Over many years of working with FMCG brands across sectors ranging from pet food to confectionery, we have seen that every business is different.
But they all have one thing in common: none of them has unlimited time or money. Every business has to make choices about where it puts its resources to give itself the best opportunity to grow.
If your ability to grow is tied to how well you use the resources you have, how do you know where to focus them?
The answer is often hidden in the data. Sales, product, customer and location data can reveal where performance is strongest, where support may be needed and where the greatest opportunities sit. The challenge is being able to find those answers.
Better decisions do not always require more information. Often, they come from bringing all the relevant information together and making it easier to use.
The challenge of wholesale data
When it comes to data, businesses often face one of two problems: they either have too little information, or too much of it. Within wholesale, the more common challenge is the latter.
Consider a brand working across several wholesalers, each operating through multiple depot locations. Add a large product range, several years of sales history and the different combinations of SKUs, locations and reporting periods, and the dataset can become extremely large very quickly. Some of the datasets we work with contain hundreds of thousands of lines of information.
That level of detail is valuable. For many brands working in wholesale, it is important not only to understand overall performance, but also to see how a specific SKU is performing, or what is happening within a particular depot over a particular period. That level of insight can prove crucial when deciding where to focus activity and how to drive future sales.
The problem isn’t that this information exists – it’s being able to find, understand and use the right part of it when it’s needed. The answer isn’t to remove the detail; it’s to make that detail easier to navigate.
Unlocking wholesale data
At Wholesale Brand Management, we capture and work with a significant amount of information across our clients’ wholesale accounts. To make that information useful, we transform the raw data into clear, easy-to-navigate dashboards.
These dashboards allow us and our brand partners to view the full performance of an account in one place, while still being able to explore the detail when needed. Within a few clicks, we can move from viewing the performance of an entire channel account to examining the sales of a single SKU in one specific location, without having to work through hundreds of thousands of individual lines of data.
We can see how the channel is performing as a whole, investigate areas that require attention, and identify patterns that may be difficult to spot within a spreadsheet.
Combining data with wholesale experience
The dashboards give us a clear view of what is happening across an account and put that information at our fingertips. When that visibility and speed are combined with the experience of our account management team, the information becomes even more powerful.
Our team has years of experience working within wholesale. They understand individual wholesalers, depot environments, product ranges and the realities of what happens on the depot floor. That knowledge helps them put the data into context, recognise which changes matter, and make better decisions quickly.
For example, if a SKU is performing strongly in one depot but not another, the dashboard allows us to identify that difference quickly. Our account managers then use their experience and relationships to investigate what is driving it, and act where action is needed.
The same process also helps us understand what is already working. If a product, depot or area is delivering strong results, we can investigate why and look at how those learnings can be applied elsewhere across the account. The dashboards are not only used to identify challenges – they also help us recognise opportunities, build on strong performance and keep doing more of what works.
The dashboards give us the visibility to act quickly. Our experience gives that information context. Account management turns it into action.
Get more from your wholesale data
Need a clearer view of how your brand is performing in wholesale? Speak to our team about how we bring data together, identify where the opportunities sit, and turn that insight into action for your business.