Running a wholesale business can be difficult and every now and then you may find your customer base declining and your sales and profits declining as a result. But if you are experiencing a blip in your business, here are three ways to re-vamp it and to start upping your profits too:
New Website
If you’re looking to completely change your wholesale buying business you could look at redesigning your website, or if you haven’t got one, designing a new one. Many resellers use sites like eBay and Amazon to resell products but adding a website to your portfolio can help you to gain more customers and it further promotes your business.
When creating an eCommerce website or redesigning one think about what you would like to see as a customer. One glance at eBay will show you just how unpopular products are without pictures – consumers quite often search for products and exclude any that don’t come with pictures! When labelling your products be sure to create a detailed product description and include high quality pictures if possible. You should also try to make the shopping process as easy as possible – use reliable shopping cart software and allow for popular payments like debit card or PayPal.
To boost your website rankings try using SEO techniques and including blog posts and content on your site relating to the products you are trying to resell. Hopefully this will help your website to become more visible and may even attract new customers to the site.
New Products
If your reselling business has been lacking in customers then one way to turn this around is to look at sourcing new products. If you have been specialising in one product sector or have been trying to sell a particular product with little success then it could be the ideal time to reassess your product selection.
To boost your business try focusing on seasonal products that are more likely to increase in sales during different parts of the year. During the winter consider stocking supplies of winter clothing, winter boots and umbrellas. During the spring consider reselling garden marquees and gazebos. During the summer spend time sourcing holiday products and BBQ supplies and in the autumn look out for fashion trends. Doing this will allow you to constantly refresh your product offering and will make your website an exciting place to visit for customers.
Keeping on-trend with products is crucial too as this can help both your sales and profits to increase. Look out for popular movie releases, seasonal trends and popular products by visiting retailers to see what high street stores are selling. You’ll often find that during high-profile movie releases, like Twilight, that consumers will be searching online for memorabilia so this is an ideal time to source stock from wholesale suppliers. Events like Christmas and Halloween also provide plenty of reselling opportunities. Over Halloween sales of fancy dress costumes and party products will increase massively and, as it’s a big market, it’s worth investing in. Christmas is also a popular holiday season that sees many consumers hitting online retailers to find the best deals on popular gadgets, toys and presents. Try to be aware of what is popular at this time of year and consider investing in stock as it will no doubt be easy to resell.
New Wholesale Suppliers
If you’ve been working with the same wholesalers for some time it could be worth changing and contacting fresh ones. Using a wholesale directory you should be able to find a number of trusted wholesalers that can offer you products in your chosen field. Contacting new wholesalers will also give you a better idea of trade prices. If a new contact is selling stock for much less than your previous supplier then it could open up some room for negotiation too.
