As Unitas Wholesale comes to the end of its first complete financial year, Managing Director Darren Goldney is pleased to share the progress of the business and opportunities going forward.
He said:
Our progress is characterised by the growth in independent member wholesaler numbers to 172, and the expansion of our supplier partner network benefiting from a centralised conduit to the independent channel.
Unitas Wholesale has agreed more than 330 supplier agreements designed to facilitate growth, with supplier partners reporting an aggregated 4% revenue increase in 2019.*
Ultimately while scale and sales moving in a positive direction is hugely encouraging, we are equally excited about the platforms we are building for getting better in the future. Our ‘new world’ is about getting bigger, primarily through being better.
We have had a number of first year successes that have occurred outside of the growth figures above, including initiatives such as Picture Portal, the execution platform that have been developed for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer promotions. Our accelerated core range compliance programmes, such as Plan For Profit, have generated more than 90% member compliance, together with approximately 50,000 pieces of point of sale being sited on a quarterly basis.
The Unitas retail promotional programme now supports circa 4,000 stores across symbol and retail club. Additionally, more than 9,000 independent retailers are engaging with the Plan for Profit digital platform across web and app.
Looking forward, we are excited to have launched the Unitas Data Service offering insight on more than £1billion worth of sales data, together with completely new concepts such Brand Box, the pilot programme for NPD providing supplier partners with access to 1,000 stores at launch, perfectly executed in store on a ‘no play, no pay basis’ with our retailer partners.
As you will know, due to the developing situation with the Coronavirus we have had to take the unfortunate decision to cancel the Unitas Wholesale Trade Show, however, as a contingency we will be running a ‘virtual trade show’ this week (16 – 20 March 2020) when members will be able to take advantage of the deals that they would have been exposed to at the event.
We have arranged for members to receive the deals online and for the member/supplier network to have telephone discussions, with an expected 1,000+ conversations taking place so while it may not be the traditional trade show our delegates were expecting, it’s the next best thing and a living example of the efficiency that brings our stakeholders together.
*excluding tobacco
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