Internet Based

Why do I say that you’d want your sweet wholesaler should be Internet based? 

There are several reasons.

Many is the time that I have driven all the way to a ‘bricks and mortar’ supplier only to find that they were out of stock of the one thing I really wanted.  Have you experienced the same complete waste of time?  On the Internet you can either see if an item is in stock (if the web site has live stock control) or they should let you know very quickly once hey have received yoour order.

So using an Internet based wholesale sweets supplier saves time, money, frustrationa dnhassle… and means that you can offer your customers a more reliable service too.

When you look at the costs of buying your stock, don’t forget the cost of your time if you have to physically leave your shop to buy the sweets yourself.  Are you going to shut the shop in this time?  Or pay someone else to cover?

Here’s a simple little calculation I do when thinking about going myself to a non-online supplier:

• Time to drive to supplier: 40 minutes (it seems to take at least that to get anywhere these days – and that is if traffic is ok
• Time at supplier selecting items, looking for anything new, queueing at the checkout (never quick!): 60 minutes (that’s if I sprint!)
• Time to drive home: 40 minutes

That gives a very conservative figure of 2 hours 20 minutes per trip.  So if the shipping for the online order is say £7.00 that would equate to my time being worth £3 per hour.  That’s about half the minimum wage!  And that’s just taking time into consideration – I haven’t even started to include fuel, wear and tear on your van etc.

Isn’t your time worth a lot more than that?  I know mine is.