Through its network of members, Sugro supplies over 16,000 retailers, utilising their dedicated field and telesales staff, with an extensive fleet of delivery drivers and vehicles.
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 under 100 members with a combined turnover of circa £2.5bn.
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 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 makes your 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 we 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 E-Loyalty Scheme, WhatsApp, Split Testing and more.
Do you run promotions? What kind of promotional 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 offerings across all categories, value propositions focused on multipacks and price marked packs as well as consumer offerings via our Retail Club promotional mechanic. All promotions are enhanced with strong digital support.
Do you provide advice and guidance for wholesalers about their core range and NPD?
We work closely with our Supplier Partners to provide our Members and their Retail customers with the relevant Category advice through our educational Drive Your Sales via the Sugro Magazine and Web Portal. We provide planograms, advice on best sellers and core range. We also produce bespoke Category leaflets, which are particularly useful for Christmas, Easter, and Mini Seasons.
The Category advice we provide to members and their Retail Customers is data-led and based on market trends, to ensure we are helping them to make informed decisions.
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 they also include participation from suppliers and members.
This year, Sugro reaches its 40th Anniversary, so we have a special celebration event planned for July.
What news do you have to share with us?
We have recently launched our E-Loyalty Scheme to reward our members’ customers and drive customer loyalty into their e-commerce platforms. Retailers will be offered rewards for completing different tasks associated with participating brands, such as purchasing a certain quantity of a particular product or range, then taking a picture of the i-store display as evidence of execution.
We are also very excited about the launch of our Supplier Branded Sample Boxes. The launch of the first box coincides with biggest Pepsi rebrand with more bespoke boxes coming up within the next few months so watch this space!
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