Post Link: Wholesale Orders: 5 Ways to Improve Pre-season Selling

Wholesale Orders: 5 Ways to Improve Pre-season Selling

For companies that take wholesale orders and sell seasonally, locking in a season’s pre-bookings is critical to setting the business off on a virtuous cycle of profit generation and cashflow acceleration.

With the pre-season such a critical time for these wholesale businesses, they need every smalledge to win more deals (and win them faster). Mobile order writing and sales ordermanagement technology can help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of a wholesaler’sstaff during this crucial period.

Wholesale Orders & Why Preseason Selling is SoImportant

In talking with our customers in seasonal industries like Outdoor and Fashion, we’ve found that60-90% of their wholesale orders are pre-season orders.

These pre-bookings usually have deliveries staggered across multiple ship dates during theseason. This is beneficial to retail customers, because it enables them to meet volume discountpricing or order minimum thresholds, while improving cash flow management by limitinginventory build and paying only when they’ve received the goods.

Many wholesalers see pre-bookings as a service they offer their retailers, but it is also beneficialto the wholesale bottom line. By collecting a high percentage of their orders upfront, theyreduce their unit production costs by running at increased scale. In addition, they can betterplan production to limit the risk of excess inventory.

It’s not only the number and size of the pre-booked wholesale orders that matters, however, butalso the speed at which they are secured. By filling order books early in the pre-season,wholesalers will maximize order quantities without being left having to scramble to sell-in afterretailers have made their decisions.

Just as important, wholesalers can secure financing and begin production to ensure on-timedeliveries. This leads to their products getting on shelves and selling through more quickly, aswell as a group of satisfied customers ready to reorder again next season.

So how are companies getting their preseason orders in more efficiently? The answer is mobileorder writing and sales order management software.

How to Improve Pre-season Selling with OrderManagement Software

1. Save Money with Seamless Catalog Management

Mailing each new season’s catalog to sales reps or placing it for download in shared storage isa costly, antiquated practice. Instead, each catalog revision can be easily loaded with HDpictures and updated product descriptions from the wholesaler’s back office.

They can even set-up tailored catalogs with the products their reps are authorized to sell andthe products each customer buys. Once the catalog is ready, it can be quickly synced to salesreps’ mobile devices. They can then show the catalog and sell from anywhere they take theirdevice.

2. Save Time Writing Orders

With multiple ship dates, various ship-to locations, and different pricing scenarios for eachcustomer, simply writing an order can be a challenge. Mobile order writing solutions give salesreps the ability to sell and educate as they write the order.

These include all of the product and customer information they need, so they don’t makemistakes or take up a retailer's time to look things up. Writing orders for multiple delivery datesand shipping locations becomes the trivial task of simply choosing another date or location.

3. Sell More by Selling More Effectively

With the time previously spent writing preseason orders, sales reps can actually concentrate onselling and servicing the customer. With the wholesaler’s top sellers and their customers’ orderhistories and favorite products on an iPad, sales reps have a starting point for each

conversation at their fingertips.

They can make better product recommendations and adapt to their retailer’s strategy for eachseason based on the categories and items that have previously worked well. Deliveringcustomers the right products each season builds trust and larger future orders.

4. Improve Customer Service & Back Office Efficiency

During the preseason, the back office should be flooded with orders. Or at least one hopes so.Manually entering those orders into an ERP or other system creates a major backlog.Production doesn’t know how much to produce, orders are missed, orders are processed andshipped in a rush, and mistakes are made.

Sales order management eliminates data entry. The order automatically comes in from the fieldand syncs with the wholesaler’s core business systems. Production is ready to build inventoryand ship to retailers for on-time delivery.

5. Build strategic relationships

Too often, the preseason selling process for wholesale sales reps is dominated by just writingthe order. This is a critical time of year for the buyer, who is focused on putting out his bestassortment.

The focus of the sales rep should be on the customer, not the administrative side of things.Automating the process with sales order management software facilitates a smoother, moresuccessful season.

The Bottom Line

For your pre-season wholesale orders, it's critical that your sales reps are concentrating not onthe logistics and administration related to taking those orders, but on strategies to sell moreproduct and provide retailers with a consultative experience. By putting the right information attheir fingertips and automating the order submission process, sales order managementsoftware does just that.Post originally located at: https://www.handshake.com/blog/wholesale-orders-preseason-selling/

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