Smart Strategies for Distribution: Collaboration and Diversification

Wholesale distributors face many challenges in a business environment with shrinking margins, rising costs, increased competition, and demanding customers.  Two key strategies, enabled with the latest solutions, can improve sales, improve margins and streamline processing: collaboration and diversification.

Let's take a look at collaboration first. Collaboration was a key buzzword in the late '90s as ERP software vendors focused on messaging to get distributors to collaborate with vendors for demand planning.  Back then collaboration focused around supply chain planning - in this article we're referring to collaboration as a way to accelerate sales with wholesale customers.  

How do your customers sell your product today?  Consider the many channels your customer's sell through - brick and mortar stores, online stores , and even marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon.  Have you ever thought about how your wholesale customers get the data they need to effectively sell your products?  For example, if your customer will be selling your products online, they are going to need item descriptions that entice online shoppers to buy.  They will also need good images - perhaps different images that give multiple views of the item.  

Have you looked at how your wholesale customers are merchandising your products online?  You may be surprised to find less than stellar descriptions and pixelated images that don't do much to excite buyers.  

You can maintain better brand control and provide more value to these customers by providing them with the data they need to sell more effectively - and faster.  What if you could send them your electronic item catalog - complete with professional images, accurate sizes or attributes, and excellent descriptions?  You'd be able to better ...