Wholesale mag for marketers

According to Maister, an estimated 68% of the business runs through independent wholesalers. Sales to them are constantly switching between direct negotiations, buying group accounts and parcels bought from other wholesalers. The wholesale channel is also a lot bigger than many suspected. Today it represents 44% of total grocery, toiletry and confectionery volume – a far cry from the 25 – 28% estimated just five years ago. For many FMCG marketers it is a market in which they have been under represented. Reports of marketers increasing their sales through the wholesale channel in excess of 40% last year are common.

Wholesale Business is a recognition of this major channel and its escalating growth. It is allegedly the first publication to focus on the business of wholesaling and the business of sourcing stock from wholesale by their retail customers.

Created by Supermarket & Retailer, Wholesale Business draws on 52 years editorial experience serving retail and wholesale readers. Maister says “Wholesale Business is such a natural development that we keep asking ourselves why we did not introduce it two years ago.”

“It is directly positioned,” he says, “to aid marketers in getting their share of the fast expanding wholesale channel market.”

Its circulation is being built on the audited circulation of C-Store magazine which it replaces. To this it is adding circulation into wholesale organisations.

Maister notes that the wholesale channel is moving from a rough and ready environment to one of increasing sophistication.

“We will have hundreds and hundreds of exceedingly high net worth individuals reading the magazine who manage multi-million and multi-billion rand enterprises. To keep up with this growing sophistication, we commissioned designer Jane Keating to give our readers a magazine that also reflects their growing wealth and prestige.”