Wholesavers by Daniel Pinkney

wholesavers.co

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‘Convenience made easy’

July 2011

What is Wholesavers.co?

A wholesaler price comparison website for convenience retailers. The site will enable quick and easy creation of multiple shopping lists giving retailers maximum savings and consequently greater profit margins. Other planned services include a stocktaking tool and the ability to order online from smaller, select wholesalers, many of which still have phone and fax as their only available channels for ordering.

How do retailers save money?

The retailer creates their weekly shopping list by scanning all the items they require (or shelf edge labels if the product is missing) using a compatible USB barcode scanner - these are often provided by the wholesaler/symbol group but can be bought through Wholesalers.co if need be.The items are then batch uploaded to wholesavers.co and the retailer selects their usual wholesale outlets. The retailer is then shown what it would cost to buy ALL the products exclusively from each wholesaler. It then locates the cheapest products from each and compiles separate shopping lists. In doing so it shows the retailer what they can save by going to all their wholesalers. It has been shown that from an average weekly shop of £10k and comparing prices across three wholesalers, retailers can save up to £1k.

Benefits to Retailers

• Maximise profits and save up to 10% on stock spend every year

• Save time cross referencing wholesale offer leaflets, extensive price lists and trawling through different wholesalers to locate the cheapest products. • Save time ordering through wholesale product order forms - typical orders can take several hours to compile, even if retailers have compiled a list beforehand. The site will include a search tool that allows retailers to find products by entering barcode information and adding it to their ‘master’ shopping list.

• Easy list generating tool. Why write shopping lists? Retailers scan all the items (or shelf edge labels) that they need, upload to the site and then print. The lists also include RRP so retailers without a linked EPOS can keep tabs on their pricing levels. • The individual lists also show the latest wholesaler offers thereby ensuring the retailer doesn’t miss out on any bargains or key promotions. By subscribing, retailers also get email notifications of new and upcoming offers from wholesalers registered to the service.

• Llinked EPOS systems that auto generate orders don’t notify the retailers of multibuy offers as individual wholesaler (and Wholesavers.co) websites often do. So those retailers with a ‘stateof-the-art’ system are still losing money on a regular basis

Why should Wholesalers get involved?

A price comparison website promotes business transparency and an open playing field. Wholesalers like to directly own and control the relationship with their retailers which forces unnatural behaviour in an industry where it literally pays to shop around. Tesco share space with Asda, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose’s Ocado on Mysupermarket.co.uk so why not wholesalers, all together on Wholesavers.co? Unlike the consumer it is the very business of independent retailers to source cheaper products in order to survive and prosper in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Wholesavers.co is then the ideal tool for retailers to achieve this… simply and quickly. Are wholesalers simply afraid of losing business by sharing? Or afraid that their claims to be the best/cheapest/[insert other claim] wholesaler will be proved unfounded? By being afraid

and keeping their cards close to their chests are they not running the risk of losing even more? Standing still in a fast changing, online and mobile business arena where independent retailers are becoming increasingly more cost-conscious and internet savvy, a proposition like Wholesavers.co simply makes sense.

Benefits to Wholesalers

• Through transparent pricing from wholesalers ALL retailers will be able to make better informed purchases thereby contributing to an efficient free market. As a result wholesalers will see an increase in new business and retailers will see increased profits.

• An aggregated, promotional, multi-branded site enables wholesalers to cast themselves outside of their own website and customer base to a much wider and receptive audience. By increased exposure of their fascia packages they also encourage more retailers to join their respective symbol groups. • Wholesalers can see pricing levels/offer campaigns of their competitors freely and can act accordingly. Not only by reducing prices but increasing them where they may be too competitive. This contributes to a fair market which benefits all wholesalers.

• Increased knowledge of competitor offers and activity gives wholesalers more bargaining power with common suppliers.

• Better collaboration between wholesalers means more benefits for the independent retailer, which means the retailers can better compete with the national supermarket chains and their ‘Express’ offerings. This results in retailers developing their businesses and spending more at their wholesalers... A continued growth in the independent sector will ensure growth in the wholesale sector. • Data service provision. Wholesale.co will record all items scanned by retailers to create their shopping lists/orders. This means we hold valuable information for comparison and analysis across all UK grocery product lines and locations that can be fed back to the wholesalers

• Generated shopping lists can be printed or sent to the wholesaler for delivery/collection (if the wholesaler wishes to activate this option). The latest special offers and/or coupons from the wholesaler are also included on each list • Cut the costs of printing and postage - offer leaflets, printed price lists and order forms (often 200+ pages printed every month). Retailers can find prices, compile orders and view your offers online so as more opt into the service then the amount of printed materials required for the wholesaler will reduce.

Future planned services

• An online ordering system built into the site for niche wholesale companies will result in more retailers visiting and using the site frequently which can be converted to new trade customers for the key wholesalers.

• Stocktaking tool, scan items and quantities (with upgraded scanner option), upload to the site and get the stock value by wholesaler RRP. • Update or cancel daily trade milk/bread deliveries online - most currently managed by phone

• Develop platform to allow convenience EPOS systems to access the system. Fully managed stock levels/automatic ordering in current EPOS system are linked to one wholesaler. So stock levels from another wholesaler has to be manually inputted and the system re-orders from the default wholesaler. By linking the EPOS to Wholesale.co, the stock management side remains at the client side but the automated ordering could be done through Wholesavers.co platform so that the orders are split and placed with the cheapest suppliers. • Online EPOS systems rather than site based? Price updates in realtime, automated backups. Bit like the iCloud system developed by Apple. Web/browers based EPOS system means

any computer system can be used (not tied to Windows XP). Although a cached or local copy maybe required in the event of downtime?

• Mobile app development - ability to scan barcodes using mobile phones and get prices across wholesalers (including related offers) in realtime.

Income streams

• Retailer subscription. Freemium model... 30 days free trial or start off free (to generate sign ups) and introduce a subscription fee later on down the line. Later on down the line could expand to have a free service and several paid subscription levels.

• Sponsorship and advertising. In particular from key manufacturers such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Mars, Cadbury and Lucozade (GlaxoSmithKline)etc and those that provide products and services to the convenience sector (Sector magazines and publications, EPOS providers, shopfitting services etc) plus the wholesalers themselves. • Selling data and reports for wholesalers. Ie spend by area, split between retailers, popular products by area etc. Although this could be free option to entice them on board.

• Referrals - generated lists on the can be sent direct to wholesalers for delivery orders. Fixed price or percentage commission on these orders? • Referrals and general affiliate links / google adsense advertising • Markup/commission on scanners

• Commission on online ordering for the niche wholesalers. Each order with these tend to be £100+ so commission would need to be a lot smaller (say 1-2%?). Or perhaps a fixed monthly charge for the service. Provide them with the iframe code so they can integrate online ordering into their site also? • Advertising and promotions on Wholesavers.co newsletters sent to subscribers

• Commission/Referral fee on anyone who signs up to a wholesaler’s symbol group. Symbol groups promote this type of thing in their current publications and any retailer who successfully refers another gets £1000.

Website homepage

wholesavers.co

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‘Convenience made easy’

What is Wholesavers.co? Wholesavers.co is a wholesaler price comparison website for convenience and food retailers. The site enables quick and easy creation of multiple shopping lists giving retailers maximum savings and greater profit margins. Other planned services include a stocktaking tool and the ability to order online from niche wholesalers.

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How it Works

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wholesavers.co

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‘Convenience made easy’

The Retailer’s Story How it works in a nutshell... 1. Compile your shopping list

Scan the barcodes of all the items you need using your own wholesaler provided scanner or purchase one direct from us

2. Upload to wholesavers.co

Attach the scanner to your PC/Mac, upload your shopping list and select your chosen wholesalers

3. See your savings

We check prices and current offers across your chosen wholesalers and create shopping lists for each to give you maximum savings

Video by Lillipip

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