In the course of my work as a fruit buyer, I repeatedly received commercial offers for new products, varieties or innovative packaging methods. These commercial offers more or less solved my real problems. Many times I had the impression that someone had invested a lot of money and a lot of time without considering whether anyone would be willing to pay for the proposed solution. Therefore, it is worth researching the needs or problems of retail chains before investing your time or money in a new project.
What is the difference between selling fruit and vegetables to retail chains and other sales?
Once upon a time, while working as a buyer, I started listening to the podcasts of a popular Polish trainer – Mr Szymon Negacz. He is quite a well-known person in the world of B2B sales and marketing, who breaks down B2B sales and marketing in a methodical and structured way and suggests how to structure the whole process so that it is effective.
That’s why it’s worth listening to podcasts
Someone may ask why I needed podcasts about sales when I was working as a buyer. Well, first of all, I couldn’t find as much extended material about running a buying process. And secondly, while listening to one of the podcasts I heard a phrase that was very interesting to me – there is no sales process, there is only a buying process. And thirdly, and this was probably the main motivation, I wanted to learn a bit more of the ins and outs of salespeople and see if perhaps I was being targeted by certain sales methods when receiving commercial offers.
The main knowledge I took from the aforementioned podcasts, however, was the conviction that successful sales should be based on effectively solving the customer’s problems. Very often, salespeople in the fresh fruit and vegetable industry point to the unique characteristics of this market. They suggest that people from outside the industry may find it difficult to find their way here.
No doubt the fresh produce market has its own unmistakable characteristics. Nevertheless, the basic principles of B2B sales in fruit and vegetables are the same as everywhere. A salesperson will sell if he or she successfully solves a buyer’s serious problem or satisfies a very pressing need. What’s more, the seller should know these needs already at the stage of sending the offer.
Offers versus needs – my experiences.
As a buyer in the largest retail chain in Poland, I regularly received commercial offers from suppliers who wanted to start supplying the retail chains. I have to say that most of them did not relate in any way to my needs. More often than not, it was a brief description of the company, without providing any specifics. Add to that some dry information about the available product range and that was pretty much it.
Once I attended a meeting with one of the world’s largest berry supply companies. I was very excited about this meeting. I was hoping to finally see how the real professionals do things.
They would come in, present their experience, their in-depth analysis of the market in Poland, show me what’s new out there in the world and propose solutions that would sweep me off my feet… – that was my thought. As it turned out, they hadn’t even visited a shop before the meeting and didn’t quite know what exactly the product range was sold in the retail chain they had come to sell to.
Personally, I think that when we go to a meeting with a retail chain, we cannot expect to research the needs of the retailer during the meeting. In my opinion, we should research the Internet and all other sources before the meeting in order to know the problems and address them with our offer.
What are needs or problems of retail chains in the fruits and vegetables category?
Firstly, retail chains need to build the fruit and vegetable category with multiple, often mutually exclusive objectives in mind. ‘Uncountable’, descriptive objectives work best when creating an offer.
Targets of retail chains
Declarations to work directly with producers or targets for reductions in plastic from packaging are good examples. If we are looking for these types of problems and needs of retail chains, it is best to read about what retail chains announce, e.g. in their press releases or annual reports.
If a retailer declares that its strategy is to work with a grower, it means that our offer should include the fact that we are a producer and have our own farm.
If the chain declares that it is aiming to reduce CO2 emissions, it is necessary to point out that our production site is only a short distance from the nearest distribution centre. If the chain is portraying itself as low-cost, information about low prices will be a valuable part of the offer.
Secondly, every buyer has some recurring problems in their categories, such as:
If we have products that meet the above criteria, creating an offer should already be much easier.
Finally, each category buyer is held accountable for basic numerical indicators (sales value, volume sold, margin, liquidations, market shares) as well as derived numerical targets affecting the basic indicators (e.g. service level, supplier punctuality rate, stock cover maintained on products).
If you have no other idea, you must at least mention in your offer that your supplies will ensure full availability, a high service level and a low rejection rate – no buyer will be offended by such a set-up 🙂
Where else can you get an idea of what are the needs or problems of retail chains?
The best idea is, of course, to talk directly to the buyer. However, there are legends about the latter answering the phone, so let’s look for other sources that can tell us what problems the retailer we are observing is facing.
- Visit the shops – more than one, more than once. By following the presentation of the fruit and vegetable section on a regular basis, we can learn a lot about the shop’s assortment strategy in relation to the products we supply – how much does our product cost in the standard price, and how much in a promotion? How often are there promotions? In addition to the basic products, are there product diversifications (additional varieties, packaging, premium products), etc.?
- Browse historical promotional papers- if we want to find out what shoppers might be looking for in the coming weeks, we can take a peek at the promotional newspapers from a year ago. On the one hand, many of the promotions will be repeated, on the other hand, we can shine with our creativity and offer something new and innovative for that time of year.
- Use Google – a lot of quite detailed data is made available online by the retailers in the form of reports, press materials or information leaflets. If you are curious, for example, about how many apples a year Biedronka or Dino sells, it is quite easy to find these figures online. You won’t acquire exact figures, but you will be able to get an idea of the scale.
What is it all for?
If a buyer is to undertake the effort of introducing a new fruit or vegetable supplier to a retail chain, he or she must feel a clear need to do so. Counter-intuitively, starting to supply the chain is also extra work for the buyer, who has to introduce the new supplier to the world of retail regulation. Organising an audit, signing a contract – these are also quantifiable monetary expenses that the retail chains have to make before starting to work together.
Therefore, if we only write a few words about ourselves in our offer and give our offer for the basic products that everyone else has, we have no hope of being invited to a conversation. I would therefore encourage you to browse at least a little bit of the Internet before submitting your offer and try to address at least one of the problems or challenges that the retailer has communicated to the public. This will increase our chances of engaging with the retailer.
If you would like to find out more about how to structure an offer to a retailer and how to network with a retailer, I invite you to schedule a free short meeting here!