Many brands are currently seeking ways to deal with the supply chain issues they are facing. Production and shipping delays are making it difficult to get products through the pipeline, and retailers aren’t always sure what’s available, or when. Fortunately, Envoy B2B has a suite of tools that can help ease the pressure, allowing brands and retailers to continue to work together and find success throughout the season.
It’s become clear that it’s going to take time to get production and distribution back up to speed, brands need to take action in the meantime. Because seasons keep turning, and retailers still need products.
While production issues and shipping delays are out of our ability to fix, we can deliver a window into accurate inventory levels, powerful collaboration tools, and actionable data. Reps and retailers can strategize and keep seasons strong, despite being faced with delayed access to products.
A Real Time Inventory Window
Just like retailers, you can’t sell what you don’t have. It’s imperative that you surface inventory numbers for your retailers in a way that’s easy for them to access.
For many retailers, they have to reach out to a rep with a call or an email, then wait to hear back. With a drastically slowed down pipeline, that’s not going to work.
Envoy B2B solves that problem for you by giving your retailers a clear window into real-time inventory. This allows them to have an accurate grasp of what’s available, understand shipping times, and effectively communicate with their customers looking for hard-to-stock products.
Data For Smarter Pivots
With real-time inventory providing a view into what products are available and when, reps and retailers need data to create a picture of how to best tackle the season – what’s selling, what’s not, and what trends are on the rise.
Envoy B2B’s Activity & Insights dashboard delivers that data. This dashboard provides a picture of retailer behavior, allowing reps to see key analytics for the season in a real-time feed of buyer engagement with the platform. Reps can view top content, top customers, showroom views, and order volume in real time over any date range.
Additionally, reps can rely on our integration with Locally to identify emerging trends and work with retailers to harness that opportunity. Locally delivers on-demand reports of what is selling, right now, in each individual store that a rep manages.
By analyzing these key pieces of data, brands can identify and capitalize on the best practices of successful stores and spread that knowledge, as well as take advantage of emerging trends around all their stores to elevate sell-through.
Strong Collaboration Tools
All that data can be used to strategize and pivot when needed. If the inventory numbers aren’t there due to supply chain issues, reps can work with retailers to build alternate assortments, or recommend proven products that may have been overlooked by the retailer.
Our assortment planner, visual merchandising, and assortment campaign tools will be critical pieces of a reps toolkit here, supporting real-time conversations between reps and retailers. If you're looking fore more on how reps can best support retailers during the season, download our free guide here.
Overcoming The Supply Chain
No amount of hard work or magic can sell products that aren't in stores, and the long months of supply chain issues have made it hard for brands and retailers to get products in the hands of customers. But, solutions exist.
Knowing what is available through real-time inventory, understanding trends with a view into key metrics, and working together to find solutions that resonate with consumers will enable brands and retailers to overcome the current challenges.
Envoy B2B provides the tools to do that. Get in touch to learn more.
