B2B Sales are one of the fashion industry’s biggest revenue generators, with some brands reaching over 70% revenue via this channel. Even with the recent increase in D2C during the pandemic, the last few months are revealing wholesale once again as a key part of fashion brands' channel strategy.
But a paradigm shift needs to take place, prioritizing efficiency over volume. Consumers are scrutinizing how brands operate and how much waste they generate, so sheer volume shouldn’t be a top priority anymore. Instead, the industry needs to change its perception of wholesale from a volume generator to a brand positioning enhancer.
With digital and virtual showroom solutions everywhere, BCG suggests that brands should focus on defining the purpose that brings people and technology together to maximize the value generated by bringing digital tools into your workflow. In combining both forces, companies can become “bionic”, a term that’s used to define companies that mesh technologies and people to power growth, innovation, efficiency, resilience, and advantage.
For wholesale to be better, wholesale sales must spearhead the change. Better wholesale can only happen if we drive better sales. But how can we drive better sales?
Read more: 5 Things Successful B2B Sales are doing in Fashion
Is it possible to improve my sales? Can my B2B sales grow? Does it even make sense to invest in wholesale? These may be some of the questions you're facing as you define your wholesale recovery plan. While it’s tempting to move to a direct-to-consumer approach, direct sales shouldn’t be seen as a silver bullet.
Wholesale can still be a powerful channel to drive your business in tandem with direct sales channels, giving brands a unique positioning advantage when done right. More so, brands with strong wholesale distribution can find better gains from increasing margins by optimizing their wholesale process than by doing a 180-degree turn to direct sales. To avoid past mistakes, you'll need to relook into your wholesale strategy and with that, how to measure the health of your wholesale sales. Direct versus wholesale? More direct AND wholesale.
As you progress with your new wholesale strategy, keep track of your results and assess where to center your efforts quarterly or seasonally. These are 8 metrics to help you measure the health of your wholesale sales now and during your journey to drive better sales:
Metric | Type | Segmentation |
Average Preparation Time |
Time (hours) |
Country |
Average Appointment Time |
Time (hours) |
Country |
Seasonal Preparation time |
Time (weeks) |
Team |
Sample Ratio |
Digital : Physical |
Product Category |
Average Sales Price |
Currency |
Product Category Country |
Content Conversion Rate |
Percentage (%) |
Content type Country |
Collection Efficiency |
Percentage (%) |
Best Performing Worst performing Country Product Category |
Order alignment |
Percentage (%) |
Country |
These metrics will help you define a roadmap to lead wholesale beyond recovery. Use them to define milestones to reach better, healthier sales. More importantly, they can help you understand where the gaps are in your wholesale channel.
For instance, a long seasonal preparation time may be an indicator of multiple things: it can uncover weak collaboration between merchandising and marketing, it can indicate a content pipeline bottleneck due to sample availability. Once these gaps are uncovered, it's time to identify strategies to move the needle in the right direction. These are a few examples to help you start improving your sales organization:
Wholesale's road to recovery is a critical step for most companies when returning to profit. Direct sales should be a priority, but so are B2B sales. The road ahead for wholesale is bumpy, but a strong direct/wholesale tandem will boost your growth and resilience far into the future.