Ankorstore

[NWH]

Please forgive me if I have created a 'thred' on the wrong platform. I have been approached by email from Ankorstore.com. "They absolutely love my products".

They expalin that "140,000 independent retailers in Europe use Ankorstore everyday to discover and purchase products from authentic brands like mine".

They go on to say that they think it would be "valuable for my company to be part of it".

I have never heard of Ankorstore before which immediately sends warning messages to me.

Has anyone heard of, or better still, had experience working with this organisation? Thank you.

 

[Ozzy]

My wife uses their site for both buying stock for her store and also selling wholesale. Not had any issues, and their support has been good too.

 

[NWH]

My wife uses their site for both buying stock for her store and also selling wholesale. Not had any issues, and their support has been good too.

Many thanks. Sounds real.

 

[Wesley Cude]

Sounds interesting, keen to know your experience with them if you choose to proceed. Always keen to look at new avenues to sell.

 

[NWH]

Sounds interesting, keen to know your experience with them if you choose to proceed. Always keen to look at new avenues to sell.

Will do. I will do a bit more investigation.

 

[Ozzy]

They have a very generous referral program, so generous I have no idea how it's financially viable.
I won't say anything more about it because I feel it's open to abuse, but is very good for bringing your existing wholesale customers onto the platform to find new products.

 

[NWH]

They have a very generous referral program, so generous I have no idea how it's financially viable.
I won't say anything more about it because I feel it's open to abuse, but is very good for bringing your existing wholesale customers onto the platform to find new products.

Many thanks, this appears most useful. I will respond to their invitation.

 

[thetiger2015]

They have a very generous referral program, so generous I have no idea how it's financially viable.
I won't say anything more about it because I feel it's open to abuse, but is very good for bringing your existing wholesale customers onto the platform to find new products.

I believe they're investing heavily in customer acquisition, so writing a lot of costs off at the moment, to increase market share. They've raised over $100 million in investment in the last year, so a lot of that will be burned to create a busy platform with lots of sellers and buyers.

Have started listing our products with them too. I don't know of any retailers that use websites like these and they seem to rely on us sending our existing retailers to them, which requires work from our side but we will see how it goes. Seems to be a new thing that has emerged since lockdown....marketplaces for wholesale.

 

[UKSBD]

Seems to be a new thing that has emerged since lockdown....marketplaces for wholesale.

I think it depends on how strict and what they define as wholesale.

Great idea if it allows genuine wholesale purchases only, just allowing the general public to buy 1 at a time though and Ankorstore itself is effectively the merchant between the brand and the end customer.

Once they have enough Brands, the pricing will go up for the brand and the wholesale part of it is irrelevant

 

[thetiger2015]

I think it depends on how strict and what they define as wholesale.

Great idea if it allows genuine wholesale purchases only, just allowing the general public to buy 1 at a time though and Ankorstore itself is effectively the merchant between the brand and the end customer.

Once they have enough Brands, the pricing will go up for the brand and the wholesale part of it is irrelevant

Customers can only buy in multiples and the back office is very 'trade' styled. Invoicing, VAT added at checkout, MOQs and minimum orders etc.

We also use Faire, which has a £100 minimum on all orders.

I don't think they want to compete with eBay/Amazon but there does seem to be a lot of these around now and I'm not quite sure how we direct customers to them. To one? To all? We also have our own wholesale area but I've noticed some of our competitors seem to be using these websites as their main login/signup for wholesale landing pages now.

 

[UKSBD]

Customers can only buy in multiples

It may supposed be multiples, but there seem to be an awful lot of things where it says "sold by unit" or you only have to buy 2

If it stays as a predominately wholesale service it looks great

If merchants just use it as a way of selling direct it will soon get ruined

How strict are they about trying to keep it wholesale?

 

[thetiger2015]

It may supposed be multiples, but there seem to be an awful lot of things where it says "sold by unit" or you only have to buy 2

If it stays as a predominately wholesale service it looks great

If merchants just use it as a way of selling direct it will soon get ruined

How strict are they about trying to keep it wholesale?

I'm not sure about their onboarding process for retailers. It was relatively simple for us, as a seller.

The MOQs can be single units but the total order value must be over £100 ex VAT I think. Which puts off people wanting to buy a toothbrush, because they'd have to buy 100 of them to make up the order.

It does say: ...you need to be a registered company with a valid registration number. Until you are registered, you cannot access the resale prices nor place an order.

Please note that english and german soletraders are able to register on the platform.

Moreover, brands can refuse an order if they consider that your shop does not match their positioning.

There are lots of sites like this now, Faire, OrderChamp etc. The only issue I have, is that you need to promote the landing page a lot and get retailers to sign up yourself. Which gets very complex, if you're selling on multiple sites or have your own wholesale area already.

They do also charge a commission on all orders, which is high compared to eBay/Amazon etc but you're selling in bulk, so it doesn't really matter.

 

[UKSBD]

Thanks.

Like I said, it looks great if it is a wholesalers platform

All depends how strict they are though as It looks so open to abuse.

 

[UKSBD]

The only issue I have, is that you need to promote the landing page a lot and get retailers to sign up yourself.

As a retailer I would be thinking why does a potential supplier want me to use that system rather than just sell to me direct, I would also be thinking why do they even need me if they are promoting that site?

 

[thetiger2015]

As a retailer I would be thinking why does a potential supplier want me to use that system rather than just sell to me direct, I would also be thinking why do they even need me if they are promoting that site?

My dilemma exactly.

I prefer to deal with shops directly, however, we have had some international orders from these sites, from shops we've never heard of and probably would never have found without searching for hours upon hours.

Also, there's an element of reduced risk here. Ankorstore are operating as a marketplace and they handle the transactions through the platform. They validate payment details and step in for disputes between retailers and brands. I think they also handle returns too? I know Faire do and they will redistribute returns to other retailers later in the year.

So, I'm on the fence with it. I was hoping they would promote to retailers more, so our brand would actually be in peoples faces. That would really be a big selling point, otherwise we have to contact retailers directly and this can take hours or week of work, depending on how open they are to stocking our products.

I think the whole thing has potential but it also has the potential of being overloaded and falling apart. If they have too many brands and retailers of low quality, the whole thing won't work. I've seen that happen a lot. You want your brand to be amongst others with similar price points and quality but if they start allowing cheap brands on, who just undercut everyone, then the quality falls out of it and we will just withdraw our products, so will other brands at a similar price point. Then you've just got an eBay style wholesale site.

 

[UKSBD]

What would be good is if they White Labelled the system so that you could embed it on your own site and only display your pages, or, if your brand section on their site only displayed you and not their menu and info (their header and footer) - do they do that?

This would mean when you promote it, you aren't promoting the whole platform but just your pages on the platform

 

[thetiger2015]

What would be good is if they White Labelled the system so that you could embed it on your own site and only display your pages, or, if your brand section on their site only displayed you and not their menu and info (their header and footer) - do they do that?

This would mean when you promote it, you aren't promoting the whole platform but just your pages on the platform

Some of them have an embed form but the transactions and sign-ups still happen on their platform. People fill out the form on our website but when they click Join, it takes them to the marketplace dashboard.

I think they're trying to integrate with Shopify but, the marketplaces also want to keep some control for themselves and I don't think Shopify want them having too much access, because then Shopify is doing all the leg work and they're just piggy backing off them. Shopify can also be very 'prickly' with apps. I believe they cut MailChimp off a few years ago, completely.

Having said that, when we get an order through Faire, it does appear in Shopify. So we can match it up with our sales reports.

 

[NWH]

If a retailer buys via Ankorstore, how is the brand marketed effectively in the store? What about point of sale advertising etc? Is that not considered with this 'wholesale' middleman?

 

[thetiger2015]

If a retailer buys via Ankorstore, how is the brand marketed effectively in the store? What about point of sale advertising etc? Is that not considered with this 'wholesale' middleman?

They leave that up to you I think.

You can speak with the retailers who purchase products, but all transactions must happen on their platform, if you want to be covered by their terms and conditions etc.

It does feel a little anonymous but then I haven't put a lot of effort in to it. I think you have to build your profile and reviews, so other shops will start buying your products.

 

[NWH]

As a retailer I would be thinking why does a potential supplier want me to use that system rather than just sell to me direct, I would also be thinking why do they even need me if they are promoting that site?

That is a very good point. For my part, I am looking to expand sales into Germany via a middleman (retailer) as our product is gaining momentum there. Our issue is the dreaded IOSS tax added. Selling via a retailer may help us to expand and simplify the EU tax minefield at same time.