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Running a wholesale trade business is an exciting endeavour, but it is not without its own set of challenges. The complexities associated with sourcing and distributing goods to dealing with multiple manufacturers and retailers, all with different demands on time and resources—require careful management and informed decision-making.
Therefore, to ensure the profitability, efficiency and success of your wholesale trade business for the long term—it’s a must to use a reliable and powerful cash flow management and forecasting tool, Moolamore, at your side.
Ready to learn everything about the basics of wholesaling and how to confidently manage your wholesale trade business through cash flow forecasting with Moolamore?
Let’s start!
Defining Wholesale Trade
Also known as Wholesaling—Wholesale trade refers to a business activity that involves buying products in bulk from manufacturers and reselling them in smaller proportions to retailers and other wholesalers but not to the final consumer public.
Compared to commercial sellers, wholesale traders often sell products at a lower rate which helps their customers lessen material values and maximise profit margins. Thus, they usually pile or keep their goods in a warehouse or office.
Furthermore, wholesale trading may also involve providing intermediary service to help a third-party business contact vendors for raw materials, manufacturing supplies, production components and other non-consumer items like packaging materials.
The types of wholesaling include merchants, merchandise agents or brokers, mini offices or branches and specialised.
Moving on, here are some examples of wholesale trade businesses:
- Whole Foods
- Brilliant Books
- Stone Materials
- Alibaba
- eBay
- IndiaMART
- SaleHoo
Who Utilises Wholesale Trade?
Note that wholesale trade transpires in numerous fields, such as publishing, manufacturing, material extraction, industrial equipment, agriculture, mining, electronics, household goods and grocery.
Likewise, effective utilisation of wholesale trade can help a business boost its inventory, monitor inventory storage, manage warehousing and achieve distribution goals. It can also step up the public reputation of an SME company by retaining merchandise quality while in storage—making sure deliveries are prompt and maintaining sufficient supply.
Below are some types of organisations that employ in wholesale trade:
- Retailers
- Wholesalers
- Government agencies
- Hospitals
- Industrial organisations
- Universities
- Commercial end users
The Wholesale Trade Process
Generally, wholesale trade follows this outline or process:
A) Purchasing Goods in Large Quantities (Bulk)
This is the first stage of wholesale trade, where the wholesaler can choose the type of commodities it wants to market. For instance, the usual options for wholesalers are buying bulk quantities of raw materials, production supplies, manufacturing components, retail-ready merchandise and non-consumer durable items – depending on the industry a wholesaler trades in.
Hence, it is salient to know that wholesalers sell goods after “marking up” the price. When we say “mark-up,” it refers to increasing the product’s original value to generate profits from reselling it.
B) Storing of Goods
The second phase, wherein wholesale traders store the goods in a place where it will be easier to access and maintain, is like a warehouse or a storage facility.
By keeping goods, wholesalers lessen the weary loads of storage and distribution on manufacturers. What’s more, small sellers can purchase according to their budget and necessities.
C) Selling of Goods To Organisations
Unlike consumer trade, which targets the customer’s needs and offers products that meet that demands—wholesaler trade, on the other hand, mainly focuses on B2B (business-to-business) relationships. It develops a network that includes both past and existing clients while coordinating marketing efforts to draw attention from retailers.
Effective wholesalers render excellent advice to clients and disseminate the value of wholesale trade by reviewing cost savings. Such efforts are vital in increasing loyalty and encouraging customers to purchase more goods.
D) Order Fulfillment Service
This phase refers to the distribution system or delivery of the goods to the clients who purchased from them. It’s important that a wholesale business must have exceptional or well-developed order fulfillment service to fulfill orders quickly and also since retailers want an adequate inventory to meet the scale.
E) Building and Maintaining Relationships
Remember that building and maintaining relationships is a significant and continuous process in wholesaling.
For instance, here are some of the options wholesale businesses use for client acquisition:
- phone calls
- sales visits
- email or company website
- special events
- promotional activities
Accordingly, the wholesaler must maintain a good and lasting relationship with the key players in the distribution chain (suppliers, manufacturers and distributors) to fulfill market success.
Wholesale Trade Pros
Here are the benefits of implementing wholesale trade and its importance to the economy:
- Limit Material Costs while Maximising Profits: Since wholesale goods are usually less expensive compared to their commercial counterparts
- Reach a Wider Network of Suppliers and Vendors: This can help broaden a business’s variety of products and services, which in turn can attract a more comprehensive array of customers.
- Good Storage & Inventory Management: Generally, Wholesaling delivers quickly, maintains varied inventories, and provides large portions. This can help a business alter its responsibility of storing inventory while still maintaining a sufficient supply of bestselling goods. Thus, warehousing also helps protect the goods from degradation.
- Making Sure that Supply Chain Remains Unbroken: Leveraging wholesalers’ extensive distribution network and timely delivering goods allows organisations to get their needed commodities faster.
- Satisfaction of Needs: Although wholesalers don’t deal with end consumers directly, they provide support to retailers in satisfying customer needs – especially when retailers call on wholesalers to increase the supply of particular items experiencing high customer demands.
Where Moolamore Sets In: Why is Cash Flow Forecasting a Must For Your Wholesale Trade Business?
With the Moolamore cash flow tool loaded with innovative features such as user-friendly dashboards, automation process, what-if scenario builders, comprehensive analysis, hassle-free report exporting, smooth integration, multiple currencies, security ensured and mobile-enabled—rest assured that you can confidently handle your wholesale trade business in 2023 and beyond.
It’s your key tool to efficiency, profitability and longevity.
Below is a run-through of the perks you can reap with cash flow forecasting using Moolamore:
- Achieve excellent stock management and prevent consignment of unsellable produce, which can greatly impact your cash flow.
- By replacing time-consuming manual processes with an automated cash flow tool, Moolamore—you can carry out smarter inventory control.
- Speed up and enhance the operation process in your wholesale trade company, like invoicing.
- Even just glancing at the dashboard—Moolamore provides a detailed and coherent view of the movement of money in and out of your wholesale trade business, including all costs associated with goods sold. With that, you can improve your margin accuracy.
- Helps you understand the changes in your cash position, which can give you more time to plan for future cash needs and take appropriate action to address cash flow problems
- Enhance your day-to-day decision-making and ability to realise your long-term objectives in managing your wholesale trade business.
- Harness the power of a mobile-enabled future—Moolamore empowers you to improve your profit and better manage your suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers even on the road.
Conclusion
Forecasting your ingoings and outgoings using Moolamore will help you plan smartly and anticipate future challenges before they become overwhelming. As wholesale trade business owners, it will give you peace of mind knowing that you are ready to manage your wholesale trade company confidently, even with the changes and fluctuations in the market. Thanks for reading!
Maximise your wholesaler success with a trusted cash flow forecasting tool—Moolamore. Request a demo today and start leveraging its powerful benefits!
