Insights from wholetailers on their journey to success

Who doesn’t love industry insight? We reached out to our customers to get their first-hand experience of the commerce world. With over 200 responses from rapidly expanding wholetailers (retailers and wholesalers!) we gleamed 4 helpful insights for retail success.

This blog shares insight into three key areas impacting the growth of independent retailers and wholesalers; multichannel, sales channels and technology.

Multichannel has become increasingly important to the commerce industry, but does multichannel selling increase sales?

If selling on multiple sales channels is the key to success, how many channels should you sell on and which sales channels are the most popular?

Technology is also at the forefront of the commerce industry but does it help to accelerate growth?

We wanted to get the answers to these big questions! Check out what we found…

Multichannel leads to bigger business growth

The majority of shoppers are constantly switching between devices in their day-to-day life and it’s the same scenario in retail. Consumers are searching for products online, looking at items in store, researching the best prices on their smartphones.

This has led to an increasing number of shoppers channel-hopping before buying. According to CommerceHub, 86% of global shoppers use 2 channels and 65% of shoppers research online and buy offline.

Due to this nature, a multichannel retail strategy is increasingly important but how does selling on multiple sales channels affect commerce growth?

The survey revealed that multichannel retailers see bigger growth as our customers who sell on a single channel see a 8% growth rate and those who sell across multiple channels grow at a rate of 33%.

With an average YoY increase of 2.4% in the U.S. retail sales industry, our customers are growing faster than the industry average! 

Sales channel insight

So we’ve established that retailers who sell on multiple channels have a higher rate of growth but which channels are the most popular?

According to the survey results, the average retailer sells on 4 sales channels with the most popular channels being their own website, the Amazon and eBay marketplaces and a brick-and-mortar store.

Interestingly, trade shows and phone sales are still popular channels and selling through social platforms is on the rise.

Top 3 channels:

• Own website
• Amazon
• eBay

Other popular channels:

• Physical store
• Phone sales
• Social Platforms
• Trade Shows

What is your most popular sales channel? Let us know in the comments section below!

Retailers believe technology

Technology and software has a big impact on any industry but when it comes to commerce does technology empower retailers to grow and succeed? We asked the question and 92% of respondents think retail software is important for the future success of their business.

We’ve established retailers think technology and software are important but there are many things that need to be considered when choosing the right retail management system for your business. Is it cloud-based? Does it offer automation? Is it ready for the future?

How do you make the decision for such a big commitment and investment for your business? The survey revealed 78% of people go to word of mouth source, such as online reviews and similar businesses, for help when deciding on their software purchases. 

How is Brightpearl helping wholetailers grow?

We focus on saving our customers time through automation and streamlining processes so we asked our customers how much time they’ve saved since implementing Brightpearl. The response showed us that our customers save an average of 57.5 days per year when doing tasks like; updating stock (15 days per year), processing orders (21 days per year) and updating accounts (21.5 days).

Our mission is to help our customers to succeed by supporting the foundations of their business. When we asked what their top challenge was ‘growth’ came up trumps. We’d love to know what the biggest challenge your commerce business is facing, let us know in the comments below!

We’re proud to be a part of our customers success stories and being able to quantify some of that success is very rewarding. Read more about our wonderful customers here.

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