Paul Hill caught up with, Ken Wright, operations director at Universal Product Solutions, to find out how a unique customer and product strategy has made it successful
PH: Could you talk to us about your product range and your unique relationship with customers and brands?
KW: Our customer base and products cover a huge range because we sell on Amazon, Temu, TikTok and eBay, as well as our own website. We sell to anyone, from the hotels in London to people at home, and our split is around 80% B2C and 20% B2B. That includes supplying other foodservice companies if they’re struggling to hit MOQs on certain brands.
With regards to our product portfolio, we recently had a change of strategy in which we have gone from doing as much volume as possible to focusing on profitable volume. To do this, we went through our catalogue to flush out lines that were too low margin, get damaged too easily in transportation or are too short dated.
Grocery staples such as tea, coffee, biscuits and sugar have always been our bread and butter, as these are the lines that will forever sell well and we want to do these in huge numbers.
Another area we’d like to expand further is our exclusive projects for products and gift packs we work in partnerships with our suppliers on.
What gives your business its USP?
We work very well with big brands and have a unique ability to adapt to what the brands need and want – whether it’s a gift pack we create from scratch or supporting them with brand reports each month. No matter what the customers’ or suppliers’ need, we make it happen. We change and adapt very easily, and that can sometimes mean working overnight to achieve this for them. We also go above and beyond with compliance, and make sure everything is by the book.
For example, we have BRCGS and Organic Certification, and even though some of the processes we have may seem like we go overboard, it gives us confidence to work with all the big brands. This means we are ready for any requirements thrown at us to be able to work on a project.
Read more: Interview: The Wholesale Group
What are your growth plans for the years ahead?
We sit at just above £24m turnover now and we want to get that up to £30m very quickly. This is something we know we can achieve within a few years by helping the brands with new gifting lines and supporting them with knowledge of what other lines can work.
With regards to our longer-term goals, we must keep them very open as this is an ever-changing industry. However, our main focus is to keep expanding our portfolio of suppliers and manufacturers we work with, reach more brands and provide more services to help mutual growth.
This will, of course, mean more staff and potentially bigger premises in the future, but ideally we want to reach the capacity in our current premises first.
What is the biggest challenge the business faces?
Our biggest challenges are also our biggest wins, and that’s the industry of Amazon and the variety of rule changes we have to contend with. This means we must continually adapt, which is incredibly challenging. In a wholesale business like ours, you have to be able to change your business in 24 hours or you won’t succeed.
Staying compliant is another challenge. Most of our competitors will cut corners, which almost gives them a short-term advantage, so we do have to lose some battles to win the long-term war.
What has the company done to improve its environmental footprint, ensure the business has a strong gender balance and is attracting the workforce of tomorrow?
We have reduced our packaging by half and use a lot of recycled packaging. We have also been trialling the removal of boxes on items that have a strong exterior already, which has also helped in this area.
Overall, though, our operations don’t have a massive environmental footprint anyway, so it’s simple and straightforward to keep in check, but we do still maximise our efforts where we can.
In terms of our recruitment policy, we have never had to try hard to get the right people. I think as long as you hire with an open mind and without any prejudice, the balance comes naturally.
Maybe we have just been lucky so far, but that’s our experience.
