Retailers, Wholesalers and Manufacturers are three stakeholder groups that can greatly contribute to financial success or failure of a business. All three of them are involved in the supply chains of most middle and large-scale product-oriented businesses. The three groups have certain aspects in common but are drastically different in how they engage with a firm’s products and its customers. The differences apply to the amounts of goods a group is dealing with as part of its function, as well as its direct role in the chain.
Retailers earn money by acquiring things in bulk at a discount from wholesalers and reselling them for a profit. They seek to shift such things across as quickly as possible in order to reduce inventory holding expenses. They, however, then resell the items on a comparatively small scale and don’t facilitate bulk-buying. Out of the three groups, retailers are the most consumer-oriented, and offer direct customer service to those who attend them to buy products from multiple brands.
Wholesalers acquire items in bulk from producers and resell them to retailers and consumers at a profit. Wholesalers take on a moderate level of risk, acting as a part of the chain of middlemen (Bowersox, 2019). To be lucrative, they must acquire items in large quantities and deliver them to merchants on time. If the products do not sell and merchants do not restock, the wholesaler may be left with large quantities of goods that occupy their storage space and are not delivering profit.
Finally, manufacturers are engaged directly in the production of goods that are later sold to wholesalers or customers directly, depending on the industry. Although manufacturers are, just as the other two groups, in need of accounting for the costs of taxation, salaries and other business expenses, their risk is arguably the lowest of the three (Bowersox, 2019). Since the manufacturers control the quantity produced, they might adjust it depending on the current demand, thus reducing waste to a minimum.