Retail & wholesale — Wylie Performance Partners

INDUSTRIES · RETAIL & WHOLESALE

Thin margins make small percentages large.

In retail and wholesale the categories that scale with volume — packaging, freight, card processing — sit directly against a margin that has little room in it. A rate agreed at one volume rarely gets retested at the next.

Where we usually start

These are the categories our retail and wholesale work most often turns on, and the first three usually account for most of what is addressable.

Packaging

Corrugate, film, labels and protective materials. Specification and board grade usually matter more than unit price alone.

Freight and logistics

Inbound and outbound rates, accessorials, fuel surcharge mechanics and mode selection. Contracts often outlive the network they were priced for.

Merchant card processing

Interchange, assessments and processor margin. The fee stack is layered and rarely examined as a whole.

Telecom and connectivity

Circuits, mobile and point-of-sale connectivity across every location, where plans accumulate as the estate changes.

Fleet and small parcel

Vehicle acquisition, fuel, maintenance and insurance; parcel agreements with layered discounts and surcharges.

Uniforms and store supply

Garment programmes priced per week over long terms, and consumables bought store by store.

What makes retail and wholesale different

Volume scales, terms do not

A rate agreed at one revenue level persists through several. The invoice grows and nothing about it flags the change.

Multi-site buying fragments

Stores and depots open, are acquired, or are inherited with their own suppliers. Consolidation is possible more often than it is examined.

Card processing is nobody’s category

Finance holds the relationship, operations holds the terminals, e-commerce holds the gateway. No one sees the full fee stack.

Service level is the constraint

Nothing we do puts delivery or availability at risk. Where the incumbent is priced correctly, we will tell you.

WHERE THE WORK GOES

Where our retail and wholesale work concentrates

Relative weight of the categories our retail and wholesale engagements most often address. The first three usually account for most of what is addressable.

Packaging

most

Freight and logistics

Telecom and connectivity

Merchant card processing

Fleet and small parcel

Uniforms and store supply

Note. Relative weight only, shown without underlying counts. It reflects where engagements have concentrated, not what any organization should prioritise. Which categories matter at yours depends on your operating model and your current terms.

WHAT THE WIDER RESEARCH REPORTS

Retail has a published indirect benchmark of its own.

Retail is one of the few sectors with a published indirect benchmark of its own, though it is stated as a share of sales rather than of total spend.

Retail indirect costs are put at 10% to 15% of sales.

McKinsey & Company

A broader estimate places indirect spend at 25% to 40% of total company spend across sectors.

Sievo

Transportation spend is put at 6% to 10% of revenue in consumer packaged goods, and higher again where cold chain applies.

Published logistics benchmarking, ranges vary by product density

These describe ranges across an industry, drawn from samples that may or may not resemble your organization. We publish the source and the sample size for each because a range is useful for orientation even when it cannot be a conclusion. None of them describe you.

WHERE WE WOULD NOT START

Merchandise and anything that puts availability or delivery at risk. Direct buying is your core competency, not ours. We work the categories around the goods, not the goods.

How the work runs

The same four stages as every engagement. The first costs nothing and you can stop there.

STAGE 01

Diagnostic

We examine current spend and terms in the categories worth examining. No fee, no commitment.

STAGE 02

Baseline

Agreed in writing before any work begins, at today’s volumes and terms.

STAGE 03

Execute

Incumbents first. Every supplier decision stays yours.

STAGE 04

Verify & Earn

Confirmed against your invoices. A share of verified recovery, and nothing else.

CONTINUE

See how cost recovery works

The four stages, the categories, and the fee model.

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Other sectors

How the pattern differs elsewhere, and why.

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The research behind this

What we publish, and what we are building next.

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A 45-minute working session. No fee.

We will talk through which categories are worth examining and which are not. If your freight or card terms are already competitive, that is a useful answer and we will say so.

Start a conversation See how cost recovery works