On 9-13 March 2020, as part of the EU4Business ‘Ready to Trade’ project, the International Trade Centre in cooperation with the association “Ukrlegprom” organized training for 20 Ukrainian apparel companies and two state-owned specialized educational institutions. Participants from 15 regions of Ukraine, including owners and top managers, gathered together in Rivne to get acquainted with best practices of wholesale technologies.
During the first three days of the training, the participants were introduced to the latest wholesale technologies. The lectures were held in the premises of an apparel company “T-Style LLC” (TM Goldi) based on the Rivne linen factory, which is one of the leaders of the Ukrainian light industry in terms of production rates.
During the training, Ms. Natalia Chinenova, an international expert in franchising and distribution, introduced participants to the following subject areas:
- evaluating methods, logic and vectors of wholesale trade development;
- pricing rules and methods of wholesale promotion;
- sales management;
- visual merchandising;
- effective communications with suppliers and buyers;
- algorithm for developing production schedule;
- global trends and consumers’ behaviour;
- offline and online distribution channels;
- Omni-channel wholesale trade;
- turnover planning for a wholesale company.
Each lecture was supported by practical recommendations and the latest information about current purchases’ model and its focus on visual specifications. Particular attention was given to analysing samples provided by companies, in terms of their attractiveness to wholesale buyers.
On 12-13 March 2020, the expert provided individual consulting to selected companies to advise them on issues they face in finding wholesale buyers and effectively managing wholesales. In particular, the expert covered the following:
- advice on attracting clients during exhibitions;
- retail and wholesale clients’ differentiation principles;
- methodology for settling conflicts with clients;
- action plan for entering the global market;
- packaging and its increasing importance in sales world;
- emergency cases of wholesale negotiating;
- use of a website, product samples, and social media visual panache in product promotion;
- case study on cooperation in terms of purchases' volumes fulfillment;
- marketing strategy development, creation of brand prism and analysis of the products' array matrix;
- interaction with the target buyer.
The knowledge gained during the individual consulting sessions will help Ukrainian apparel companies improve their understanding of the criteria of the attractiveness of their products to wholesale buyers. This will, in turn, facilitate companies’ access to global markets.
The trainees intend to continue their training. By the next training, they will do their homework - analyze multi-brand companies web-sites in terms of price and range, and prepare their company profiles.
The training was held within the framework of the Ready to Trade project, funded by the European Union within the EU4Business initiative, that works with small and medium-sized enterprises in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine to help them target and access foreign markets, with a focus on the European Union market.