Launched in March, RANGEme portal was launched for retailers to get the lodown on new products coming to market.
The “game changing” web portal’s first tier launch was aimed at grocery, petrol, baby and health food sectors.
However, RANGEme are targeting electronics and hardware sectors for a second tier launch in the next 3-6 months, Nicky Jackson, CEO and Founder told CN.
“Its like a dating site for products,” says Jackson, a former marketing exec.
Suppliers upload products and alerts are sent to buyers to products that match their buying interests, and can look up price info, margins, case size, specs on each product in a category.
Buyers can select products of interest and alert a supplier for more info within seconds, and connect to each other just like lovers do via the products portal.
Buyers are inundated with new products, but can view all the products in the once place on RANGEme with uniformed info. on each item, similar to “one great catalogue,” says Jackson.
Over 100 suppliers are already using the fledgling portal and major retail buying groups like IGA, Woolworths Petrol and AMcal are using it.
However, the portal does not necessarily mean the end of the traditional catalogue, Jackson believes, although it could cut out the middle man, meaning higher margins for suppliers.
RANGEme recently surveyed buyers from over 30 retailers including Harvey Norman, BigW and KMart and found 76% of FMCG buyers missed out on new product launches, blamed on suppliers failing to present products directly to them.
Significant inefficiencies in the buying process were also identified including; 97% (of buyers) received incomplete information from suppliers; almost 100% also received proposals outside pre-defined category review times and outside buying categories.
“There is a divide between how FMCG buyers and suppliers operate and it is clear that they are not in sync with each other. This results in lost time and missed product opportunities,” warns RANGEme founder.
“Anecdotally we knew that there was a problem in the way that buyers received proposals from suppliers of consumer goods such as food, healthcare, cleaning and personal care items.
“However we did not realise that it was so significant and wide-spread.”
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