When it comes to online shopping, customers use various channels such as eCommerce websites, social media channels, referrals, etc. to shop. Hence, companies cannot restrict their presence to their website alone. They need to have a multi-channel presence.
A multi-channel presence makes shopping convenient for customers, and businesses get an opportunity to reach where the customer is present. It also enables the retailers to maximize their revenues from various sources.
One such channel that has proven beneficial for companies is resellers. B2B or B2C eCommerce websites are an example of resellers. They source products from different companies and sell them through their channels. This enables the company to reach out to a new customer base and sell more products. So, if companies want to expand their business, they must consider reselling as a key growth driver of their business and prioritize it in their strategy.
Benefits Of Channel Reselling
1. Get started if new to the business
Businesses that are relatively new in the eCommerce industry may not have a customer database or tools to promote their products. They will have to start from scratch. But to understand the product-market fit and acquire the first few customers, one of the best ways for companies is to partner with resellers. Resellers already have an existing customer base and have sophisticated tools that can be leveraged to get started. Resellers are especially beneficial when the company decides to venture into a new market and build its presence from scratch.
2. Ability to scale up quickly
Business scalability can be a challenge for companies in the eCommerce industry. Small companies especially could face a tough time scaling up or creating awareness about their presence in the absence of big budgets. Resellers can help companies sell their products quickly and even scale up their business to develop more products to meet the increasing customer demands.
3. A cost-effective way of growing business
Resellers offer a new source of revenue and are also a cost-effective channel for companies. Considering that most resellers have a readily built customer base and use tools to promote and sell products, companies can leverage these benefits to save costs. Companies can save costs on promotions and campaigns. They can also save time and effort on building a customer base from scratch.
4. Gain competitive advantage
Apart from earning more profits, companies can also gain a competitive advantage by partnering with different resellers. More resellers mean that the company will be able to reach a wider customer base and stay a step ahead of the competition. Companies can also have an exclusive partnership with resellers to gain more prominence among their customers.
Challenges of Channel Reselling
Although channel reselling is beneficial for the growth and sustainability of the business, it has a few limitations.
For instance, the company may not have any control or visibility about the reseller’s sales process. This makes it hard for companies to predict the revenue they will generate through resellers. Also, the reseller receives commissions on every sale. So, that reduces the company’s profitability.
Sometimes there is also a risk of resellers becoming a potential competition for the company.
However, the biggest challenge for a company is to manage the revenue generated from different resellers.
Companies cannot have a uniform pricing structure for every reseller. Every reseller has a unique engagement model. Sometimes companies may also have an exclusive partnership deal with these resellers. So, companies need to define different billing cycles, commissions, and discount slabs for each product and each reseller. They also need to identify the resellers who will receive extra privileges and assign special discounts to them.
Managing different resellers simultaneously can be quite a challenge for companies. Things can get even more complicated as companies add more resellers to their ecosystem. They face a tough time managing the special privileges of different resellers and ensuring that the billing is done accurately. Legacy billing systems cannot support such advanced capabilities. Sometimes they have to use different billing systems to manage the billing operations. The fragmented approach can be time-consuming and cause inaccuracies in invoices, discounts, and commissions.
What companies need is a unified billing system that can manage the different resellers efficiently.
A unified billing system will help companies add new resellers, streamline the billing and reporting processes, and maximize their revenue. It also helps companies to automate the end-to-end billing process for every reseller.
Conclusion
To thrive in a hyper-competitive market, companies will have to rely on resellers to start, grow, and sustain their business. Hence, companies need to deepen their relationship with their resellers to build a long-term partnership with them.
A robust channel partner management software can help companies create a frictionless billing experience for their resellers and build meaningful partnerships. Such solutions help companies seamlessly manage the billing and commissioning complexities and build strong partnerships.
At OneBill, we offer companies a unified, powerful platform that’s designed to help them manage their channel partners and commissions efficiently. Our multi-level channel partner management software (MLCM) has features such as:
- Real-time settlement and commissioning reporting
- Automated commission management based on the company’s agreed set of rules
- Flexibility to create deals specific to each partner
- A unified system to manage all the channel partners and to customize the price range, commissions, and incentives for each of them
- Customized settlement modes for each partner
I would say that OneBill is the only company which can actually do the real-time settlement for channel partners.
JK Chelladurai, Founder & CEO of OneBill
