5 Ways To Improve Your Wholesale Sales

January 21, 2018 - 12 minutes read

Enhance Sales And Simplify Your Wholesale Operation

As a wholesaler, you know how important attracting more retailers is for your business. The long term success of your operations depends on if you can acquire more retail clients and sustain the client relationships that you already have. As a business owner, you probably already understand that it is tremendously more expensive to find a new client than to maintain your current client relationships. However, this can be difficult when your clients expect greater service and low prices.

Luckily, the advancement of new technologies has helped businesses to meet the rising expectations of their customer base. Wholesale customers now expect a higher level of service, and your wholesale business must be able to provide it if you want to keep those relationships going. New technologies now allow wholesalers to streamline their complex processes and to increase the speed of shipping and delivery. Special offers, referrals, and a strong customer service can help your wholesale business attract new customers in addition to keeping old ones. Here is how your business can start making its wholesale operations more efficient while improving your sales numbers.

Utilize special offers

Who doesn’t like a great deal? Your customers and retailers are looking to save money just like everyone else. You can use that knowledge to your advantage in order to offer certain types of deals that are attractive to retailers and that boost your sales. The first thing that you should understand is that customers are more likely to click on ads that offer special promotions or discounts. This incentivizes customers to take that first step through the door and at least consider your offer. Once you have customers coming in through the door, you can personalize offers to meet their specific needs.

For example, if you have a current retailer who has bought a specific product from you several times, you can offer them a better deal for buying the same product in bulk the next time. Customers respond better to personalized offers, and this can enhance brand loyalty and increase repeat business over time. You can send out special offers in a variety of different ways, such as using an email newsletters and online, mobile, and print ads. Your offers can be seasonal, monthly, or even weekly. But you want to emphasize to your customers that they are getting a deal that can’t be found anywhere else.

Strong customer service is a differentiator

Marketing researchers have found something quite interesting over the past several years; the difference between two similar companies in the same industry isn’t the small variance in their products, but the disparity between their level of customer service. Customers are actually willing to pay more for a similar product if the customer service offered by the business is superior. That same logic extends to the wholesale industry. If your business can offer superior customer service, then it is going to have a significant leg up on the competition. But how can your business improve on its customer service offerings?

First, you need to make sure that on a basic level, customers who need assistance are getting it. This means training your customer service and sales teams to always be professional, courteous, and concerned about solving the problems that your customers face in a timely manner. Make sure your customers have multiple ways that they can get in touch with you, and make sure that your team is always willing to go the extra mile in order to make your customers’ lives easier. Part of that is streaming the complex wholesale process, which brings us to our next point.

Streamline the process

One of the best ways to improve your wholesale sales is to streamline what has long been a complex, cumbersome process. For many retailers, the process of ordering and billing is difficult and customer service on these issues is not always at par. By simplifying the wholesale ordering, delivery, and billing processes, you can make your customers’ lives easier and help simplify their wholesale experience. Simplifying ordering and billing doesn’t mean having a dedicated employee who manages every transaction for every account.

More and more wholesale businesses are using automation for these systems and getting results. Your business can ensure that each online customer profile keeps track of interactions with both sales and customer service representatives. You can also create a mobile app where your customers can access all of their personalized information, and place orders with a click. When you streamline the process for your customers, you will reduce the number of delays and errors that you have to deal with. That saves you both time and money in the long haul.

Learn more about your customers

Your customers have specific needs, desires, and goals. You can’t best serve your customers until you know what those things are. When you know what your customers are looking for, you can refer them to it quickly, give them special offers, and avoid pushing them towards products that they aren’t interested in or don’t meet their needs.

So how can you learn more about your customers? The answer is data. New technology allows wholesalers to track customer behavior over time and learn valuable insight about their requirements. Over time, purchasing decisions change and your wholesale business has to be able to respond. When you have enough customer data, you can offer customers products that fit, and that level of personalized service increases customer loyalty. Amazon is perhaps the best at this, and they’ve perfected the art of learning a customer’s behavior and then pushing them towards products that they will likely be interested in at a future date. But learning more about your customers isn’t something that only the major players can do. Your business can also use sales data to better understand customer behavior and offer up new solutions for their particular needs.

Speed up the pace of shipping and delivery

Slow delivery can seriously hamper your business. In an age where more wholesalers are offering their customers quicker delivery options, you can’t afford to get left behind. Customers are getting used to services like Amazon Prime, which deliver products within two days for a fee. The good news is that customers are willing to pay more for services like Amazon Prime, as long as it means that they get their products quickly. If you can offer options for fast delivery, your customers are likely to choose them, even if there is a higher cost. If you can offer faster delivery without a steep increase in price, then you are even further ahead of the game.

Simplifying the ordering process is also important. You should work to make sure that your customers can order from you in multiple ways: from your website, through email, via phone call, and also from a mobile app. That way, your customers can order from you on their channel of choice, which increases the likelihood that they’ll become repeat business. By simplifying the ordering process and speeding up shipping, you’ll improve your customer experience and keep them buying from your company.

The biggest difference in the wholesale industry from a decade ago is customer expectations. Retailers are the buyers in the wholesale space, and they expect a much higher level of service than they did in previous years. Wholesalers who cannot meet this new level of service will find it very difficult to maintain customer relationships. Wholesalers who can rise to the occasion and offer better service will find that they will do more than just keep the customers they have, they’ll actually grow their business and find new customers as well.

Increasing your sales is about focusing on your customers and meeting their needs. It isn’t just about simply offering discounts. Are you recommending the right products to your customers? Are you offering them discounts on products that they actually buy? How much of what you are doing is relevant to their business? If you are making your customers’ jobs easier, you are building loyalty that will be rewarded with higher sales and business referrals.

As a wholesaler, it isn’t always easy to stand out from the crowd. You probably aren’t running a massive social media marketing campaign and engaging with new prospects isn’t always easy. But if you follow these tips, you’ll be able to meet the rising expectations of your customers and expand your customer base instead of shrinking it. Use new technology to your advantage, and increase your level of service without overextending your budget. We think you’ll find that your orders will be consistent and your customers will be happier than ever before.

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