Why is online wholesale so difficult?
Posted on 27. Jan, 2010 by Ross West in Blog
There’s a tendency to consider online wholesale as not much different than online retail, just with lower prices. For hard goods that might be true. But apparel & footwear are different. Styles come in sizes and colors, goods are booked pre-season with multiple ship windows, retailers buy different assortments by door and doors require different start dates. It’s complicated.
But put aside mechanics for a moment and consider this: buyers are not “shopping”. Most retail e-commerce solutions provide a shopping experience. Your wholesale buyer is making a business decision to invest in your product. Buyers need to know your merchandise will sell well in their stores, what collections create add-on sales and what trends you are forecasting. They will not just wade through a list of styles to put together an order. In the real world reps present buyers a merchandising plan and make a case to increase their OTB. No website is going to do that.
Our strategy is to build something different than an order entry solution. We’re building a new method for reps to interact with buyers. It connects with a secure site but empowers the rep to make a case for their merchandise in a powerful way using simple emails of assortments that a buyer can instantly commit to.
