On Monday, March 20, 2023, we will proceed with more significant steps forward in our systems availability for pick, pack and ship. Since we first commenced limited capabilities on Friday, March 17, we have experienced robust activities in Empower, in our distribution centers and through our limited Customer Care email capabilities.

We also want to provide additional details on what our current state of operations will look like tomorrow and into next week. We expect that both our recovery efforts and business processes will streamline over the next few weeks. We appreciate your patience as we move into a steadier state of operations.

What does this mean for customers?

• EDI customers are able to transact.
• Ordering and self-service capabilities are currently available through Empower.
• Other Solutions Central applications are available including ICAPS, List Assistant, Essendant Marketing Studio and Market Xpert.
• Customers can now contact our Customer Care team by email and phone lines are available starting on March 24. Service request volumes are expected to be high, and you may experience longer wait times. Empower will continue to be your fastest route to service.
• Due to continued high volume, Customer Technical Support [email protected] has longer wait times than usual. Please not send follow up status requests after sending in an initial request.
• Please note that some capabilities are still unavailable. For example:
  • Special Orders/Paper Rap
  • VDS – Green Rabbit
  • Due to the expected high order volumes, you could experience some longer shipment times.

What does this mean for suppliers?

Please continue to hold purchase orders that are in your system, and do not ship until Essendant Inventory Management advises.

• Shipping the product without Essendant Inventory Management’s approval will result in delayed payments and/or potential return of shipped product.
• Please communicate any Purchase Order (PO) cancellations so that our open POs are up-to-date and ensure we avoid delays in future PO releases.
• Future Orders:
  We expect to begin releasing POs for many, but not all, of our suppliers starting on Monday, March 27, 2023.  Essendant Inventory Management will advise you when we plan to release new POs for your product.
• Open Invoices:
  On March 24, we Issued a significant portion of open payables due on or before March 17.  On Monday March 27, the remaining payables due on or before March 17 will be paid.  We will send a communication next week on our continuing efforts to get current.
•  System Disruption:
  The Supplier Portal (Item onboarding), Salsify (Item maintenance), and Special Orders systems continue to be down with no defined timeline for restoration.  As we have more information, we will share it accordingly.

What does this mean for carriers starting on March 21?

• Carrier partners should re-establish normal pickup times.
• Outbound shipments – Should be business as usual, noting that volumes may be higher/lower at certain times as we progress in our ramp up efforts.
• Inbound shipments – Will begin in stages detailed below:
  • Shipments from suppliers are to be returned to the shipper.
    • Collect charges billed to Essendant
    • Prepaid charges billed to shipper (original bill to party on BOL)
  • Returns/Internal Transfers
    • These shipments can be scheduled for delivery. Please work with the delivery facility for an appointment time.

If customers have issues with Empower credentials, or if suppliers have issues with Solutions Central, contact Customer Technical Support [email protected]

As we communicated to you yesterday, Empower has become available for order entry and other self-serve capabilities. We are also pleased to share that we will have Customer Care available for email support only beginning today, March 17^th at 9:00am CT.

Please be patient as some of our systems while functional, may have limited capabilities. There will be some requests and types of orders that we can’t support at this time. This is our next step in the initial pilot phase to unlock limited pick, pack, and ship capabilities. and if successful, our goal is to progress to electronic order capabilities sometime on Monday, March 20, 2023.

What does this mean for customers?

• Customer Care is available via email only; voice capabilities are still not available.
• We strongly encourage self-service through Empower as we expect email volumes to be high.
• Please expect a longer-than-normal response time from Customer Care.
• All order and service requests prior to 3/17 9:00am CT are no longer available in our email system and you will not receive a response.
• Orders will take priority and service requests will only be worked when all orders have been entered.
• We will not be able to accept large work requests sent in spreadsheets at this time.
• We currently do not have capabilities to:
  • Execute 2P/3P contracts
  • Place Credit Card orders
  • Place Special orders/PaperRap orders
  • Place VDS – Green Rabbit orders
  • Facilitate warehouse special handling activities
• If you have questions about canceled orders from 3/6, you can view marked out orders in Empower in addition to the report that your sales representative has shared with you.  If your order is not visible in Empower, you can assume the order was cancelled.
• As we work through requests, there may be other items that are unavailable to our advocates.  Please be patient as they do their best to work through requests.  We may have to put some requests to the side so we can work efficiently through executable items.

Updates on Essendant.com:
Please continue to visit Essendant.com for the latest information. We will also continue to send you direct email updates when we have information to share.

We will start the first stage of our operational recovery that allows us to begin the pilot phase of limited pick, pack, and ship capabilities. This is a milestone by our teams to complete the clean-up effort, restore and recover at least 100 systems and conduct end-to-end testing. We believe this small step forward helps to get us closer to be fully operational. We recognize this has been a challenging time for our customers and we continue to focus on our ability to serve you— so you can serve your customers.

On Friday, March 17^th, 2023 entry capabilities open through Empower. Empower users have been notified with new credentials and instructions on how to proceed and the system will be available at 6:00am CT. If customers have issues with Empower credentials, contact Customer Technical Support [email protected]. Assuming this pilot is successful, broader order entry capabilities will be available in the coming days.

As we communicated to you earlier today, we have no indication that our order entry systems, or other electronic connections with customer or supplier systems, have been impacted by this incident.

What does this mean for customers?

• Customers still cannot contact our customer care team.
• In addition to Empower, other select Solution Central applications will be open and available, including:
  • ICAPS
  • List Assistant
  • Essendant Marketing Studio
  • Market Xpert
• We currently cannot service the following order types:
  • VDS – Green Rabbit
• Outside of Empower, we currently do not have other ordering capabilities available.
• If you have questions about canceled orders from 3/6, you can view marked out orders in Empower in addition to the report that your sales representative shared with you.  If your order is not visible in Empower, you can assume the order was cancelled.

What does this mean for suppliers?

• Solution Central will have the following applications available for suppliers:
  • Supplier Contact
  • Supplier Allowance
• Supplier Portal is unavailable.
• Salsify is unavailable.
• Please continue to withhold shipments. We cannot receive anything in route.
• Receiving: Receiving hours continue to be closed. We will inform you of when to reschedule deliveries and will refresh Open Dock for receiving dock schedules.
• Purchase Orders: We are unable to place purchase orders and will inform you of the next scheduled purchase order date.

What does this mean for carriers?

• Supporting the resumption of operations, we will continue to communicate directly with select carrier partners to re-establish pickup times. It is important to note that volumes will be lighter in the beginning and expand as we progress in our ramp-up efforts.

We appreciate your ongoing support and patience. We understand how difficult this situation has been and are committed to restoring full capabilities.