In 2022, the food and drink industry’s net revenue is expected to end at about $2 trillion. If we compare it to the previous guess report of 2020, it was about $1.4 trillion. But, currently, it’s 30% higher than expected in the past for wholesale food beverage. It’s because of the nature of the industry. The food and drink industry is one of those industries that could never collapse, fall or become slow. This would imply if the global consumption of food and drink gets slowed or stops, which is an unrealistic assumption. Whether it’s any pandemic, disaster or collapsed economy, the food and drink industry can never collapse, slow or downfall. It’s always effectless in every situation. For an example, see the report of F&D during the Covid-19 pandemic:
Food industry during Covd-19
While all other industries were going down, collapsing and closing, F&D was the opposite. It had minor to no effect on sales and growth. Regardless of any situation, this industry will continue to grow as long as humans exist.
The Ecommerce and Food Industry
Regardless of their importance in the offline market, this industry is stable on the digital side as well. Not just stable, the food industry is hiking on the Ecommerce side. Here are some stats for your information:
- Out of the $2 trillion net revenue, 44% of it comes from the Ecommerce side only.
- 55% of world consumers purchase their food and drinks from an online store.
- Distributors earn 9% more profit on Ecommerce than in offline sales.
- Till 2028, 64% of the Food industry’s net revenue will come from Ecommerce.
Source These statistics, it’ll give you a good idea of the existence of Ecommerce in the food industry.
Nature of Shopping Shift
How many people shop online
The major hike of Ecommerce in this industry lies behind the nature of shopping. About 2.1 billion people in the world now prefer Ecommerce for their shopping. To clarify, this figure makes up 27% of the world population. And this shift applies to almost all industries including food and drink. Certainly, this number is constantly increasing with the upward incline. E.g, in 2021, there were about 900 million online buyers. And in 2022, there are over 2.1 billion online buyers. Which is a sudden hike and shows the growth of Ecommerce.
Ecommerce Challenges in the Food and Beverage Sector
Every business model comes with challenges. The same goes for Ecommerce. Working in a wholesale e-commerce food business does offer challenges and difficulties. Here are some common issues:
Delivery Delay in Food and Beverage
Wholesale food beverage
In other categories, delivery time is acceptable. However, especially food and drinks can’t afford delivery delays. There must be some delay from ordering the food to the delivery to the merchant (delivery timeline). However, food and drink fall under FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods). As their name states, FMCG category industries can’t afford long delivery timelines. In other words, this industry requires fast-moving models. To sum up, that’s one of the major drawbacks of wholesale food and beverage e-commerce.
Food Expiry
Fresh food expiry
Food expiries aren’t so extended. They have short expulsions. Especially for fresh and refrigerated food, they can’t stay fresh for long. A portion of refrigerated food can stay fresh for 4 hours only without an ideal temperature. And fresh food can stay fresh for 7 days maximum at room temperature. After these timelines, bacteria would start growing in them. It does not just make them difficult to transport. But, a fragile and costly model as well. However, going with packaged or canned food or beverages can prevent this issue.
Food Spillage
If the food is spilt or gets leaked, then it’s always useless. According to hygiene standards, spilt food should always be wasted. And it’s a law as well. With that in mind, it’s a risky business. If for some reason, it happens, you can repack the food like other things. Especially liquid foods, it becomes useless. This standard can cost a complete loss in case of spillage or leakage. However, it only happens when the wholesaler uses cheap quality packaging or doesn’t follow the guidelines.
Advantages of Wholesale Food Beverage Ecommerce
Apart from the challenges and problems, there are many other benefits of the Ecommerce food and beverage business on the wholesale side. Here are some for your reference:
No Physical Expense
Ecommerce is all about digital and connected to the internet. Therefore, it doesn’t require any kind of physical store. It saves all the associated costs with it. E.g, bills, rent, furniture, maintenance, tax and other associated stuff. For instance, only the rent of the store will charge you about $48,000/year. And employees, salary, maintenance and bills can make it to about $72,000/year. Therefore, with Ecommerce, you’re directly saving the amount of close to $72,000/year.
Business Potential
Global growth Ecommerce
With 2.1 billion annual Ecommerce users, it’s offering you potential. Moreover, here’s a quick stats table for you:
- Till 2023, 20.8% of world retailers will shift towards Ecommerce.
- There are over 26.2 million Ecommerce websites around the world.
- The Ecommerce audience will increase to over 200% by the end of 2023.
- Total Ecommerce net revenue is about $2 trillion.
- Till 2028, 64% of the Food industry’s net revenue will come from Ecommerce.
Source With all these stats, it might give you an idea of how much potential there is in Ecommerce. In the food and beverage industry. Especially for food and drink, ECommerce is suitable.
D2C Model
In Ecommerce, you’ve got a choice. You can either do business with merchants or B2B. However, you can also deal in DTC Direct with Customers. B2B, it’s a conventional wholesale food beverage business model. However, in DTC, it can give you a lot of profit. Simply, it cuts out the merchant. And the merchant’s profit goes inside the wholesaler’s pocket. However, note that you can only deal in D2C. It’s because, in D2C, the sales aren’t as high as in B2B. So, still, you’ve to do the conventional B2B.
Platform You want to Use for Ecommerce
Now, you’ve got all the details of wholesale food and beverage Ecommerce. It’s time to build your Ecommerce wholesale business now. However, instead of starting from scratch. You can go with an all-in-one Ecommerce solution like Shopify, Magento or JustSell. Why not start from scratch?
- Consumes a lot of time.
- You need to hire a developer.
- Cost and hassle for hosting and domain.
- You need to hire a developer for website optimization.
- Manual SEO optimization fuss.
Why Choosing Ecommerce Platform?
- Saves time.
- Pre-built store optimised for the food and drinks.
- No need to hire a designer.
- Pre-optimised website.
- Complete SEO package.
- Other useful Ecommerce tools for foods and drinks.
- Cost-efficient.
Which Platforms you Should Choose
Now the confusion is which platform you should choose for your Ecommerce F&D store. There are over hundreds of Ecommerce platforms in the market. The problem with them is that some charge a lot of fees or some don’t require features. However, JustSell is one of those rare platforms that offer a complete Ecommerce package, no commission and a complete solution for food and drink wholesalers. Here’s the comparison for your reference of JustSell with other leading platforms in the market.:
JustSell is best for wholesale food beverage business
