The benefits of building a wholesale strategy into your business
At some point, every business owner will face the dilemma of how to scale. Whether you’re opening a second brick-and-mortar location, doing a weekend trade at pop ups, markets and trade fairs, or expanding online to 3rd party market-places.
The question is the same for everyone:
how to grow your business and increase revenue when you only have so many hours in the day?
One of the simplest ways to scale a successful retail business is to sell more products! Of course, this is easier said than done and there is a little more to it. But one common approach to achieving higher product sales IS through wholesale selling.
In 2022 we saw a lot of traditional D2C brands like Glossier and Allbirds take a leap into wholesale as a way to diversify their channel mix alongside their existing DTC business.
In 2023 we will continue to see more brands building a wholesale strategy into their models as they begin to recognise that going it-alone is getting harder as customer acquisition costs rise and the retail space gets even more noisier.
Brands of all shapes and sizes are recognising the benefits of having strategic retail partners in a B2B model to help grow profits, credibility and of course help shoulder the cost of customer acquisition!
Here are just some of the key benefits of building a wholesale strategy into your business model:
Scale without a lot of marketing spend – As a direct to consumer brand, you’ll know that a large portion of your time and money needs to be allocated to marketing efforts. With wholesale you just need a great strategy and a few good quality retailers to grow your sales.
Customer Acquisition – is a game of monopoly in itself and it’s becoming harder and more expensive to acquire customers online, especially for pure-play online retailers. Partnering up with retailers means that you are not shouldering the pain of customer acquisition alone.
Brand Awareness – by creating strategic wholesale partnerships with established retailers that have already made a name for themselves within your niche, you can build your brand credibility whilst accelerating your sales.
Enter new markets without risk – Expanding your business to a new territory or country comes with a series of associated costs like staff, warehousing and logistics, or starting from scratch marketing to a population that hasn’t heard of you. Finding another retailer with an existing presence and supply chain in a new market can help reduce the risk of national or international expansion by cutting your setup costs.
Economies of scale – As wholesale involves you buying in bulk, direct from the manufacturer. You’ll save money and make more money as with more units you can get better cost prices and the options of flexing your manufacturing becomes broader.Grow your Network –
As your brand grows stronger, it will be easier for you to dip your toes into other product areas, new territories and even scale internationally!
Do you have a wholesale strategy built into your business model? Something you’ve thought about but don’t know where to start maybe?
During my 18 year long retail buying career, I have been pitched to thousands of times! I know the insider knowledge of a retail head office that will help you get way ahead of anyone else!
If wholesaling is something you have thought about for your business or if you have started and looking to gain more momentum. Download this FREE guide which takes you through the 9 P’s to wholesale Framework which I teach on the Scale With Wholesale Program.
