Newsagents prefer to deal with efficient suppliers who make doing business easy. Doing business easy starts with a good website. A good supplier website needs:
- The ability to order and reorder online, easily and with certainty of stock availability and certainty of when the goods will be shipped.
- An easily navigated product catalogue. Navigated by category, brand, licence and keyword. With multiple photos for items as appropriate.
- The ability to preorder based on shipments expected into the warehouse.
- Transparency at the time of ordering of the actual price to be billed and appropriate freight.
- An emailed confirmation of the order along with a CSV file ready for importing.
- Confirmation when the order has shipped – with shipment occurring within one working day of the placement of the order.
- The provision of a tracking number and weblink for the store to track the location of the shipment.
There will be some suppliers who will say this is too complex. I don’t think it is.
I know of newsagent suppliers who are losing newsagent business because their tech interface is out of date and unhelpful to the retailers they wish to supply.
As newsagents have become more tech engaged it only natural they expect their suppliers to be up to speed.
I am far more likely to place an order on line at my leisure than with a rep in store while I try to trade. Generally online orders will also be a little larger than those placed in the sop as well as getting the rep out of the store promptly is a priority,