Facilitating exports has led to booming business for Grovara’s online B2B marketplace as well as the buyers and sellers who use it to make transactions.
The Philadelphia-based startup provides an online marketplace for American-made “better-for-you” natural and organic food and beverage brands and said one key to its success is enabling an easy global wholesale experience.
To that point, the company announced in a Thursday (Sept. 9) press release that the number of buyers using its platform had topped 1,000 and that it had consecutive months of company-best sales volume. The growth milestone comes just six months after its most recent $5.5 million fundraise, which enabled it to triple its employee headcount and expand its presence in Latin America and Asia to meet the accelerating demand from buyers.
Simplifying B2B Exports
Grovara explained in a separate press release that its data- and automation-driven platform eliminates the complexities of manual exporting, including vetting retailers, processing transactions and payments, fulfilling orders and having the right data and insights.
As it stands now, the company said less than 7% of American manufacturers sell overseas, in many cases due to the complexity of exporting and the risk of losing product, revenue and time.
Part of the appeal to first-time exporters is the platform’s streamlined approach to exporting, a normally daunting and detailed process that it claims to have shrunk down to just four clicks for a brand and three if you’re a retailer.
It’s a dynamic, data-driven process that ranges from a search portal of vetted export partners, including wellness data insights from providers like SPINS, while coordinating easy-to-order product samples so retailers can make more educated purchasing decisions.
The company also touts a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool it has developed that auto-generates and simplifies export documentation, as well as a Direct Messenger Hub that enables order-specific communication between buyers, brands and Grovara.
After fulfillment, the platform also enables retailers and brands to get visibility into accounts and see a detailed view of performance over time, including the ability to generate customized reports for sales volume, sales booked/shipped, sales growth, average order value, top/total cases sold and samples ordered.
The B2B platform also provides other benefits, including allowing buyers to purchase multiple brands in a single checkout session, easy reorder, as well as setting up custom subscriptions based on a range of criteria.
Strong Categories
In addition to enabling brands and retailers to discover, connect and transact with each other, Grovara’s platform has also grown because it serves three strong categories. The company said it saw continued growth of the wellness category, eCommerce and B2B online marketplaces.
The more than 1,000 registered vetted buyers using Grovara’s platform range from large retailers to niche distributors. Among them are the top five supermarkets in Mexico. The company reported noteworthy growth in Latin America and 90% penetration into the Hong Kong market. The marketplace now serves vetted buyers in more than 45 countries.
Among the U.S. wellness brands using the platform and exporting products are Wholesome, True Citrus and That’s It.
“Both sides see tremendous value in the simplicity of our marketplace, making the complex process of exporting easy,” Grovara Co-Founder and CEO Abu Kamara said when announcing the growth.
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