eWholesale Collective event: Collaborate to win

The best way for the sector to fully embrace the ecommerce opportunity is by putting aside competition in favour of collaboration

Two heads are better than one, right? Yet, when it comes to pushing the dial, we are all guilty of working in isolation, heads down, focused on our goals, rarely looking up.

But, at the latest eWholesale Collective event, the most powerful takeaway was that working together needed to be embraced if we all want to succeed.

The annual event, this year held at the JP Morgan Media Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground, saw record attendance levels from wholesalers across the UK.

The eWholesale Collective comprises four of the UK’s leading food and drink brands, with Wholesale News. Each brand – Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company, Mars Wrigley, PepsiCo and Red Bull – is committed to supporting the wholesale sector to embrace the latest digital innovation in order to take advantage of the huge opportunity provided by ecommerce.

All four brands are leaders in ecommerce and, by working as a collective, they pool expertise, experience, knowledge and insight to provide support and solutions for the sector’s ecommerce challenges.

By embracing the ecommerce opportunity, not only will wholesalers drive sales, but they will also future-proof their businesses. Wholesale News Editor-in-Chief Stephenie Shaw explained this to attendees: “Wholesale customers are used to the high standards set by consumer-facing sites such as Amazon, and they now expect the same level of ease, convenience and service in their working lives,” she said.

“The secret to ecommerce’s global appeal is that it places the customer at the centre of the experience. This could be examples of products they may like, that other customers have bought or reminders of products usually purchased. A highly effective ecommerce solution makes life easier for time-pressured customers and that is invaluable.”

Watch the full video of the event here:

WHAT WE LEARNED

Each of the brands shared the reason for their passion for ecommerce, and the things they were most proud of achieving in the channel, including examples of working with wholesalers to drive change.

Holly Franklin, head of business development, Lumina Intelligence, gave an overview of online shopping behaviour in the wholesale sector, ways to create a successful wholesale platform, and the key trends affecting wholesale in 2024 and beyond.

Jess Summers, user experience researcher, PepsiCo Digital Experience team, explored the importance, and implications, of a great user experience.

Data Impact’s Customer Success Director Marcelina Fedczyszyn and Senior Customer Success Manager Dan Viana discussed the importance of the digital shelf and the value that can be added to wholesalers and suppliers by using their digital shelf tracking tool to optimise brands presentation online. This was followed by TWC Development Director Tom Fender, who shared the findings of TWC’s brand new foodservice aggregator study.

The afternoon’s round-table discussions tackled best practice, common sector challenges and the importance of data. These discussions resulted in an incredible afternoon of collaboration, resulting in a number of key takeaways from delegates and experts.

ACTIONS

What came across loud and clear was that we are all working in silos, while tackling the same challenges and issues.

From levelling up data knowledge and capabilities to filling knowledge gaps and exploring best practice, it is clear that the more we communicate the more likely we are able to progress as a channel. A collaborative approach would benefit everyone involved.

IMPORTANCE OF DATA

Unsurprisingly, a key theme emerged around data usage. Even the most advanced wholesalers do not regard themselves as data proficient. This was attributed predominantly to lack of resource – while wholesalers may have the data, there is a lack of time and resource to dive into it properly and use it to its full potential.

Sharing data is key to progress. Sharing data with suppliers will enable them to help wholesalers – they can analyse your data and provide insights to help your business. Increased data sharing won’t just benefit brands but will also be equally as useful for wholesalers. Most brands operate within data-driven organisations and with a lack of wholesale ecommerce data, it is too easy to overlook the opportunity and focus efforts elsewhere, such as the multiples where there is a wealth of insight.

The more visible the data, such as the return on investment on activations, and online/offline sales split to identify market share and opportunities, can unlock additional investment and resource.

Sharing data also allows brands to be more creative. When brands know what works, they can embrace those touchpoints to drive engagement.

When it comes to a data strategy, remember there is no end point. There is always more you can do, but you must start somewhere. Without a data strategy, suppliers have no choice but to prioritise those wholesalers with accessible, workable data for the purposes of understanding what is successful in order to be strategic.

For those just starting out, be clear about what data you need to drive your business forward. For those further along, what is the best way to format and distribute data to make it easier to share with supplier partners? From a pre-filled template to an interactive tool (which you can monetise), there are many options that can make your life easier.

Data is often fragmented and in different formats, making it difficult to integrate and analyse. There is no single read of the market.

“The eWholesale Collective provides a rare opportunity to set aside competition in favour of collaboration for one day each year. When we allow ourselves to be open to discuss our experiences, we realise we are all facing the same challenges in working towards the same objective which is propelling the wholesale sector into the digital era.” SYDNEY BRON, B2B eCommerce Specialist, Red Bull

“I want to thank the eWholesale Collective for an excellent event and for building and driving such a unique and purposeful cooperative over the past three years.

“When it comes to ecommerce, wholesale can get easily overlooked due to the strong sulted ‘traditional’ in an incredible reputation afternoon the channel of penness has been and collaboration labelled with. with What a range really of tions opened for attendees my eyes to over take the back event and put was into tion. just how unjustified that label is and how digitally mature wholesale businesses are, with many having migrated their business model to digital first. The commercial opportunity for ewholesale to drive the entire wholesale channel is enormous.

During the event, the generosity of the participants to share their views, learnings and experiences was equally huge. I‘ve not attended another event where there was such a genuine desire for everyone to succeed and such open and positive collaboration to ensure that success is for all.

I’m proud that Carlsberg is a key player in driving the Collective and will continue to strongly support the eWC and the digitisation of the wholesale channel.” RUSSELL CLOSE, Global eCommerce Director, Carlsberg Group

“An exciting and successful day, where everyone embraced the opportunity to connect, network, share and learn about digital transformation. We heard about the importance of data, technical capabilities and how to maximise this through our most important assets, our people and our customers!” CLAIRE TOYNE, Dcomm – Impulse Head, Mars Wrigley

“The eWholesale Collective provides a fantastic opportunity to bring together brands and a wide range of customers across the industry, share key intel about the changing and evolving digital world and ensure we are all equipped to win in this space. The networking, discussion and sharing of experiences is testimony to those who attend the events and are all striving to offer customers a digitised experience and develop the digital commerce offering.” STEPHEN MARSHALL, Digital Strategy Manager, PepsiCo

USER EXPERIENCE AND CONTENT

User experience has to be at the heart of your digital developments to ensure that resource in both personnel and budget is focused in the right areas. By using data to follow the shopper journey, wholesalers demonstrate agility in flexing their roadmap of digital development.

Where multiple devices are often used at different stages of the shopper journey from building a shopping list, to checking prices, completing an order and checking out, it is imperative that all developments work hand in hand across devices. However, choosing which to prioritise is a starting point.

When it comes to wholesale-specific secondary content, brands are open to developing this but wholesalers need to have the capability to use it and wholesalers need to create demand and request it from suppliers.

Lean on the four eWholesale Collective brands as category experts – they can and will support on optimisation to create a better user experience within their categories.

Search remains critical for ecommerce websites – it must be done right. Ensure all content is relevant and all product titles are correct, as well as high-quality ‘hero’ images.

How are your products segmented? Tailor your platform to show the bestsellers first – don’t make it hard for customers to find what they need. Take it a step further; could this be bespoke to suit your different customer types? Use your platform to offer range advice to your customers, such as options for good, better and best.

TOP TIPS

• Many businesses are embracing WhatsApp but watch out for hidden costs.
• Pop-up adverts can be impactful and deliver excellent returns, but ensure they are tailored to the audience.
• Retailers are increasingly tech savvy and they are relying on wholesalers being ahead of them, so don’t fall behind or they’ll go elsewhere.
• When looking at business growth, look at how you can increase your digital reach.
• Are you using TikTok? Why not?
• Are you following retailer influencers? Do your research now because they are a great resource!
• Change is uncomfortable, but the sooner we are comfortable with it, the better.

“I love the community we are creating through the eWholesale Collective where everyone involved is just as passionate. We are more powerful together to drive a growth culture and mindset where we come together to build the foundations to generate endless creativity.

The Collective is a unique forum leading the conversation to drive change and the stretch in ambition coupled with collaboration gives me a real buzz!” ELLIE CHEESEMAN, Head of eCommerce Western Europe, Carlsberg Group

“The eWholesale Collective is a fantastic initiative and is going to keep pushing ecommerce forward within wholesale. A good mix of data is shared but what is key, is how to apply that to strategy.

The practical and easily appliable learnings are invaluable. It is a fully rounded day of how to apply these learnings to our daily schedules which is critical to ecommerce being a success. What can we apply to what we are already doing in order to grow together and expand the channel as a whole?

It was wonderful to be invited to address delegates with round-table discussions, and the open flow of the conversation led to a lot of questions being answered and solutions brought forward, that can hopefully be applied moving forward.

Parfetts is a strong advocate of providing a digital-first strategy and the digitisation of the whole channel, and appreciates the hard work and dedication of the eWholesale Collective.” MELANIE BRUTON, Digital Marketing Manager, Parfetts