Empower your resellers to become your sales channel

As some sales channel decision makers grapple with the perennial dilemma over whether now is the time to start ‘selling direct’ online – others are turning harder towards more channel preserving, growth strategies such as giving their reseller partners entire ‘ready-to-run’ ecommerce webstores which are personalised and conveniently pre-loaded with the manufacturer or distributors latest and most profitable product lines.

A quality ecommerce webstore is the ultimate selling tool for any sales hungry reseller and something which can also help entice and encourage the sign-up of brand new reseller relationships. If your company has a large existing network of SME sized resellers, then this strategy is particularly relevant since it can immediately enlarge the combined online footprint of your product catalogue on the Internet, boosting your market presence in each resellers’ regional or niche market. It can also remove those ecommerce technology headaches from your resellers, freeing them up to focus on selling more of your products.

“Providing your resellers with their own personalised ecommerce website that’s pre-loaded with your products will lift your digital profile way above the competition. In the old days manufacturers and distributors would often support resellers with product catalogues printed with their logos on the front covers. This is a far more personalised and sales driven improvement on that…”

Key to making this a realistic proposition for you is to ensure the process of actually setting up each new reseller ecommerce webstore is quick and simple. On the other-hand, the key to making it a realistic proposition for your resellers is giving them the ability to also add their own products to the webstore so they can sell them alongside yours.

Without web design or programming

TrueCommerce Netalogue’s own site creation wizard simply asks a series of easy to follow questions (such as preferred domain name, resellers company logo, order notification email address, etc..) – enabling a brand-new ecommerce ready webstore to be delivered to a reseller by a non-technician in less than 20 minutes – effectively enabling them to cookie cut new webstores for reseller partners without web design or programming know how.

Boosting brand loyalty and respecting reseller autonomy

Allowing resellers autonomy to add their own products to an ecommerce website you supply them with is a subtle detail but one which can act as an important determinant as to how importantly that webstore will be perceived and ultimately promoted by the reseller. Your products will of course always retain the central focus within any ecommerce website you supply; but giving the resellers the ability to add extra products that they source from other suppliers separately, means your reseller websites will have unique content which can be important to both you and the resellers joint success. For example, your products could be sold as the result of a cross-sell opportunity presented up via the sale of another product which you don’t even know about or supply. The addition of complementing products can therefore be strategically valuable in helping you gain footholds and entry into new niche markets occupied by your resellers.

Benefits to the product manufacturer or distributor:

• Increased sales and reseller motivation to sell your products.
• More, higher quality ecommerce webstores on the Internet selling your products.
• Opportunity to increase number of resellers in new markets.
• Improved reseller loyalty – working smarter to retain your resellers attention.
• Get new products to the reseller markets quicker.
• Gain first mover digital channel advantage over your competitors.

Benefits to reseller partners:

• Resellers can concentrate on marketing and selling your actual products (as opposed to spending their valuable time on the marketing and selling technologies).
• High quality web content and your latest product updates are automatically delivered to the resellers ecommerce website.
• Resellers get to administer the ecommerce webstore independently but without the setup hassles usually associated with ecommerce websites.
• Ability for reseller to also add their own products to the webstore to suit their own niche markets.
• Opportunities for the reseller to run their own promotions.

To Find Out More

Manufacturers and distributors who rely on multi-tier distribution channels are increasingly seeking new digital ways to motivate their reseller partners into selling more of their products online. If you are interested in learning more about providing webstores for your resellers solutions please contact us.

Alternatively…

If supplying your resellers with entire ecommerce webstores does not currently appeal, then perhaps you’d prefer to offer your digital support to your resellers in other ways. For example, TrueCommerce Netalogue’s B2B Ecommerce Download Centre solutions will ensure your resellers have instant self-service access to epos product feeds, product images, point of sale materials, specification sheets, etc… from within your TrueCommerce Netalogue B2B ecommerce webstore or portal.