Unitas offers More rewards for ‘most engaged’ members

Wholesalers are being offered a share of £2m in incremental revenue for supporting buying group Unitas’ central promotions, publications and events.

The buying group unveiled the new More for More incentive at its Connect25 trade show in Liverpool this week. The scheme aims to help drive engagement, execution and compliance in supplier partnership activities. Wholesalers will be rewarded for demonstrating a higher level of engagement in Unitas’ URP promotions programme, the retailer support portal Plan for Profit, customer-facing promotional materials and events such as the trade show.

Unitas said the new plan would enable wholesalers to “more than recoup their annual membership fee from the additional revenue stream”.

“Our mission is to be a fitter, fairer and faster organisation, delivering incremental revenue for our members, and return on investment for suppliers,” said Unitas Wholesale MD John Kinney.

“We have made great progress on being fitter – increasing the revenue returned to members by 17% in the last year, and 35% over the last five years, and we have helped members reduce their overheads by £3m through our Unitas procurement scheme.

“We are also faster, increasing members’ cashflow through more efficient financial systems, reducing the days taken to process payments.

“Now we need to be fairer – ensuring that those members who contribute most to the group get the most out of it. This is why we are putting aside more than £2m in additional rewards for those who actively engage and incentivise others to do the same.”

Lioncroft Wholesale CEO and Unitas interim chair Dr Jason Wouhra added: “Offering members a greater financial incentive to actively participate in Unitas’ central schemes will appeal to wholesalers’ entrepreneurial instincts and will ensure those who put the most into the group will be rewarded proportionately.

“It will also incentivise members to drive compliance in joint ventures with our suppliers, which we know is the key to building mutually beneficial relationships. This new model will help to drive the right behaviours and will be vital to unlocking future investment and sustainable growth for members individually and for the group as a whole.”