What are priority accounts?
Priority accounts are larger, typically multi-location retailers who have stricter requirements for service and consistency. These retailers also have growth potential, opening and expanding new locations.
If any priority accounts are ordering from you, they will be marked with on both the Customer list and Order list.
How to be successful selling to priority accounts
When you sell to a priority account, they have a vetted and approved list of products which the employees placing orders must purchase from. Orders that arrive late, contain damages, or have items missing can result in that vendor’s products being removed from the approved product list. These accounts also perform regular category reviews, so if a product is not performing to the buyer’s standards, they may decide to stop carrying it.
To ensure success in relationships with priority accounts, follow these best practices:
- Ship within 2-4 days of receiving the purchase order
- Less than 0.5% of orders contain damaged items
- Orders should never be missing items that are on the accepted purchase order.
- Maintain availability of the products being purchased. In cases where a product is unavailable, please remove the item from the PO before accepting the order.
- Product education: provide your Mable contact with any sell sheets or educational collateral and we will share them with the buyers for these accounts.
- Products should never arrive to the retailer with unexpected changes to case size, ingredients/allergens, GTINs, packaging dimensions, etc.
- Changes to products require 30 days notice - if you service a priority account, your seller portal will ask you to enter a change effective date when editing products at least 30 days in the future. Learn more about product change delays here.
Communication
If you need to get in touch with a priority account about order changes, issues, or shipping delays, notify your Mable contact who will pass all necessary information to the right person at the organization.
Custom requirements
Some priority accounts may have specific needs, which your Mable contact will communicate to you. Examples:
- Lowering your order minimum for them (this will not impact your other customers) so they can purchase many smaller orders to ship direct to each location
- Participating in promotions
- Tiered Pricing / Volume-based discounts
How to start selling to priority accounts
When one of these retailers is interested in your product, we’ll reach out to you to coordinate samples and provide information about the opportunity. To be considered, the completeness of your product data is critical.
Data you will need to provide:*
- Unit and case GTINs
- Shelf life
- Pricing: cost and MSRP
- Ingredients and allergens
- Product and packaging dimensions
*All necessary product data can be entered in your product catalog. Learn more about editing products here.