When brands use multiple systems that are disconnected from each other, it makes managing your wholesale channels much more difficult, and that can be a major roadblock for your reps and retailers.
Whether it’s paper catalogs and one sheets, orders and inventory on multiple spreadsheets or content updates and changes living in email inboxes, these non-standardized systems can cause confusion, lost time, and decreased revenue for a brand.
There is a better way.
The Cost Of Fragmented Systems
Let’s take a look at ordering in a non-standardized system. A single order would need to hop through multiple technologies and workflows before it even lands at the point where your system recognizes it and can ship the product.
First, a retailer checks your catalog to plan the order and contacts a sales rep to get inventory numbers. Then, they fill out a spreadsheet, or other order form, and submit that to the rep. The rep pulls up the order and goes through their own process of submitting the order to your internal system. Finally, inventories get double-checked to make sure the order can be fulfilled, and the order hits your system and can get processed.
That’s too many steps, taking up too much time, with too many potential points of error. And this is just a single workflow during the season. If you imagine this happening across all of your seasons, every year, you’re looking at a combined slow down that is sure to decrease revenue.
By standardizing into one complete wholesale B2B platform, you’ll be assured that everyone is using the same workflows, the same processes, and has access to the most up-to-date information at all times.
A Better Way To Wholesale
Fortunately, a powerful wholesale B2B workflow is achievable. It’s as simple as bringing each necessary piece of your strategy together, in one location.
One B2B For Greater Efficiency
To get it started, put all your catalogs, assortments, orders, forecasts, inventory numbers, and reporting in one place – a wholesale B2B platform. This creates retailers that are self-sufficient, and reps who are empowered to offer premium support and training with the goal of increasing order volume and frequency, instead of running numbers and doing busy work for retailers. Every stage of the season requires less time and effort, and reps and retailers are working in harmony, with the same efficient workflows and tools.
Smart Content Means Improved Results
Adopt a content production technology that’s a part of your B2B platform. That means, content produced on a digital-first platform that knows it’s being made for a B2B. Typically, if you made a change to a product, your team would have to go through all your content, piece by piece, and update it all manually. However, a B2B-aware content production tool automatically updates that content everywhere when you change anything (catalogs, one sheets, assortments, and more). It’s not only a time saver, it’s the answer to making sure everyone has the most up-to-date and accurate information.
A Window Into Inventory
The number one complaint we see from retailers is the lack of real-time inventory numbers when ordering. This creates unnecessary extra steps in the order process and is a major point of frustration. If a retailer doesn’t know how many products are available, how can they safely place an order? A standardized system eliminates that problem, which in turn increases order frequency that generates more revenue.
Recapturing Lost Time And Revenue
Over the years, brands and retailers have helped us identify their primary pain points. The root cause of the majority of these issues is the lack of standardization in their technologies. And, we’re not talking about extra bells and whistles… we’re talking about key functionality that’s required to do business on a day-to-day basis.
We’ve spent over a decade building a standardized system that meets the criteria for brands, reps, and retailers to successfully, and profitably, work together.
We are a B2B technology company, but that means more than just building a platform full of tools. With what we’ve built, your retailer portal is connected to your rep tools, and everyone is using the same ordering systems and other e-commerce tools. The entire system is shoppable, and it’s pulling marketing materials from a connected suite of B2B-aware publishing tools, which is being fed content from our production studios.
It’s the Envoy B2B platform, supported by Envoy B2B Studios, and Digital Press. Each one of them is connected and communicating with the others. This turns scattered workflows into a single, centralized workflow that’s easy to navigate and saves hundreds of personal hours for your teams.
The Right Time To Standardize Is Now
We know it takes time to do this right. We built a team of experts that can implement and onboard your brand quickly and efficiently, with no impact on your ability to do business during the transition.
That same team is dedicated to helping you succeed after implementation, season after season. What we care about the most is your success and seeing retailers fall in love with your brand.
How much time and money is it costing you to continue to operate on siloed systems that can’t talk to each other, and require multiple touch points to continue to move forward towards realizing revenue? And how much revenue is lost due to time spent with inefficient systems?
It’s time to standardize. Consolidate your systems, operate more efficiently, and reach those revenue goals, so you can grow your brand. Let’s get started.
