5 Simple Time Saving Strategies for Wholesale Business Owners

  wholesale, business advice

Wholesale businesses all perform a similar function as middlemen in the supply chain between secondary distributors and manufacturers. The goods they transport, though, are very varied—from tennis sneakers to trucks, organic yogurt to ophthalmology equipment. Today, due to globalization, supply systems have become increasingly more complex and harder to follow. But customers still demand faster service, greater choice, and reduced prices from wholesale business owners. With all these demands, it’s difficult to remain competitive.

Wholesale business owners need efficiency. This requires the implementation of technology to maximize operations and profit. Luckily there’s Sweet, software designed specifically for small to medium-sized wholesale businesses, so that you can keep up with the pace of the global market, and even stay ahead of the curve.

Here are five simple time saving strategies for wholesale business owners, and how Sweet can help you achieve them.

Keep Data Centralized & Organized

With an organization as large and complex as a wholesale business, it is essential to keep all of your data centralized and organized. The days of paper inventories are long gone, and even are the days of many Excel files organized in a folder on your hard drive. This scattering of data only brings about further legwork. A link to a deleted file, or a mistyped formula can result in a wrong order or incorrect inventory counts: more time wasted. Luckily, there’s a better way.

With Sweet, all pertinent data—inventory, orders, invoices, customer information, are all located in one place for everyone on the team to access. No more time wasted looking for files. It’s all right there for you.

Track and Manage Inventory in Real-Time

Isn’t it embarrassing when a customer asks you for a product and you tell them you have it, but you actually just sold out? Nobody likes looking unprofessional.

With Sweet, changes in inventory are updated as soon as the stock is sold, so you never have to run out of any product, or be overstocked in something else. As we all know, holding inventory costs money—the space it occupies, and product depreciation. Tracking inventory in real-time means you always know what you have, what you need, and what you don’t need.

Keep Your Customers on the Same Page

How much of our day is tied up in unnecessary business meetings, phone calls, or text messages where an employee is asking an operational question, such as, “Are we out of this? I can’t find it anywhere . . .” This leads to incorrect information being told to your customers.

With Sweet, since your entire staff has access to the same data set 24/7 because it’s right there on the cloud, your customers can always stay correctly informed.

Instead of wasting time by misleading a customer or clarifying a question for an employee, you can get back to what you do best: selling more products to existing and potential customers.

The Three Magic Letters: CRM

CRM, or customer relationship management, has been a godsend for all medium-sized to large companies to keep all their business contacts organized. Innovators in this field have become some of the largest tech startups of the 21st century, but they also do come with a hefty price tag.

With Sweet, you can manage all of your customer’s information: contact person, account status, order history, etc., so there’s no more searching around your email for someone’s phone number. And because your CRM is built in with the rest of the software, you don’t have to utilize multiple software services.

Automate All that Should Be Automated

While every week is different, there are some things that always stay the same. For example, there are certain customers who order the same stock weekly, so it makes no sense to type in the orders manually week after week.

With Sweet, you can automate that process through our recurring order application called Standing Orders.

As a wholesale business owner, there’s already enough to think about, so any corner that can be cut will be appreciated. While you work, identify any workflows that remain constant, and seek a method to automate it, so you can focus on scaling your company.