Too often we in small business discover that suppliers have one approach for us and another for a big business competitor of ours with the approach for small businesses impacting efficiency and, therefore, profitability.
Here are some examples of the types of different approaches that concern me:
- Big businesses paying suppliers only for scanned sales while we have to pay for everything, including shrinkage.
- Big businesses receiving invoice and other data in a format suitable to their systems while small business retailers are told it is too hard.
- Big businesses getting supply without impediment while small businesses nearby are not supplied due to an internal systems error.
- Big businesses being supplied sought after new release items ahead of small business competitors.
- Big businesses benefiting from marketing and other fees that reduce the carrying cost of an item or range.
These approaches compounds the disadvantage small business retailers encounter on price and service. Any supplier advantaging big businesses in these and other ways need to look at their operations and decide on the retailers they prefer to supply.
Too often, I see small business retailers delivering financial benefit to suppliers that is far greater than their proportion of GP from the total GP pool of the supplier.