Online or offline wholesale business - A complex decision to be made

Due to unpredictable economy or due to personal wish, nowadays many of us wish to start a wholesalebusiness but the business will be offline or online; it is the most difficult thing to decide. Both options are attractive. You can earn profit using both options but certainly one of them is more lucrative than the other. Most of us know which option can be better and which one is riskier for an entrepreneurial start up of wholesale business. Internet has provided limitless opportunities not just to establish but make your wholesale business successfully grow across the globe.

Isn’t it great that you are running a successful online store to sell wholesale products without considering overhead charges? If you are passionate for success, nothing can stop you to rule in online wholesale business world. Let’s review what the differences are between an online and offline wholesale business.

Setting up an online wholesale business means saving yourself from paying thousands of pounds a month in name of bills, rent and other overhead charges. At the same time, you need not to hire employees to set up your store for your walk-in customers. It means you do not have to give salaries to your employees. You do not have to leave your home daily just to receive your customers and keep a check on daily income. You can cater to the needs of thousands and even millions of customers on daily basis at the same time. Another biggest advantage of setting up an online business is that you need not to chase your customers but customers come to you.

The negative side of setting up an online business comes when you need to decide where you should invest your money and whom you should trust to buy wholesale products for your business. You cannot trust everyone for your hard-earned money therefore; you need to be very careful before investing anywhere. There are several ways to get wholesale products and find reliable wholesale suppliers but be sure before investing money anywhere that you have chosen a reliable person or a company. Once you grab a trustworthy resource, you do not need to go elsewhere to find more reliable sources. Only this way online wholesale business can be fantastic for you. 

The Best business opportunities during recession

Gone are the days when you needed a hefty capital to start wholesale business and make your dreams, of becoming a wholesale entrepreneur, come true. In most cases, capital is believed to be the basic entry barrier but you must know that, before you actually start a wholesale business, there are some things to scrutinize. Prior to deciding the best business niche and the suppliers you would deal with, it is important to know some of the business opportunities, which can be commenced at low capital. Be very specific about the business niche, which you plan to deal in and adjust the wholesale business execution strategy accordingly.

First thing first, you got do proper research to find out the potential of your business niche in the market and what “value for money” it can offer. Identify your customer base and plan the business ideas, which can interest and intrigue that customer base. Secondly, at the beginning of your business, the storage space wouldn’t be much of an issue as you cannot start the business with all your cards in. Your house or a small place on rent can temporarily act as the warehouse.

Small Wholesale Business Opportunities!
Once you are done with the planning phase, the next step is to look for different business opportunities and find the best deal.

Financial Consultancy!
Due to market condition and economic downturn, it is highly recommended to begin with the financial consultancy for your wholesale business after deciding on the particular business opportunity. To wholesale traders lose their investments because they could not sell out wholesale products and services, is a common thing. If you have been wise right from the starting of your business by carefully researching and planning everything, you would be a position to offer professional advices to the suppliers who just couldn’t do that. If you do this consulting thing with more focus on the details and market research, wholesale business consulting could become your primary profession.

Food Business!
If you cannot offer a piece of advice to other wholesalers, you can start a low-cost food business at local level as it has the potential to go well in the recession. For instance, you can start delivering packaged food items to retail shops, large shopping malls or directly to office goers. Another way is to start delivering food items to retailers at discount rates or you may start delivering the spices in bulk such as salt, sugar, and dozens of other exotic spices which make the food irresistible.

Cosmetics Business!
Beauty products can never go out of demand because people, especially women can never stop spending money on their looks. At the point where you start your business, setting up a manufacturing plant for cosmetics would be too much to expect but becoming a wholesale cosmetic supplier would not be. These wholesale products have the potential to ensure steady flow of profit.

Elements of a Mission Statement

No one can deny the importance of a mission statement in motivating a business. Mission statement not only helps the business to remain on its track but also helps determining the very purpose of its existence. Finding a perfect mission statement is never possible. Mission statements are made, followed and updated continuously. Updates are made due to many reasons like change in business, change in business philosophy or any other major change that would result in substantial deviation for the organization from the earlier path it laid down in its mission statement. There are nine elements which involve in making a mission statement. Each good mission statement incorporates all of these elements in it. These elements are.

1.Customers
2.Products or Services
3.Markets
4.Technology
5.Concern for survival, growth and profitability
6.Philosophy
7.Self concept
8.Concern for public image
9.Concern for employees

Here is a glimpse of what each of these elements states about in a mission statement

1.Customers
In this element the organization mentions who are its customers or potential customers. What will it do to serve them and how will its customers find this organization different from the other organizations providing similar products or services in the market.

2.Products or Services
In mission statement a business has to mention the producer or service or both they are providing. By defining products or services the company distinguishes its offered products or services from competitive products or services of similar nature provided by other competitors in the market.

3.Markets
By defining markets, the company is declaring which types of customers it will target. Or who will be the intended audience for which it will produce products or services. For example, a luxury car maker like Rolls Royce has a potential market of only the richest of the rich in the world.

4.Technology
By defining technology, the company tells its current technology use in making of its products. It also tells about the unique ways in which its products or services are technologically more advanced then their alternates.

5.Concern for survival, growth and profitability
In this element of the mission statement business defines the means it seeks to survive in the longer run. It not merely lists them out but also defines the logic behind them and how will the company strive to achieve them.

6.Philosophy
Philosophy of a company is a much wider term to cover. By defining philosophy, the company defines its way of working, its culture, its beliefs and how it sees work to be carried out. It is also an analytical way of defining the norms on which it runs.

7.Self concept
By defining the self concept, the business is telling its heart out to the world. In this the company shows the outside world, its core strengths and the place it sees itself in the future.

8.Concern for public image
The buzz word is usually corporate social responsibility mixed with concern for public image. First of all these two terms are totally different and they can by no means be intermingled with each other. Corporate social responsibility points the ways in which the business wants to contribute towards the betterment of the society. Concern for public image is a much wider term and can include not only the corporate social responsibility but the overall impact of the actions taken by the company on its image. This may include from minor issues like installing manufacturing recycling plants by a company for pollution reduction to improve its packaging to enhance a better brand image for one of its top line brands.

9.Concern for employees
Earlier day corporations didn’t care much about their employees. Thankfully the trend has started shifting from no focus to a lot of concentration on working environment. In a mission statement a company also defines the ways in which it is beneficial for potential and currently working employees to work at a certain organization. This also includes the ways in which the company will treat its employees and how will it look towards this relation in a longer period of time.

Source:
UK Wholesalers

Comparing Online stores with Bricks and mortar stores

Online shopping is fast becoming the norm with people buying everything on internet from books to DVDs, and cosmetics to heavy machinery. You can purchase just about anything, anytime on internet. There is a tremendous growth in the numbers of dollars spent every year on online shopping, which is fast, far more convenient and economical, all at the same time. However, shopping from an online store is an entirely different experience and not everyone is at ease while buying from a website, especially those who are not on the ball and well-informed about new technologies.
Let’s compare online stores with conventional stores and look at its advantages or disadvantages.

Advantages:
Online shopping is all about expediency, ease for both buyers and sellers is the biggest plus point of online shopping. To start with the buyer, first of all you don’t need to store products in large quantities, instead you can place images of products at your website and purchase from manufacturer only when someone place an order (especially when you are acting as a dropshipper). The real advantage that online shopping brings to the customers is the option of carrying out research and price comparisons on internet. It’s a matter of minutes to get hold of the information about different products, including their features, reviews, customer experiences and price comparisons for any given requirement. Even those who don’t buy online, likes to surf around for some information regarding a particular product. Such extensive information and research is almost impossible in a traditional store where you are stuck with limited options. Also, online stores are open 24 hours, whole product selection and payment takes little time and the product is delivered to your doorstep.


Disadvantages:
Biggest disadvantage at the moment is probably the access factor, not everybody has the access or the knowledge required to use internet for shopping purpose. One needs to be adept in searching and surfing internet, because the nature of online shopping makes internet an ideal place for scammers. In case you’re caught in the trap of some scammer, it’s really hard to recover your money, once you’ve made the payment. Therefore, some people are always reluctant to buy online; there are very few laws and regulations to keep online businesses under check. Even if the supplier is not fraud, the actual product can turn out to be completely opposite to what you had conceived after looking at the image. If you are running an online store, you must consider these reservations.

Source:
Wholesale Suppliers

Price determination – Profit and other contributing factors

If you are in retail or reselling business, setting price is not a concern, but if you are the manufacturer or producer, or if you are going to provide some sort of services then setting price can be a very difficult job. At times, new startups set prices in a hurry and focus more on making sales, only to find later that even though they’ve made good enough sales, the accumulated profit is not up to the mark. That is why when setting prices; you need to keep each and every cost in mind, along with adjusting the variables like competitor’s price and consumer’s purchasing power into the price. A price too low would bring more sales but no profits, whereas a price too high will bring large profits but very few sales (unless you enjoy some sort of monopoly). Therefore, the price needs to be spot on.

Rule of thumb when setting prices:

Try to kill your competition by setting low price, but make sure you are not choking your own business of profits. Whatever pricing model you use for pricing your products or services just remember this one point; you’ve got to set a price that will give you an edge over your competitor, still providing you with much needed cash to cover your costs while earning some profits. One more thing, the price you set initially is not something written on stone, it can be changed and it should be changed if the initial price doesn’t prove to be the right one for any reason.

Costs & Expenses:

The price should cover the cost of production and advertisement, that’s simple and everybody knows that. Where most businesses go wrong is when they are calculating their costs of doing business, they often overlook the possibility of some future expenses or completely ignore one or two indirect expenses (transportation & depreciation, etc). Therefore, before you start calculating the right price, you must be having an idea of all costs or expenses that will occur in course of business.

Different Prices for Different stages:

If you are just starting, your first goal must be to enter the market and capture as much market share as you can. At this point of time, you probably need a price as low as possible; some businesses even take a risk of setting a price lower than their break-even point. However, once you’ve managed to make inroads, you can raise your price, later when you’ve established as a well known brand, you can always set a price that offers maximum profits.

Source:
Computers Wholesale Suppliers

Total quality management and its building blocks

"Total Quality Management", the title is almost self-explanatory; still a brief definition of TQM by "International Organization for Standardization (ISO)" will help you in coming to terms with this system. It states, "TQM is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society". Although, such exemplary business models that act in accordance with all these requirements (especially the last one about society) are hard to find, but this all-inclusive business standard (known to be a product of Japanese industry) is worth putting into practice. First because it calls for an equal level of dedication and contribution from all levels and departments of organization, second because it focuses on quality and third and the most critical, it lays emphasis on customer.

It starts with customer & end on consumer:
Total Quality Management approach has the customer on the top priority for all business decisions. It presents "customer satisfaction" as the key to the "long term success". Many times businesses are carried away by some glamorous product coming from their competitors, or a low-cost alternative, while compromising on customer requirements. "Total Quality Management" theory lays emphasis on making products or services with customer satisfaction in mind, not your personal preferences, not the competitors, not anything else, nothing, nada, zip.

Quality:
Literally, the word means a set of standards while in business language a product is a quality product if it provides your customer more than what he/she was actually anticipating (usability and durability vise), for the given price. Nowadays, there's so much competition that you should not be offering anything at all if the product you are offering is not a quality product. Apart from the product, your customer support should be of excellent quality as well.

"Total" is for "team effort":
In the set of guidelines known as "Total quality management", the word "total" symbolizes team work. As a business, you'd not be able to come up with a quality product unless all departments of your company are not into it. Total quality management is not only for manufacturing department or for marketing section or purely for upper level management; you need to get each and everyone on board. Define the tasks for everyone; make them realize their significance and the contribution they can make towards company's success. Leader's function become much more significant, supervisors and managers should be leading from the front.

Source:
Wholesale

Alternative trading systems and organization

Fair trade is a relatively old phenomenon that presents an alternate trading system, which facilitates small scale producers and workers (mainly from undeveloped countries), so that they can sell their products in the developed markets without being duped by the middleman or the capitalist who pay these workers the smallest amount but sells the product to consumers at a hefty price. At the end of the day, it is the middlemen or industrialist, who takes home the larger profits while the real worker is left with little or no opportunities to grow, which is quite unfair. For that reason a fair trading system has been introduced that tends to be directed more by socialist viewpoint than the capitalist.

Alternative Trade Organizations:

Fair trade (also known as alternative trade) calls for market access for low level producers, so that they’ll be able to sell their products at reasonable price. This is what these alternative trade organizations (or fair trade organizations) works for. Fair trade movement, which was started back in 1940’s, was initially based on religious or ethical commandments. With the passage of time, as more and more people including NGO’s and students joined in the cause, it is now becoming more and more popular especially in Europe and North America. For the reason that it’s not only the worker who benefits, but the whole society, especially the consumers who will be paying fair price.

To achieve their ultimate goal (which is to empower destitute workers towards economic prosperity), fair trade organizations works toward promoting this trade system, and spreading awareness among consumers. Such products are not easily available in all markets, so these organizations have to endorse the locations and stores where such merchandise is available. There is a type of certification known as Fair trade Certification, granted to businesses who meet the standards (works pretty much the same like ISO certification). Some of these standards are no gender discrimination, decent wages for workers, no child labor and safe working conditions. Though there’s no restraint but till now the fair-trade is normally limited to simple household stuff like tea and coffee, fruits, chocolate or handicrafts. 

Alternate trading systems:

Some people confuse alternative trade with alternate trading system, because of the similarity in the names. Alternate trading systems are actually unconventional trading system set up for the convenience of stocks buyers and sellers. These are not necessarily stock exchange, though a set of regulations made by SEC applies on them. Online trading system is an example of alternate trading.