Independent education dealers face many challenges. As autonomous, small business executives, management teams are often isolated from peers. Whether developing a competitive advantage in the marketplace, managing day-to-day operations, or creating focused and successful sales teams, there are many demands on these leaders. The Education Market Association (EDmarket) is the industry’s premier organization for community and shared resources, helping our independent dealer members focus on success.
Harnessing our collective power and influence is the primary reason behind the creation of the EDmarketplace, a new purchasing consortium in partnership between EDmarket and Independent Suppliers Group (ISG). The platform strives to increase competitiveness of participating dealers through better cost of goods, opportunities for industry peer interaction and benchmarking, and more focused sales training. Participating manufacturers will significantly grow sales through increased dealer training and loyalty while improving cash flow through accounts receivable management.
We invite you to explore EDmarketplace and see the future of competing as an independent education focused dealer.
How does the consortium work? EDmarket has focused first on developing a comprehensive cohort of education-oriented manufacturers representing over 70 different product categories to give dealers choice and confidence. Through concentrating sales strategies on utilizing this group of manufacturers, participating dealers will receive better cost of goods and terms than they usually can negotiate independently. Their sales and design staff will be thoroughly trained on the participating product lines and through third-party relationships, have more cost-effective access to the latest technology tools to help them compete.
Orders will be placed in the usual manner, directly with the manufacturer and shipped to the preferred location. However, this is where the manufacturers really benefit: invoices are sent to EDmarketplace that will remit payment within terms every time. This unique feature eliminates the accounts receivable and collections challenge associated at times in working with small businesses. The dealer will be invoiced by EDmarketplace and may also receive extended payment terms, assisting their cash flow demands as well.
Add to this business advantage, market intelligence, marketing support, dealer benchmarks, and best practices sharing, participating in EDmarketplace is a gamechanger for all involved. If you are interested in learning more about participating, contact Scott Beyer, sbeyer@edmarket.org.
Purchasing consortiums have become instrumental assisting independent businesses to increase competitiveness and thrive in many, many industries. It is about time the education focused dealer had access to this successful business model. We invite you to explore EDmarketplace and see the future of competing as an independent education focused dealer.