by: Donna Pelletier - 07-03-13 12:07
Hi, hopefully this post is OK. I just wondered what your thoughts are towards the idea of a buying group for nurseries?
How it could work is if a supplier identified a need across a group of nurseries on a product then the supplier could get a better price for the group rather than say a nursery just purchasing one of? Does that make sense?
by: Donna Pelletier
Just a few more thoughts on it:
Example is the supplier sest up a forum that has a buying interest area - could just be as simple as setting up a private facebook group for example.
Someone posts that they are looking for a set of chairs, or a particular toy, anything really.
Allow for other people to express.
The supplier sources it, haggles a price whether it's for 1, 5, 15 or 5000 units posts back on the forum or contacts individually
The supplier takes the official order and drop ships to the nurseries?
Maybe there is a reason that this hasn't been done before but I'm keen to establish if there is a desire for this? Better pricing for better quality proucts?
by: Donna Pelletier
Or not :/.......Would be interesting to know why perhaps this wouldn't work? It's something that was very popular in the previous industry I came from where the aim was to get the best quality product, at the best price for the business. It's a bit different that I am offering, as supplier to find that best price and product for you and yes the purchase would be through me but as there are so many suppliers I think this might take the burdon off nurseries from trying to scout the internet so much for better prices. If anyone is more comfortable emailing me please do at dtpelletier@hotmail.co.uk
thanks for your help :)
by: Maureen Askew
Hi In principle there is no reason why this won't work, its how large chains manage to keep some of their costs down. I can see a couple of immediate issues, where would you store the goods until distributed to the settings and the cost of transporting the goods, these costs would aslo have to be covered and so could increase the unit cost. Setting working together on a locality basis might work.
by: Donna Pelletier
Hi Maureen, thank you for your reply on this. Storage isn't an issue, our own delivery costs are quite low to customers so think even that could be worked out. We have a distribution set up as it currently stands so adding this module, if you like, would not be a problem. I sent all nurseries that are on my contact list an email as a feeler for it in terms of, let me know what products you might look to be sourcing this year and I can see if there are any common products. Not sure if I'll get much back from that though.