Customer Experience

A collection of 29 posts

B2B ECommerce

B2B Trends for 2025: What’s Next in Wholesale for Small Businesses

For small wholesale businesses, keeping up with the evolving market doesn’t have to mean investing in costly systems or technologies. Instead, focusing on accessible, budget-friendly strategies can help you stay competitive while managing growth efficiently. Here are some key trends shaping the future of small-scale wholesale, along with practical

Wholesale Featured

Transitioning Your Customers to Orderspace

Most people do not enjoy change. Especially when they have become used to working in a certain way, and have incorporated it into their daily habits and routines. Even changes that are 100% positive are sometimes met with resistance. This can make life very difficult for businesses looking to modernise

Efficiency

Simplifying The Wholesale Order Process

At the core of our focus here at Orderspace is simplicity. You will find this in everything we do, from our marketing site and our pricing plans, all the way through to the user experience. If our users found Orderspace more complicated/time-consuming than using email, or Excel forms, we

Efficiency

8 Ways to Prepare Your Business For The Holiday Season

However far along (or behind) you feel you are in making preparations for the holiday season, here are some ideas to help you get ready for the holiday season: 1. Stock-Up It can be a tricky business working out just how much stock you need, especially if this is your

B2B ECommerce Featured

What is B2B eCommerce?

B2B eCommerce is the term used to describe an online platform that captures B2B (business to business) and wholesale orders. It works along the same principles as standard eCommerce (B2C), where customers place orders via a website, and the back-end admin is efficiently managed and streamlined by the software. Typically

Business

How to Approach New Stockists

If you are a small business in your early phase, chances are you will have to approach new stockists actively. If you have the budget to exhibit at trade shows, this is obviously a good way to meet with many potential B2B customers. Remember, though; tradeshows aren't the

Wholesale

4 Ways To Get Bigger Orders From Your Wholesale Customers

In my previous post Getting The Best From Your Wholesale Customers, I touched upon the problem of receiving too many small orders. Today I wanted to explore this issue more thoroughly, and discuss possible solutions. 1. Minimum Spend Rules The first, and most obvious, remedy is to impose minimum spend

Wholesale

The Pros and Cons of Sale or Return

Sale or return, also known as 'in consignment', is basically a loan of stock to a wholesale customer. No money changes hands at the time of handing over the stock, but usually, a formal agreement is signed at this point. The retailer offers the stock for sale and

Wholesale

9 Signs You've Outgrown Your Current Order Processing System

When small businesses start wholesaling, they often use a combination of spreadsheets, paper order forms, email and telephone conversations to look after their wholesale orders. This can work sufficiently well for a while, but inevitably more sophisticated features are required to run the business efficiently. Whatever system you currently use,

Wholesale

Getting The Best From Your Wholesale Customers

In my previous role as a fashion buyer, I watched as several small independent brands closed their doors to wholesale customers. They found wholesaling frustrating and were drawn into the bright lights of direct retail, with its higher margins and immediate payments. So what was so bad about wholesale? And

Wholesale

Five B2C Principles You Need To Apply To Your B2B Strategy

Back in 2013, Forrester Research reported that 46% of B2B e-commerce executives expected more than half of their customers to be buying online within the next three years. With average order values and conversion rates increasing alongside this. B2B e-commerce is an exciting place to be right now, that’s

Orderspace

Covid-19 Makes B2B E-Commerce More Important Than Ever

We are living and working in a very different world to the one we enjoyed before Covid-19, and it is pushing us even faster to rely on technology more for our businesses to survive and succeed. Now more than ever, Orderspace can help you: 1. Service your customers from all

Efficiency

How to Manage Backorders Efficiently

Backorders are orders for goods or services that you can't fulfil at the time of order due to insufficient availability. Depending on your business model, you may routinely take many backorders, or they may be a rarity. Either way, backorders are an essential factor in inventory management analysis.

Wholesale

How You Can Help Your Stockists Deal With Returns - And Why You Should Want To

With e-commerce growing exponentially, the number of items being returned to retailers is also on the rise. Not only in number, but also in proportion as more businesses offer free return schemes. It is estimated that returns from online purchases cost UK retailers £20bn a year, with this figure rising

Business

3 Golden Rules to Make Life Easier For Your Stockists

The title could just as easily have been '3 Golden Rules to Make More Profit'. You see, the easier it is for your stockists to work with you, the more orders they will want to place. If they come up against too many obstacles, unless your offering is

Wholesale Featured

How To Manage Pre-orders Efficiently

Pre-orders are orders that are taken for products or services that are not yet available. Many wholesale businesses operate a pre-order system, as they release seasonal or yearly collections. Pre-orders allow businesses to plan production effectively. When providing information to your customers about a pre-order, you need to provide the

Orderspace

Mobile Support, Editable Navigation and More!

We have just released a significant update to OrderSpace, bringing an improved ordering site experience for mobile users, editable navigation and much more. Ordering on Mobile Your ordering site is now fully optimized for mobile, meaning customers can order with ease while on the move. Every part of the site

Wholesale

Getting Started With Wholesale - Your First Retailers

For a new brand, reaching out to retailers can feel intimidating, so the more prepared you can be the better. Hopefully you have read our post How To Approach New Stockists, but if not I strongly urge you to do so! Here are some great ideas to help you feel

Wholesale Featured

Why your retail website won't work for your wholesale customers

In my previous life as a lingerie buyer, I came up against all manner of ordering systems. I use the phrase ‘came up against’ because this is how it was: a battle to place orders. A frustrating, stressful, daily fight that only became worse as time went on. You see

Wholesale Featured

Getting Started With Wholesale

It is a big decision to start wholesaling your products, and some small businesses approach the concept with great trepidation. However, as with most things in life, with some consideration and planning you can enjoy a smooth transition into the next exciting phase of your growth. I've answered

Wholesale

Keeping Your Online Retailers Happy

I write this from personal experience in online retail for the best part of a decade. I spend a lot of time talking about how wholesale businesses should define the perfect retailer, well here is my idea of how a perfect supplier might have looked to me when I was

Wholesale

Combatting Stock Control Problems

In this new series of posts I will be looking at some common problems faced by small to medium-sized wholesale businesses when processing their orders, and suggesting ways to address the issues. Today's focus is stock control because this is at the core of any wholesale business. Scenario

Wholesale

How To Minimize Backorders

If backorders are a recurring problem for your business, we have some helpful ideas on how you can minimize them. 1. Keep a closer eye on inventory Monitoring your inventory closely will give you a better feel for any products and line items that are consistently selling out. You may

Business

Wholesale and Retail Customers - Are They Really That Different?

As part of my mini-series looking at the move from wholesale to retail, I am looking at the differences between supplying wholesale and retail customers. If you are making the move from pure wholesaling to retailing, or indeed the opposite shift, knowing these (sometimes subtle) differences will help you to

Business

Protecting Your Wholesale Relationships If You Start Retailing

We have covered the transition from retail to B2B, but as yet we haven't considered starting to sell directly to the consumer after an initial period of pure B2B sales. As usual, what follows comes from my experience with suppliers, some of whom made the leap to direct