Bidvest's Online Market Share Increases

One of New Zealand’s largest wholesale food distribution businesses, Bidvest, has made more than 50% of its sales over the internet.

The Bidvest Direct website gives customers access to a catalogue of around 19,000 different products.
Bidvest Fresh Hamilton-based general manager, Gus Tissink says not every branch within the company would carry each product, so the website ties the business together.

Tissink believes Bidvest Direct isn’t just an ordering website, but also a resource that provides several smart business tools offering convenience to the customer, “hence its popularity”.

“It will give them a running total of everything that they’ve bought. They can look at their purchase history over a defined period, so it has some stock take functions available. They can reprint invoices, [and] look at the status of their orders”.

The company’s customer base in the Waikato varies with: early childhood, age care, corrections, contract caterers, independent caterers, restaurants, cafes, and takeaway bars.

Tissink says Bidvest Direct helps customers make informed purchases, including advanced search features where the customer can search by product or product usage, including finger food, main meal, desert, condiments and more.

“They can search by allergen as well. So if they are having to put together a menu or a product offering for a customer and they’ve got clients that are sensitive to particular allergens, they can search all our products that are minus those things”.

He says the website also has, what Bidvest calls, a planning and costing module which allows customers to plan and cost out their recipes and menus.

“The planning and costing module is based on our “live pricing” model and delivers to them their actual cost of goods. The “live pricing” means the customer can easily recalculate their food cost if there is a positive or negative shift in the pricing and best of all Bidvest Direct is a free e-business application”.

Bidvest specialises with fruit and vegetables, carrying all the mainstream lines alongside: exotic mushrooms, micro greens, specialty herbs, quail eggs, and duck eggs. They also offer pre-prepared vegetables.

Tissink says Bidvest offers their customers the things they want to buy, not what the company thinks they should buy.

“Because it [products] works in one centre doesn’t necessarily mean it will work in Hamilton. So we’re able to tailor our offering to meet our market or suit our customers,” he said.

For more information or to sign up to Bidvest Direct visit www.bidvest.co.nz or www.bidvestdirect.co.nz.