10 Tips to Thrive with Online Wholesale

Posted on April 29, 2017 by

Increase profit in online wholesale

Thinking about expanding your business by getting into online wholesale?

It can be a scary and stressful venture at first. The downside is that selling wholesale online requires a bit more knowledge and up-front effort than cold-calling or setting up your booth at a tradeshow.

The upside is that once you get going, it’ll be much easier to win new customers, grow your business, and automate your sales.

To help you get started, here’s our list of 10 tips for online wholesale success.

1. Make It Easy for Your Customers to Buy from Your Website

If you want to streamline your wholesale business through online sales, you’ll want to start by optimizing (or creating) your ecommerce website. This means making it as easy as possible for customers to find your products, learn enough to decide to buy, and ultimately place an order with you.

Here are a couple things to keep in mind:

Offer a secure checkout experience by integrating your website with a top online payment processor that includes industry standard encryption.
Accept multiple forms of payment (various credit cards, Paypal, etc.) to allow customers to use their preferred method.
Collect the minimum amount of information needed to process and fulfill the order; name, email, and delivery address will all be required, but fewer details to enter means an easier process and more sales.
Make your site mobile responsive so that any customer, anywhere can buy from you easily.

Getting these right will ensure your customers trust you and are confident when buying from your business.

For a few more tips on streamlining your online wholesale system, check out this list from KissMetrics on making the payment process easier.

2. Join Multiple B2B Ecommerce Marketplaces

A huge part of maximizing your online wholesale efforts is utilizing sales channels beyond and in addition to your company website. Online B2B marketplaces allow you to quickly set up shop on platforms with existing traffic and customers, so you can quickly find new business and expand your reach globally.

Consider both specialty markets like Joor, which targets fashion buyers and sellers, as well as general markets like Wholesale Central.

Check out our post about online wholesale marketplaces to learn more about expanding your online sales channels.

3. Compare Your Prices to Your Competitors

The broader online wholesale marketplace makes it easier than ever to “spy” on your competitors and their pricing strategies. Though most businesses offer wholesale prices at 40-60{cb377218d5687e54e8ee9149518f87201a393a7c1db5e8076e9d750029ec0dc3} of MSRP, researching your market and industry’s exact pricing structure will help you stay that much more competitive.

And wholesalers often choose to create tiered prices for different quantities of stock ordered; for example, you might sell large quantities of t-shirts like this:

100 units at $12.50/each
500 units at $10/each
1000 units at $8.75/each

While there are all sorts of complicated calculations you can do to figure out exactly what you need to charge to remain profitable, especially if you’re a new company, observing your competition, matching and testing out their strategies yourself, and adjusting accordingly is a solid way to get going quickly.

4. Enforce Minimum Orders

A key to profiting at wholesale rates is to require minimum order sizes in order to leverage economies of scale in your favor.

With minimum order sizes, you’ll be able to generate enough cash flow and leverage large volume efficiencies, even at relatively large discounts compared to retail.

There is one exception to this rule…

If you’re a new wholesaler trying to eager to generate new business, consider offering smaller “sample” orders on a one-time basis. This will go a long way in selling customers on the quality of your products while still generating some much-needed cash flow.

And after a sample order is placed, your job is to provide fast fulfillment and excellent customer service to solidify the relationship and create repeat customers – for whom you can and should enforce minimum orders.

5. Offer Dropshipping to Your Customers

Dropshipping is a supply chain management method in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to you the wholesaler, at which point you ship the goods directly to their customer.

It can be an intimidating process if you’ve built a wholesale-only business, but it’s a good strategy for finding new customers through existing channels when you seem to be hitting a market saturation point.

If you’re interested in pursuing this business model, here’s a great guide to dropshipping from Shopify to help you get started quickly.

6. Earn High-Quality Testimonials

Building trust is essential for all B2B businesses and even more so in the early growth stages.

And social proof is one of the most powerful and achievable ways of quickly building trust with your potential customers.

Enter the testimonial.

From ratings and reviews on ecommerce sites like Amazon or eBay, to snippets of customer comments strategically placed around your calls to action, testimonials are a great way to show those on the fence that you deliver on the promises you make about your products and service.

The easiest way to get a testimonial is by sending a well-timed email to your customers simply asking for one. Allow them time to sell your product and get feedback from their customers in turn, so they’ll be glad to give you a great comment.

Then, send them either a brief survey using tools like Google Forms or Survey Monkey, or ask them to drop a review on a relevant website to make giving that feedback as easy as possible.

To learn more, check out this excellent post about the foolproof method for getting testimonials.

7. Take Excellent Photos of Your Products

If you’re selling physical products online, it’s essential that you help your potential customers understand what your products are like without relying on in-person experiences.

Though, as we mentioned above, you could offer sample orders to get your products into interested hands, this adds a lot of overhead that may be avoidable with the right kind of content.

The most important pieces of product info you can provide are high-quality, comprehensive photos of your products.

To maximize your chances of making the sale, invest in professional photography with simple backgrounds to showcase the best qualities of your products from all angles; offer close-up shots, display your product next to another item to show it’s dimensions, and even consider using a model to wear, hold, or use your product – whatever’s necessary to give potential customers a complete picture (pun intended) of your product before they buy.

More than anything else, great photos of your products will help your prospects and their customers visualize and understand your product making them more likely to buy from you.

8. Write Exciting Product Descriptions

Your product photos will attract interested buyers, but your descriptions will close the sale. To really convince a retailer to carry your product, focus on the benefits your product provides to them and their customers.

How will your products help them stand out from their competition and make more sales?

How will it make their customers lives better, more interesting, more fun?

How will it solve their customer’s problems and pains or help them fulfill their dreams?

Of course, make sure to include relevant features and technical specs like height, weight, different color patterns available, etc.; the more detail the better – be sure to provide all the information customers might want or ask for to maximize your chances of convincing them to buy.

9. Build High-Quality Relationships

Long-lasting businesses are built on long-lasting relationships. And to build these high-value relationships, excellent customer service is essential.

Here are a few things to keep in mind to help you deliver the kind of services that boosts retention rates:

Allow buyers to reach you directly through email
Create an FAQ to counter common objections and answer common questions
Reply to inquiries promptly
Respond to complaints quickly
Go the extra mile to solve customer problems and make them even more willing to do business with you again
Create incentive programs like special pricing for repeat customers

By fostering long-term partnerships with every retailer you work with, you’ll make it easier for them to do business with you – and that much harder to switch to your competitors.

10. Use Modern Inventory Management Software

Since you’re housing product to sell through multiple channels, you’ll need a way to limit the waste that comes from disorganization in order to efficiently scale and maximize profitability.

And the key to operating a streamlined and efficient online wholesale business is inventory management software – which will help you track sales, collect data from all of your sales channels and business apps in one place, generate reports on inventory levels, sales figures, and more, as well as easily manage a high-volume of orders.

Ultimately, with the right inventory management software, you’ll be able to integrate and automate your online wholesale business to reduce the stress of manually tracking inventory and sales, eliminate human errors, and make it just a bit easier to start and grow your business.

Ready to Accelerate Your Online Wholesale Business?

Experience the full benefits of cloud-based inventory management software can provide your online wholesale business.

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Choosing the Right SCM Software for Your Wholesale Business

Posted on April 1, 2017 by Alla

A recent analysis of supply chain professionals in a variety of industries and business sizes, business software consulting firm Software Advice discovered a staggering 34{cb377218d5687e54e8ee9149518f87201a393a7c1db5e8076e9d750029ec0dc3} of them still rely on manual methods and legacy systems for their supply chain management (SCM) needs.

Software Buyers’ Current Solutions for Supply Chain Management

If your wholesale business only has a handful of suppliers, distribution channels, and team members, you may be able to get away with time-consuming pen and paper or clunky spreadsheet methods.

But as your business continues to grow, the limitations of these manual methods will quickly become a pain, standing in the way of the efficiency you’ll need to expand.

That’s where modern SCM software comes in.

3 Reasons Your Current SCM Solution Needs Replacement

As your customer demand begins to overwhelm your current supply chain systems, it can be incredibly tempting to implement quick-fixes to keep up without investing the time into finding a proper SCM solution – one that’s easy to implement and able to support the continued growth of your business.

Whether you’re stuck using manual systems or outdated SCM software, a few key reasons you’ll want to consider upgrading include:

It’s Too Much

Perhaps your current SCM solution works well for you, with all the bells, whistles and features you need.

But was your company sold on a fancy system overloaded with features you’re never going to use?

If that’s the case, finding new SCM software that more exactly meets your needs presents a great opportunity to streamline your operations and lower your IT and management costs.

It’s Not Enough

Perhaps your current SCM solution isn’t enough – either you’re using manual methods like spreadsheets or relying on outdated software.

You might even have a modern platform that’s worked so far – top business apps like Shopify and Xero usually contain modules to support inventory and warehouse management.

But often these types of systems work well until your business reaches a certain size, after which they continue to cause headaches and inefficiencies as you struggle to keep up with increasing demand.

In this case, switching to modern, specialized SCM software can save plenty of time and money – both now and as you continue to grow.

Its Support is Lacking

The best supply chain management software in the world is useless if it’s constantly breaking or hard to maintain.

And with the ever-expanding number of highly useful business management applications, being able to properly integrate and tailor SCM systems to your business’ needs is crucial to staying competitive.

That’s why highly-skilled, quick-responding customer support is an essential part of the best SCM software.

How the Right SCM Software Can Improve Your Business

Software Advice also found that the key factor driving the switch to a new SCM solution was modernization, meaning two things:

Increased automation of business processes
Closer integration of business systems

Software Buyers’ Pain Points With Existing Solutions

Automation

Automation may be the buzzword of the day in the supply chain management world, but that’s for good reason – being able to quickly and efficiently manage your production from component purchasing to sale fulfillment can make or break a growing wholesale business.

Too often businesses rely on inefficient practices like manually syncing supplier invoices from their ordering system to their accounting system – which not only leads to overspending on labor but also increases the risk of costly errors.

Automating these repetitive tasks to save time and reduce errors is a key benefit of modern supply chain management software.

Integration

With the increasing move to software-based business systems, integrating everything from sales portals to fulfillment systems, production lines to accounting software is key to maintaining your business’ ability to expand.

Because these business systems are often managed by individual applications, the ability to glue them all together and manage everything from one easy-to-use platform is an important feature to look for in new SCM software.

Business Growth

Ultimately, the goal of upgrading to modern, fully automated, completely integrated supply chain management software is to support the growth of your wholesale business – both now and in the future.

A growing business is a great problem to have – but it comes with its share of headaches and challenges.

In many cases, growth means adding more warehouses, vehicles, and production lines to your business, all of which can quickly overwhelm your current solutions which until now have been able to handle a single warehouse or small fleet.

This means more growing businesses are starting to tie their continued expansion to improving their IT infrastructure.

If you’re actively focusing on growth, investing in improving your IT systems (including industry-leading supply chain management software) can add the scalability and flexibility you’ll need to support it.

Which is why cloud-based SCM systems are becoming more and more popular as they’re typically well supported, consistently updated, and offer flexible pricing based on your business size and needs.

3 Questions to Ask When Choosing New SCM Software

So how do you know which SCM software system is right for your wholesale business?

Ask yourself these three questions as you begin your search:

What do we need it for?
How compatible is it with our business?
How reliable is the vendor?

What do we need it for?

The first and most important question to ask yourself when choosing the right supply chain management software is “What will I be using the software for?”

As you’re well aware, supply chain management is a complex process with different factors and needs depending on the particular demands of your business and industry, ranging from planning and strategy to manufacturing and logistics.

As a result, SCM software tends to fall into two categories:

Software applications designed to automate the planning and organizing aspects of SCM, including choosing the best carriers and means of transportation, providing an overview of the supply chain, and mapping out production processes.
Software applications designed to automate the execution of SCM related tasks, like determining product price and availability or alternate product logistics, and ensuring raw materials and components are available when and where they’re needed.

So take some time to consider the unique needs and goals of your business by asking yourself questions such as:

What are my business objectives?
Do I want an SCM solution that handles a specific task or one that covers all my basic SCM needs?
Do I need to choose software that’s compatible with my existing SCM software and those of my suppliers and partners?
What are my current bottlenecks and where could my company benefit most from automation?

Once you’ve answered these questions you’ll be able to more accurately evaluate which of the many available SCM applications is best for accomplishing your supply chain management goals.

How compatible is it with our business?

Next, you’ll want to consider how compatible your new SCM software options are with your existing software and business processes – including related activities like sales and accounting.

This can be a huge issue of resistance for many companies as employees are accustomed to doing things a certain way, and choosing software that requires a complete overhaul of your existing systems can be a costly investment.

So you’ll not only want to ensure your new supply chain management software truly makes your employees’ jobs easier, but will also be easy to retrain on and integrate with your business.

To that last point, all new software implementations will have challenges, which is why you’ll also want to ensure the vendor you choose has a highly qualified support staff to help you quickly resolve any issues as they arise.

How reliable is the vendor?

The final question you’ll want to ask when choosing an SCM software solution is “how reliable is the vendor?”

In this case, reliability essentially means two things:

The company has been around for a while and will continue to be around.
They offer the support you’ll need to implement, maintain, and upgrade the software as it improves and your business grows.

When it comes to B2B software as a whole, finding reliable, service-oriented vendors is a must to prevent costly downtime due to malfunctions.

And because supply chain software is such an integral part of your business, it’s especially important that your chosen vendor offers best in class support.

As a general rule, the longer a provider has been around, the more established they are in terms of clientele, and the size of their reach (local/national/global) are all important factors when considering your supply chain software vendor.

And whichever provider you choose, you should always have a “Plan B” backup in the unfortunate event that they close their doors.

When evaluating your top choices, be sure to find reviews from reputable sources and consider a few of the following questions:

Is the company willing to modify the software when needed?
Do they provide source code and documentation?
What kind of personnel and resources are required to operate the software?
Is the software user-friendly? How big is the learning curve?

Grow Your Business with the Right SCM Software

Hopefully now you’re better prepared to choose the right new SCM software for your wholesale business – including a better understanding of why it’s a worthwhile investment and essential questions to consider when choosing an SCM software solution.

Many businesses today are paralyzed by clunky, out-of-date SCM management systems, whether it’s legacy software that hasn’t been updated in years, or a painfully manual pen and paper or spreadsheet-based system.

The latest SCM software solutions can help you keep up with demand and prepare for future growth by streamlining your backend processes through integration and automation.

And when you partner with the right vendor, supply chain software can reduce your headaches and keep you competitive for years to come.

According to research from GetApp Lab, 55{cb377218d5687e54e8ee9149518f87201a393a7c1db5e8076e9d750029ec0dc3} of businesses are saving more than 5 hours a week with SCM software – so now’s the time to make the switch!

Get started with your free 14-day trial of DEAR Inventory today!