Wholesalers: Understanding And Selling Green

Green cleaning is at a fever pitch in today’s cleaning industry. And as a result, jan/san distributors are increasingly searching for the best solutions that meet their customers’ specific sustainability needs.

Faced with the ongoing challenge of keeping pace with emerging terminology, new green certifications and constantly evolving environmental claims, today’s distributors are caught in a green whirlwind. Thus, distributors are counting on their supply chain partners — jan/san wholesalers — to keep them informed on green cleaning trends.

Wholesalers are organizing and analyzing anything green related and are passing the facts down to distributors, who in turn use it to fulfill their customers’ specific sustainable requests. In fact, when it comes to green product lines, wholesalers are going above and beyond the call of duty to take the guesswork out of the hands of distributors.

Green Confusion

With a number of third-party organizations and governmental agencies certifying products as green and some manufacturers making misleading green claims, the green cleaning concept can be incredibly confusing for distributors, since there is no one universal standard.

“For jan/san distributors, there is a need to understand what green cleaning means and the steps required for certification,” says Carol Butler, vice president and general manager of Saalfeld Redistribution, Loveland, Ohio.

Thus, wholesalers, aside from coaching distributors on the fundamentals of the

supply chain, are providing reference materials that discuss what green standards are out there and to whom they apply. They are also offering distributors key points to

keep in mind about environmentally conscious cleaning, as well as published materials that show which products have green attributes.

“There’s plenty of information out there about green, but translating that into how that can best help a distributor’s business is something we’re helping them with,” says Barry Hentz, senior vice president of R3 Redistribution, Chicago. “But there are so many new things that are coming out and so many things that have to be reviewed and looked at — and that’s really where training comes in.”

Because wholesalers work directly with a wide variety of manufacturers, they are able to offer distributors a broad product portfolio of environmentally conscious products. So, a wholesaler’s philosophy in the current day is to essentially be a repository for all the facts on green — help distributors work through all of the green info, train them, and utilize the information that they’ve created to sell in their marketplace.

“There is so many different versions of what green is out there,” says Terry Frank, senior vice president of strategic business development for R3 Redistribution. “The last thing we want to have happen is for our company or for one of our distributors to be accused of greenwashing. So, we try to provide education to our distributors as much as products.”

One way wholesalers are getting distributors to understand the complexity of green is by hosting nationwide seminars. These bring together manufacturers of green products with distributors, so there’s a better understanding of how these products perform as well as how to promote and sell them.

These seminars mostly give distributors key information on how to locate, service and target potential green accounts, says Rick Valerio, director of purchasing for Sheppard Enterprises, Oaks, Pa.

Distributors are also counting on wholesalers to ensure that the green products that are on the market being offered to end-users are truly green products. Engulfed in the day-to-day grind of running their business, researching and making sure products are in fact green could itself be a full time job. Luckily, for distributors, wholesalers are doing the extra leg work.

“We evaluate each and every product before we agree to stock and market it,” says Butler. “If we are confident that the manufacturer’s claims are real then we rely on their positioning and certifications. If we aren’t confident, we don’t carry the product.”

Wholesalers say it is also critical for distributors to understand that they can’t rely solely on third-party certification or a description that contains the word green because not all manufacturers have pursued certification due to expensive fees. Instead, when it comes to environmental claims, distributors should rather focus on how well a product or a process performs and how it is relative to the situation where it is being used.

Out On The Limb

Whether it’s through the variance in pricing associated with green cleaning products, or the belief that they don’t clean as well, there are numerous distributors who are still hesitant to jump on the green bandwagon.

Prime in holding most back is the fact that many distributors in certain geographical locations still aren’t receiving much demand for products marketed as green, says Kara Kramer, manager of data and channel development for LagasseSweet, Deerfield, Ill.

“If customers are not requesting information on these products, some distributors aren’t necessarily interested in investing energy and resources in developing a green program,” Kramer says.

This is particularly the case where distributors have seen green fads come and go, or in locales where legislation or regulations are not in place requiring environmentally conscious products. And, where distributors feel that their customers are more concerned about the cost of the products than their environmental impact, says Mark Lyle, executive director for RDA Advantage, Littleton, Colo.

In the past, reduction in impact on the environment almost directly correlated with reduction in performance and increase in cost — two key considerations in product selection distributors and end users don’t ignore, says Kramer.

The availability, quality and cost-competitiveness of products marketed as green has changed over the past couple of years, but some distributors and their customers still refuse to sell and buy green products.

Many distributors continue to balk at the chance of selling green products because of the number of manufacturers who prematurely introduced poor quality green product lines a few years back, says Bill Sheppard, president and owner of Sheppard Enterprises.

“There’s still people lobbying against it,” adds Aaron Leibowitz, vice president of Norshel Industries, Croydon, Pa. “There’s a lot of custodial staff out there that say the green stuff doesn’t work. That’s because they may have tried it in the past.”

However, as the demand by end users continues to rise across the country and manufacturers continue to revolutionize green cleaning products, wholesalers expect that more distributors will start pushing back at the old adage and those customers that say green products don’t work as well.

Although green products will never replace a distributor’s entire inventory, they can be used as additional products that meet a specific need for a select group of customers. For distributors who don’t have extra warehouse space to give to green products, this is where a wholesaler can help.

Wholesalers allow distributors the ability to postpone the need for capital investments such as warehouses and material handling equipment because the wholesaler performs a portion of that function for them. Thus, distributors are able to appear as if their business is larger than it is — they have access to a broad range of products and to product lines that are not available on a direct basis.

By working with a wholesaler, distributors are able to test the market by letting customers know that when they’re ready to start using green products, they can count on them to supply them.

“You don’t even have to stock it until you get an order,” says Leibowitz. “So go out there and sell it. Because if you don’t let your customers know that you have it and they might want to go green, and you say no, they’re going to find somebody who does. Even if you’re not buying it now, you got to reinforce to the end user that I can get it for you when you’re ready. I can train you when you’re ready.”

As such, distributors should look to wholesalers for guidance on which green products are the right green products that will positively impact their business, says RDA Advantage’s Lyle.

By not offering green products, distributors are missing out on opportunities to position themselves as leaders, to distinguish themselves from their competitors and to receive a premium for a solution, says Saalfeld’s Butler.

“They are also compromising their value to the Fortune 500, government agencies and higher education — markets with purchasing guidelines that specify green products,” she says.

While wholesalers can be a great resource, they are quick to point out that they are not pushing distributors into selling green, rather informing them of the potential that could arise from it.

“It’s not our job to convince distributors that it’s a good business investment,” says Butler. “We are a resource for distributors who need to service customers who are asking for environmental solutions. What we can do is help them make the right decisions about the products they add to their inventory. If a distributor is going to expand in a way that increases their inventory, they should first look to their wholesaler to explore which options will lower their investments cost and risk.”