With the seemingly inexorable consolidation of resellers into a few large national and international brands, it can be easy for suppliers to forget about the many independent resellers, and the valuable role they play in their industries. Judging by some recent media articles, it appears that trade associations are well aware of the need to support independent resellers across all industry sectors.
While the buying power of an independent reseller may be lower than some of the large chains, there are other areas in which they can use their independence to create a competitive advantage. They can often have lower overhead costs than the big groups, and can get closer to their local customers, meeting specific requests and offering a more personalised service.
Of course, to achieve this, they also need strong support from their suppliers. When asked how they compete with large groups, independent resellers typically say things like:
- “Quality of product, service and back-up support are as important as price when choosing our suppliers.”
- “A strong supportive supply chain.”
- “A wide range of products.”
- “Good knowledgeable staff who go the extra mile.”
- “Having the correct range and level of stock holding.”
At Winster, we pride ourselves on “going the extra mile” to support all our customers, whether they be large groups or independents with a single outlet. We understand that different customers have different requirements and we have developed a range of customisation options around our extensive product range to make sure that our resellers can offer exactly what their customers need and can trade with us in the most efficient way.
Our hoses can be branded, and we can cut them to shorter lengths where required. We can crimp or swage fittings to hoses and provide hose and fittings in kit form. When it comes to packaging, we can barcode products, shrink wrap, add our reseller’s own branding and pack into customer supplied materials if required, with many products suitable for resellers with a trade counter or selling online.
We can hold buffer stocks for call-off, deliver carriage-paid and use customer booking systems for deliveries. Our ISO 9001:2015 certification is an independent verification of the quality of our customer service. Perhaps most importantly, we are exclusively a wholesaler of hoses and accessories, so we will never try to sell direct to our resellers’ customers.
As you might expect, our 60+ years’ experience working with resellers in the hose and accessories market means we can advise our customers on ranging and merchandising with product information and photos to support their marketing. For resellers looking to create a range of hoses and accessories, we can recommend a core range of products that typically sell best in their industry; or for those customers looking to extend their range to increase hose sales and profits we can analyse their customer mix and current hose range to recommend the best products to add incremental sales and profit.
If you would like a no-obligation review of your hose product range, call us today on 01902 606010, email sales@winster-hose.co.uk or use the contact form on our website.