Wholesalers perform a wide variety of functions as the link between producers on the one hand and retailers, volume purchasers and other commercial enterprises on the other.
Wholesalers organize themselves in various ways, in order to move goods and services from producers all the way to consumers. How the organization of these streams of goods, value and information are structured differs from company to company, frequently depending on company size, which trading levels are involved, the assortment and pricing policies, the way the customer is served, who the customers are and whether they reliably pay.
Just as in retail, core wholesale processes can be depicted through combination of over 400 pre-installed workflows, for example:
- Assortment sellers
They sell assortments defined by sales channel, as well as goods purchased for customer orders
- Good-specific processes
They carry special assortments and need various processes for them, or enhance them through special service offerings
- Drop shippers
They deliver goods directly to customers, perhaps through a freight forwarder, and need route planning for this
- Warehouse markets
Goods are picked up by the customer at the wholesaler's warehouse or cash-&-carry market, with or without an order
- B2B wholesalers
They buy goods from producers and resell them to producers at the next production level, according to principles of supply chain management (SCM)
- Self-service cash-&-carry markets
The customer picks out their goods themselves ("self-service"), pays for the purchase in cash at the register ("cash") and takes the goods away ("carry")
- Rack jobbers
They are responsible for particulars stocks at a retailer and manage these for their customers