What Is A Buying Group?

Why Buying Groups Matter

The retail industry, particularly within the area of convenience stores and small food retailers, is facing increasing challenges. Consumers are being more careful about where they spend their money and how much they spend. Unit rates are rising, so businesses are facing increasingly expensive overheads. And within this landscape, online shopping from supermarkets is becoming more popular all the time.

This means convenience stores and independent food retailers are having to work even harder to stand out from the crowd and persuade consumers to spend their hard-earned dollars with a small local business rather than a large, well-known chain.

A retail buying group is an organisation which offers membership to small businesses. Becoming a member of a buying group offers access to a wide variety of benefits as it provides collective power. This enables small businesses to reduce their overheads, improve their product offerings, and meet the challenges of the modern retail landscape head-on.

The Power of Buying Groups: Advantages for Business Success

Becoming a member of a retail buying group provides a number of important benefits which help your small business to survive and thrive in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

1. It reduces your overheads

Retail buying groups have the collective power of all their members’ small businesses behind them. This allows them to forge strong relationships with leading suppliers, manufacturers, so membership instantly gives you access to a vast and varied range of products to sell in your store.

This collective power also gives buying groups the ability to negotiate advantageous deals as they are bulk-buying large amounts of stock for all their members. The result is that you pay less for the stock you sell in your store, enabling you to reduce your overheads and increase your profits.

2. It helps you to find out what your customers want

When customers visit your store, they expect easy access to the products they actually want to buy. But, your business can’t thrive unless you’re stocking the right products for your customer base.

In convenience, customers visit your store for the ease of purchasing the products they want at a convenient location. But, your business cannot thrive unless you are stocking the products your consumer base is after.

Group buying retail organisations are able to help you with this. As they collect data from their many members across a wide area, they are able to provide you with important data analysis and market trends on a scale not possible for a small independent retailer to do alone. This makes it far quicker and easier for you to find out which products your customers are most likely to want, so you can adjust your stock accordingly, bringing in more customers and making sure they are more satisfied with your service. As a result, they will be more likely to return to you time after time.

Retailer Buying Groups have the ability to assist you in purchasing the stock best suited with current trends. Buying groups are able to collect data from their sites, and preferred suppliers. This allows the buying groups to analyse market trends and making it quicker and easier for small businesses to find out which products are trending with your customers. This information allows you to adjust stock accordingly, bring in new customers and ensure they are satisfied with your service, ensuring their return.

3. It improves your marketing

Being a member of a buying group gives you access to expert marketing advice and exclusive marketing materials. Buying groups are able to provide you with proven strategies from specialists in the retail sector, including the right digital advertising techniques, which are essential if you want to stand out in today’s crowded marketplace. The right marketing increases awareness of your brand and helps it to become instantly recognisable, which in turn creates a buzz around your business, leading to growth.

Buying group retail members can also access exclusive in-store promotions for certain products, including eye-catching displays which encourage impulse buys from your customers while they’re in your store.

Being a member of a buying group gives you access to expert marketing materials and advice. Just some of the materials which can be provided are; digital advertising and Point of Sale materials such as posters to stand out in the crowd. The right marketing increases awareness around your brand and helps it to become recognisable, in turn, leads to growth in your business.

Occasionally exclusive promotional tools will be offered to buying group members to create eye-catching displays, encouraging impulse purchases from customers while in your store.

4. It enables you to provide outstanding customer service

When you become a member of a small business buying group, you can take part in a comprehensive staff training program. If you and all your staff can offer outstanding customer service, this helps you to stand out as it makes your customers feel more valued.

Providing staff training also increases loyalty and reduces staff turnover as your staff feel that you are prepared to invest in them. In addition, it creates a strong, unified workforce, all promoting the same messaging and adding to the strength of your brand.

Small & independent businesses have a sense of community once entering the doors. This friendly nature makes your customers feel valuable and creates a strong presence in the community. A buying group can assist in supporting your community and promoting the same messages to your consumers.

5. It saves you time

Becoming a buying group member helps to save time on a number of tasks involved in running a small retail business, including:

• Making deals with manufacturers and suppliers
• Analysing market trends and data
• Devising marketing strategies and promotions

If these things are taken care of, you are able to concentrate on other areas of your business, so you can spend time on the things which will help your business to grow and thrive.

Want to know more about group buying for retail?

If you would like to know more about joining one of Australia’s fastest-growing and most dynamic Retail Buying Group, the team here at New Sunrise are always happy to help. Please contact us for more information.