Wholesalers could be able to cut the time it takes to complete an order in half with the use of AI technology, industry experts have predicted.
Speaking with The Grocer and Lumina Intelligence about the future of AI in wholesale, Gabriel van Heerden, head of sales at AI ordering app Orderlion, said one of the biggest changes he expects to see in the wholesale sector will be around sales agents – autonomous systems that automate and optimise sales processes.
“That’s where we’ll really start to see AI replacing humans in certain areas. It won’t have the same skill level as a human, but it’ll be excellent for administrative tasks,” he said. “I see no reason why a wholesaler wouldn’t have an AI-powered sales agent – at a tenth of the cost – taking orders.”
He explained that as some customers have standing orders, they can use AI to pre-populate baskets and suggest products. ”It’s going to make everything faster. It could actually improve the industry to the point where we’re no longer looking at a 12-hour cycle from order to delivery – maybe even a six-hour cycle.”
According to Rob Mannion, CEO of B2B.store, which operates B2B ordering and marketing platform ProConnect, technologically “the wholesale community has never really been the most advanced – especially compared to B2C”. However, he adds that there have been “pockets of innovation over the years”.
In July, The Wholesale Group launched AI technology that enables brands to conduct analysis across the group’s entire network, identify untapped opportunities and generate sales proposals, marketing plans and joint business plans on demand. Just last month, Unitas Wholesale launched an AI Academy to help businesses explore and adopt the latest AI opportunities.
AI voice agents will be a ‘major disruption’
Alex Kiely, UK general manager at Choco Wholesale, which provides AI solutions to wholesalers including Lynas Foodservice, ponders “whether shopfronts will even exist in the future”.
Choco Wholesale is building AI voice agents which can tell wholesalers and their customers about relevant products and repeat order history.
“It could get to a point where, whether through chat or voice, customers no longer need to visit a website at all. That would be a major disruption,” he admits.
Mannion agrees that voice will become “a much more common way for retailers and caterers to engage”.
Looking towards the next three to five years, he predicts the way wholesalers interact with platforms and e-commerce from an administrative perspective will become “a lot more dynamic”. “Platforms will start to monitor, manage, and deliver campaigns themselves – AI will do a lot of the heavy lifting”.
But the future of AI in wholesale will go beyond improving administrative tasks, says Steve King, CEO at creative testing solution Dragonfly AI. He believes AI will be key in helping wholesalers optimise their content, from advertising to improving websites.
“Wholesale is usually about finding efficiency and there are some great tools for doing those really boring creative tasks. Let creatives do the really good, big creative tasks, because that’s important. But automate everything else for them.”
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