Case Study
Southern States Standardizes Ag Retail Operations Across a Multi-Location Cooperative
At a Glance
| Customer: | Southern States Cooperative |
| Industry: | Ag Retail, Cooperative, Crop Inputs, Feed, Energy |
| Locations: | 70 retail stores + back office for 25 cooperatives (106 total) |
| Role: | Operations Manager |
| Solution: | Merchant Ag |
The Challenge
Southern States serves farmer-members through a network of retail locations spanning crop inputs, feed, fuel, and farm supply. Each location moves at the pace of its local growing season, but corporate leadership needs a consistent, reliable view of inventory, orders, and data across the cooperative.
Before Merchant Ag, the team navigated fragmented systems and manual hand-offs. Real-time inventory visibility was difficult to achieve at scale. Reporting required pulling data from multiple sources and reconciling differences between locations. Standardizing workflows across diverse retail operations slowed decision-making during the busiest weeks of the season.
Ben Fitchett
Information Services Team Lead
Southern States Cooperative
Ever.Ag Solutions
Built for ag retail. Built for real-time decisions. Built to scale.
Southern States implemented Merchant Ag to bring inventory, orders, and reporting into one system designed for the complexity of modern ag retail at the scale of a multi-location cooperative.
Ever.Ag Solutions
Built for ag retail. Built for real-time decisions. Built to scale.
Southern States implemented Merchant Ag to bring inventory, orders, and reporting into one system designed for the complexity of modern ag retail at the scale of a multi-location cooperative.
Merchant Ag enabled the team to:
Standardize workflows across locations without losing local flexibility
Track inventory in real time from purchase through delivery
Replace manual reconciliation with consolidated, exportable reports
Give business leaders faster, more consistent access to data for decision-making
Results
With Merchant Ag, Southern States operates with greater confidence at every level, from the counter to the C-suite.
Ben Fitchett
Information Services Team Lead
Southern States Cooperative
Team Adoption
Deep functionality. Day-to-day benefits.
While Merchant Ag offers the depth needed for a cooperative the size of Southern States, the team saw practical benefits early. Shared real-time data improved efficiency and reduced internal friction across locations and departments.
Access to shared, real-time data
Real-time visibility means location managers, regional leaders, and corporate teams are working from the same numbers instead of chasing reconciled spreadsheets after the fact.
Looking Ahead
Merchant Ag has positioned Southern States to support the evolving needs of farmer-members and the cooperative’s continued growth, without trading visibility for scale.
