Wholesalers - Good Or Bad?

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Paul Hargreaves

Chief executive of Cotswold Fayre

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Well, we've done it! After three weeks of hard labour, we are in our brand new offices and warehouse and wondering what to do with all this extra space!

The office is so large I need to pick up the phone to talk to people in the same room, and the warehouse is looking very empty despite the stock-holding being higher. Let’s enjoy it whilst it lasts.

I see in one of the trade magazines this week that wholesalers are under fire yet again. I was so annoyed on reading this that I felt the need to respond straight away. Two ‘wholesalers’ are quoted with the implication that the others not quoted in the article are behaving badly! Let me address the points raised.

McGuigan and Whitworth say that “shops are missing out on product knowledge and advice…because wholesalers won’t let specialist producers speak direct to retail stockists”. This is complete nonsense. In our case any supplier wanting a detailed list of where their products are stocked is furnished with a list of retailers, phone numbers and which products they have purchased.

One producer is quoted as saying that, “nobody sells products better than the producers themselves”. Again I would refute that. Some producers may be good sales people, but my experience is that most aren’t, and are much better sticking to what they do best – creating and innovating new products.

My sales team are trained professionals and concentrate 100% on selling – that’s all they do. This is far more effective than a producer attempting to sell in the middle of doing 101 other things.

He also says, “clients….are not looked after to the standard we look after our own clients”. This is simply not true. Cotswold Fayre prides itself on customer service and we actually offer a far more flexible and friendly service than many producers. E.g. if a customer wants one case from a particular range, they can have it.

This article really is a completely unbalanced one. Another producer is quoted as saying some retailers claim they have never had a proper meeting with a wholesaler! I have a team of six people and this is all they do for four days of the week – the fifth day is spent talking to customers on the phone.

So the message is that using the right wholesalers to grow your brand is a good strategy, provided you choose one that will facilitate between retailers, consumers and producers. Please don’t tar us all with the same brush! It would seem that some wholesalers are doing something right – after all we have just moved into new premises two and a half times the size of the old one!