Are Acopia competitive for retail consumables?
It’s a question that comes up time and time again with suppliers and providers – buyers will always want to know if a supplier is competitive. Who’s cheaper? Are you getting great value? How do prices for the same or similar products compare? But how can you be sure you are comparing a like for like offering?
Terry Gardner
Account Director
Working with a wide mix of retailers, Terry loves meeting new people and is addicted to forging partnerships that add real value by reducing costs and increasing sustainability. In a quiet moment when he’s not working you’ll normally find Terry with family and friends or listening to music.
So, you do your research and that’s ultimately how you make your decisions. Whether you’re searching for information and prices for goods and services at home for example, it’s no different in the professional arena. But is that the full story? The old adage of ‘you get what you pay for’ carries a lot of weight. What might seem a bargain price may cost you more in the long run. Let’s take a look at the bigger picture to see why our clients, feel Acopia are competitive.
The first question would be – how are you measuring competitive? We can honestly say that we won’t be the cheapest on every product, but as an overall cost – we can guarantee you money and time savings. So if you’re looking to work smarter and save money through driving efficiencies in your supply chain, then we are most definitely are the right supplier for you.
So, what do we mean by that? We work with high street retailer Hotter Shoes for example, who use our online business intelligence tool which saves them a very precious commodity – time. One shop manager told us that we enabled her to do 3 month’s ordering in just 20 minutes. This time saving has allowed them to invest more in their business and ultimately with their customers. And that’s priceless!
Are you looking just at price and not overall value?
Price vs Value when looking at competitive supply
A well-known Charity retail client wanted greater visibility and control of spend in all their shops by their staff. They told us that that they we had been able to reduce their procurement time by 50%. They said, “It’s great to see what people are spending and be able to limit the products they buy”. We saved them both time and money so it soon becomes clear that we have been able to support them in a very different way which in turn had a hugely positive impact on their bottom line.
One of our clients recently said ‘we have consistently delivered retail stationery under budget for the past 3 years’. The reason for this is because as part of a partnership approach, we took time to have a collaborative look at what the clients’ needs were as a retail operation and provided them a service that enabled them to have complete control over their consumables expenditure.
Another retailer told us they had two members of staff looking after their retail stationery as a split role between them for all of their stores. We were able to take care of this function for them entirely. This meant they could be reassigned into their logistics department without the need to recruit someone new into the business. We may not have been the cheapest on every product we supplied them – but we actually saved them £20,000!
Can single source procurement be competitive?
By taking a holistic view of the supply chain, we can add value to every aspect of the buying process. Being addicted to making a difference means that we are passionate about finding ways to provide the following key benefits:
- Clarity of spend at store level
- Measurables that can be tracked as part of a performance review and against P&L
- Store managers having responsibility to order within a controlled budget
- Overall control and levels of authorisation
- Heavily reduced admin
- Clear reporting
- Simple monthly invoicing
- Freeing up of storage space
- Managed stock levels that suit your business
- Cutting out expensive storage and logistics
So what’s the competitive verdict?
When you look closely at the cost of these elements and understand how they impact your business now or how they may in future as you continue to grow, then it becomes all-important that you find a way to take control. So the next time you are looking at a direct price comparison, make sure you’re looking at the total value and not just the price. Yes, the price of the individual items is always important, that’s a given fact, but clearly there is a better way of procurement.
As a family business established over 44 years, we understand how important it is that you find a supplier that is prepared to be a trusted partner and an extension of your business. Our promise to all of our clients is that we will continue to work innovatively to provide solutions that not only keep your business operational, but consistently reduce costs.
