Sugro UK is a unique buying and marketing co-operative of over 80 independent wholesale members with full nationwide coverage (including offshore islands and Northern Ireland). The group combines the buying power of its membership to negotiate the best product pricing and availability with a network of suppliers on members’ behalf.
Emma Senior, MD at Sugro UK, spoke to Wholesale Manager.
How many members do you have and what is their combined turnover?
We now have just over 90 members, with a combined turnover of £1.8bn
What benefits do you offer members?
Sugro negotiates pricing, promotions and terms agreements with suppliers, on behalf of its members. We produce promotional leaflets, share category advice and NPD on behalf of the suppliers, thus taking that workload away from the wholesaler and providing streamlined communication to the membership. By joining the group, you have that support and expertise from Head Office.
We also work on behalf of our members, to understand government legislation, such as HFSS and the impact to them.
We consider ourselves as very much a ‘Sugro Family’ and we see this daily, with our members truly supporting one another in numerous ways. This has very much been in our DNA for years and truly makes us stand out as a Buying Group.
What have you done to grow your membership?
A key focus for us has been to extend our category offering. Traditionally, a confectionery and soft drinks Buying Group, we branched out into Grocery almost 5 years ago. This has gone from strength to strength over that time. We are now expanding into alcohol, foodservice and catering products to ensure we are satisfying the needs of our existing members and are an attractive proposition for new members.
What makes your Buying Group unique?
We are extremely passionate about our digital offering. At Sugro we are committed to working with both Members and Suppliers on delivering E-commerce solutions that will give the Group the opportunity to further enhance its digital offering. This has been a key focus for Sugro over recent years and something I feel we are leading on as a Buying Group. Alongside the normal website, we have direct ordering facilities as well as a Sugro all-in-one B2B E-Commerce platform with online banking, split testing capabilities and WhatsApp offering.
Do you run promotions? What kind of offers do you have?
We run 17 promotions per year and have several key promotional vehicles to drive core range and new product distribution as well as volume for the Group. We have various leaflets, including Seasonal and Retail Club, together with some bespoke options that we produce for the Members based on their business requirements. Our promotional strategy covers day to day offering across all categories, value proposition focused on multipacks and price marked packs as well as consumer offering via our Retail Club promotional mechanic. All promotions are enhanced with strong digital support.
And whilst not exactly a promotion, we have our sample box, which is sent to each member monthly. The box is designed to showcase products to our members. This could be a selection of NPD or products that suppliers want to increase distribution of.
Do you run events for members?
We have an excellent events calendar, with two Trade Shows each year, one in the Spring and one in the Autumn. This is a great opportunity for suppliers and members to get together to discuss business plans. We have speakers from the industry to support the events and include participation from suppliers and members. Our summer event has been a Day at the Races for many years. Next year, we are moving to a River Cruise in London.
We host an annual Business Convention, which is something I think we are quite famous for. Whilst the backdrop of these events is in stunning locations – Argentina, Dubai, Nepal to name but a few, these are very much business focussed. Suppliers support the event by offering growth incentives for members. Member qualification results in their attendance at the event, along with the supplier. We have seen some fantastic growth over the years due to these incentives, but it is also a great opportunity to hold more formal business meetings whilst on the trip, strengthening the relationships between member and supplier.
What news do you have to share with us?
We have just launched B2B Open Banking for our members. This allows wholesalers to accept payment by bank transfer and is an extremely secure way of completing transactions, offering a fast and convenient method to settle account balances at a fraction of credit-card and cash-handling charges.
We are very proud to have also recently announced a further partnership with b2b.store to launch a Business WhatsApp solution for members. This enables members to target their customers with specific marketing campaigns and promotions, directly linking them to websites and ordering apps.
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