Wholesale Dealers - Formulating an Online Strategy For Wholesale Dealers

Wholesalers need to develop their online presence. It doesn't really matter which products they actually handle. Sales are growing rapidly to distributors, retail vendors and individual customers over the internet.

The migration to an online presence can have all kinds of positive impacts to your business. Customer relations, manufacturer relations and internal processes all need to be considered once the decision has been made to go online. However, even before those things are considered you need to be sure of the type of online presence your business will be using.

There are three strategies a business can follow to get online. The first strategy involves setting up your business on one of the online marketplace sites that exist today. Secondly, the business can become a frequent seller on one of the auction sites like eBay. Both these options are relatively easy and straightforward to operate once you have been set up. The marketplace or auction site takes care of marketing and payment processing. Any relationship between the buyer and seller is largely managed by the site service provider. The last option consists of the set up of a dedicated e-commerce website managed by your company. Each strategy has its own separate benefits and disadvantages; as well as, specific implementation management tasks.

Being setup on an online marketplace is tantamount to outsourcing the operation and management of your internet presence. This can be beneficial if you do not have the IT resources or business knowledge to manage this new processing channel. At a minimum you will need to provide product descriptions, contact information and graphics to the marketplace manager. He will then develop and manage your listing(s) on the site and act as the middleman with the customers that purchase items from your company. The success of this arrangement depends on your ability to communicate with the manager and their ability to bring buying customers to your listing.

Auction sites such as eBay typically require somewhat more attention to the daily operation and transactions related to your listing on the site. These sites have various optional features regarding how your products are listed. Do you want to show pictures of your product? Do you want to list your products individually or as a group? Each individual sale will usually have options for delivery which you will be required to support. In the long run, the auction methodology can be quite rewarding from a financial perspective. These sites are often quite well marketed by themselves and can be integrated quite well with your own product marketing.

You may think your product or marketing approach is special enough that it should have its own website identity. This will require much more IT resources in terms of processing and management. You will be entirely responsible b2b wholesale for the site management, customer management and transaction processing. These responsibilities can be seen as a benefit or a disadvantage depending on your ability to handle it yourself.

But it does reduce the natural competition that usually exists on the marketplace and auction sites. This always needs to be balanced with the volume of traffic expected at each type of website. Your company website enables you to build customer lists, tailor direct marketing campaigns and maintain regular customer communication. All these are ways of building the good customer relationships that are often required for success.

These are some of the major things you need to consider when formulating your online strategy. Doing the right kind of research and getting good advice can be a big difference maker. The internet can make this an easy task. There is a wealth of information available online. There are also several business consulting firms that can be engaged to assist your company in formulating its online strategy.

As Seen on BBC News, FORBES and CNN Money

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