supplier snapshot With Covid-19 Dominating The News, We Spoke To Some Of The Industry’s Finest To Find Out How They Are Currently Operating And Business Moving Forward.
Fiona-Jane Kenworthy
MARKETING MANAGING, CENTRAL MEDICAL SUPPLIES
MARKETING MANAGER, ERGOBBY UK How have you found business during lockdown?
CMS is in a fortunate position, as we are not only a key supplier of Critical Care and Neonatal products to the NHS, but thankfully our established retail nursery brands, such as Dr Brown’s Options+ Anti-Colic Baby Bottles and the Dreamgenii Pregnancy Support and Feeding Pillow have maintained their popularity and we haven’t experienced a down turn in sales Coronavirus has not affected people’s need to maintain comfort during pregnancy or feed their baby!. As you would expect web sales have experienced a massive upturn during lock down.
Due to the nature of the restrictions imposed by the government we have been pleased to see how baby carriers are now more than ever before considered a must-have product by parents. As parents have adapted to working from home, assisting children with schoolwork, and still carrying out all the functions of day to day living, carriers are playing a vital role in juggling all these elements. And not only at home, carriers have become an absolute necessity when leaving the home too. Whether it be for daily exercise or errands such as food shopping, carriers keep children held close which gives parents peace of mind and greater control, versus having them in a stroller or sitting in a shopping trolley etc.
What has been your largest challenge?
What has been your largest challenge?
Apart from the inevitable of ensuring the CMS work force continue to be safe and healthy, in the early days matching resource requirements to fluctuating demand levels proved challenging at times to ensure continuity of supply to the trade.
Our largest challenge has been how the restrictions have prevented us from visiting our retailers in person. However, we have been working with them to find alternative ways to reach and inform their customers without being able to discuss and demonstrate products in person, and without opportunities for activities such as in-store events. For example, some of our retailers have been working with us on digital activity which has worked brilliantly, and we also took part in the Harrogate International Nursery Fair Digital Preview to help our retailers to get ahead of the competition as we slowly emerge from lockdown.
How have you found business during lockdown?
Are you prepared with stores now having opened their doors for supply of product? Yes, thankfully we managed to boost stocks at the start of the pandemic which has enabled us to be flexible and provide continuity of supply even with unforeseen demand. Do you envisage any stock issues on the horizon that retailers should be aware of ?
Are you prepared with stores now having opened their doors for supply of product? / Do you envisage any stock issues on the horizon that retailers should be aware of ?
No we don’t! We have worked closely with our suppliers and partners within our supply chain and ever since the outbreak of the virus we have been stock piling product and have a robust operations plan in place.
We haven’t had any supply issues to date and are not anticipating any to come so are excited that our retailers are starting to welcome customers back, and we are here to support them in this ‘new normal’.
How are you assisting your stockists moving forward?
During the lockdown we introduced an online portal for retailers to place orders which will continue to be available alongside training materials for staff that can be accessed remotely. We are also continuing to work with retailers on their online offering to ensure they have up to date imagery and copy for all their Ergobaby products.
CMS prides itself in supporting its retail customers with a continual stream of new images and video content to promote the features and benefits of our range of Dreamgenii and Dr Brown’s products through our retailers and while we aren’t able to reinstate our in-store training programmes yet we are offering video training to our key customers. Have you altered the way you manage your business? We have safely distanced the teams and are working on skeleton office staff, which protects our personnel, enabling them to socially distance. Everyone is adhering to the strict guidelines in place in our Head Office. People who can work from home are doing so effectively.
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Amanda Loveday
nursery today
How are you assisting your stockists moving forward?
Have you altered the way you manage your business? The main changes to our ways of working have been those that have been adopted everywhere: working from home, holding plenty of Zoom meetings and allowing for flexible working. We’ve become incredibly adaptable and are willing to keep being so for the success of both Ergobaby and our retailers, we are all very much in this together still!