look at the customer record and see what they previously ordered. I will have a custmer call and ask what color of lip stick did I order last?  Well I check in the customer record under the previous products purchased tab.  All it shows there is the brand as well, so I have to backtrack to find out what actual color it was.

I don't have a problem at all if they don't abbreviate, but then it would just be nice if the crutial information would show in some of those areas where they are really needed.  Maybe there is another way of doing this that I am missing.
Thanks for your help.

kcenter,

I'm sorry I never have looked at those until now. :(  I see what you mean and it has to be very frustrating when trying to find out what exactly they ordered.  I could not see the color on most of the stuff.  I always look at the paper copy (old school).  It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, I guess.

Thanks for pointing this out to me.  I need to check things out before speaking.

Have a great day!

Mary

Thanks for the reply Mary!  I was hoping you had some trick that would make it work for me!  There are so many features that you just don't realize are there since we probably never use all of them.
Thanks again!

.

Stan,
  Would it be possible to include the color field and/or size on the PO printout.  You might have to reduce how much of the description is printed.

Tina

It use to have but was made smaller when prices were added.  Maybe an option for leaving something else out.

Cheers,
Stan

I still think what would be best is to look at the product description and abreviate to get all the information into one field.  That is what is needed on all records and reports.  That is what is the critical information that is needed and it is easy enough to abreviate and still make it recognizable.  I do it all the time when I have to enter products that are missed....and I also end up having to change a LOT of descriptions myself so they show what we need to see.

Is there any progress or possible fix for this issue?
Here is another great example:  item 027-564....the only description is "all 3".
No other information.  This is a common issue.  It makes it hard with reports, especially uploading the purchase order.
Thanks for the consideration.

I hate to beat this issue to death, but I just came across another nightmare from the way the descriptions are listed.  I have been working like mad trying to get my inventory figured out so I can finish my taxes.  I did a physical inventory and trying to match that to the list was nearly really hard because of the descriptions.  I hope there will be in improvement in that.  Otherwise I love the program.  Thanks Stan.

I think it would be best to use the Product Number.  Not sure as I am not the one inputing but the Descriptions come from the printed Catalog descriptions and Avon may change these slightly over time.

Cheers,
Stan