Many resellers could increase their visibility in the facilities supplies category if they want to take full advantage of the opportunity, according to VOW.

Although the FS market is growing in all sub-categories, particularly cleaning and catering, the wholesaler believes that many resellers are yet to fully grasp the opportunity and are missing out on the chance to grow in a sector that is potentially more stable and less driven by consumer trends
than others.

Debbie Nice, Facilities Supplies Category Director, at VOW says: “Facilities supplies is a huge £5 billion UK market, including a £2 billion addressable market for janitorial supplies, which is continuing to grow while others stay level or reduce, giving resellers a great way forwards in the diversification and future prosperity of their businesses.

“Resellers have a distinct advantage over their JanSan and catering competition thanks to the one account, one delivery, one stop shop offering and we have seen some fantastic results from some of our resellers on this front. However there are others that could do more to show end users that they are serious about the category and can equal other providers in terms of breadth of product range and know-how. It has to be said that the sales opportunity will be limited if the end user either isn’t aware the reseller offers facilities supplies or thinks that the offering is more of an ‘add on’.

“The main ways for resellers to tackle this are through training and marketing. The sales training opportunities are out there, with VOW running regular hands on FS days.

“If they’re not already, resellers should start actively marketing their FS offer, making it much more visible on the home page of their websites, in their literature and by ensuring that sales teams are promoting FS in every conversation with end users.

“VOW can assist with marketing campaigns to roll out to end users. These can be topical, whether that’s meeting customer needs in different seasons, by promoting fans, and cold drinks in summer, handwashing in cold and flu season, or hot drinks, gritting salt and heaters over the winter months. There’s also health and safety legislation which gives resellers a great opportunity to run marketing campaigns on the latest safety signage or colour coded cleaning requirements.

“It really is all there to play for. Resellers just need to embrace the category and build a credible presence step by step.”