The Cactus Water Co., which does much of its sales of the desert plant-inspired ¡CACTUS! the Desert Hydrator beverage brand via Amazon.com, is turning to a cloud-based EDI and QuickBooks connection to build retail chain sales.

Launched in 2017, Cactus received an invitation last year to sell its beverages to the retail chain H-E-B Grocery Co., LP, a San Antonio, Texas-based chain with more than 400 stores in the United States and Mexico and more than $30 billion in sales.

But it faced a major challenge: H-E-B wanted Cactus to sell its beverages to it via electronic data interchange—a process for which it far from being prepared. “H-E-B was my first chain customer, and I had no idea what EDI was,” Cactus Water founder and CEO Sarita Lopez says. “I just knew I needed to get the technology installed.”

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