Running a wholesale business requires financial planning, a clear business plan, and willingness to provide flawless customer service. And really that’s just the start.
But even if your wholesale business is succeeding, you should still try to think of more lucrative ways that you can continually grow your operations. If you’re complacent with your business goals, it’ll be easier for a competitor to swoop in and overtake you.
Here are five actionable ways to can ensure your wholesale business flourishes:
1. Expand your product lines.
If you want to increase sales and grow your overall business, you can think about expanding your product lines.
For example, if you’re a specialty wholesaler that specializes in providing retail products, you could start offering items to different types of merchants. Or, if you’re a general merchandise wholesaler that primarily offers electrical supplies, you could start selling other resources, like plumbing materials.
These are just a few examples of how you can increase your wholesale business’s product lines to include new options. Ultimately, you’ll need to listen to your customer base, and see where you could better meet their needs. By doing this, you can develop your company and ensure that you’re taking into consideration what your existing customers care about.
2. Increase your marketing efforts.
Another way to grow your wholesale business is to invest in new marketing efforts. If you don’t promote your business’s services, you can’t expect your customer base to grow. Similarly, you also aren’t going to benefit if you keep trying the same types of marketing to no results. Instead, conduct deep research about your ideal customer demographics, and determine the types of marketing efforts that will attract them.
Think about these kinds of tactics:
- Send direct mail. Running direct mail campaigns is an affordable yet effective way to market your business. You can send mail to prospective clients with information about your latest promotions. Make sure that your mail pieces are attention grabbing, and boast incentives that patrons will want to take advantage of.
- Advertise in relevant publications. Many business owners forget about the benefits that print marketing can bring. With an increased attention put on digital marketing, you might not have tried purchasing ad space in local or industry-related publications. These types of advertising opportunities can be a great way to reach your typical customers.
- Optimize your website. Having a website for your wholesale business might seem fairly obvious, but your site could be missing out on important components. You should make sure that your business’s website is user-friendly and well-branded, so that current and potential customers can use it as a resource. You should also have your business’s contact information clearly listed, and provide information about your products and their typical delivery schedules, so that customers can be informed on what to expect prior to placing an order.
- Post sponsored media content. On social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, you can publish sponsored social media posts. These posts can be targeted to your ideal customers’ demographic, which is what makes them an asset to your marketing strategy. For instance, you could target your post towards individuals of a certain age and economic status in your business’s area, to ensure that the people seeing your post are more likely to become potential customers.
3. Open a new location for your business.
If your wholesale business location is small, with limited room for necessary equipment or technology, or is an inconvenient area, it might be time to move to a better location. In addition, you could even open an additional location. By having a new operating location for your wholesale business, you’ll likely be able to produce more wholesale goods, which can in turn lead to more sales.
4. Hire new employees
To expand your wholesale business, you should consider hiring additional employees. This could be done by hiring more individuals for an existing team, or creating a new position that will likely lead to improved productivity and increased sales. Below, we’ll list a few different types of wholesale positions that you could consider hiring:
- Sales managers
- Technology specialists
- Production leads or assemblers
- Truck drivers/movers
- Stock clerks
- Administrative assistants
- Bookkeepers
- Wholesale buyers
Prior to starting the hiring process, you should ensure that the role that you’re looking to fill is necessary and will help your business grow. For example, if you’re hoping to attract more customers, expanding your sales team makes the most sense; but if you need to generate more orders faster, you might need to recruiting additional truck drivers instead.
5. Invest in technology.
Having state-of-the-art technology to help improve business processes is imperative. Your business will benefit a ton from having up-to-date tech that can help you grow:
- Inventory management. This is one of the most crucial parts of operating a successful wholesale business. You should always be aware of upcoming orders, available inventory, and incoming supplies. To remain organized, we suggest implementing inventory management technology, which will help you track inventory in realtime.
- Cloud technology. It’s important to be able to access data remotely, especially if you have multiple operating locations, or are working from home. Due to this, your business could benefit from using cloud technology services.
- Customer management software. With a reliable customer management software (CMS) you can track interactions, store client data, view lead process, and set up automations, in addition to other applications. Having a CMS will enable you to refine your sales process, and guarantee that important tasks aren’t forgotten about.
How Will You Grow Your Wholesale Business?
Now it’s time to determine which avenue is best for your current operations. Although it can be daunting to take these steps, you’ll be thankful you did once your wholesale business is generating more sales!
The post 5 Smart Ways to Grow Your Wholesale Business appeared first on Fundera Ledger.
from Fundera Ledger https://www.fundera.com/blog/grow-your-wholesale-business
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