Why giftware wholesalers need to connect marketing with commercial planning

One of the things you quickly learn when working in the giftware industry is how much coordination goes into getting a product onto a retailer’s shelves.

A collection might begin its development many months before it’s available to order. There are designs to approve, suppliers to manage, samples to review, production schedules to agree and shipping arrangements to consider. At the same time, the sales team is working around retailer buying windows, key account requirements and the trade show calendar.

Then there’s everything marketing needs to produce to support the launch, often before the physical products have even arrived.

I’ve worked with giftware businesses at different stages of growth throughout my career, including during my time as Chair of the Giftware Association, and I’ve seen how complicated these processes can become as companies expand.

Through our work with established wholesalers at Marketing 101, it’s also become increasingly clear to me that one of the biggest opportunities for improving marketing effectiveness sits in the way different parts of the business plan and work together.

Most businesses already have talented people across their sales, product development and marketing teams. The challenge is making sure their efforts are properly connected.

The commercial calendar should drive the marketing calendar

Much of the giftware industry operates around lengthy development and buying cycles. New collections are often developed months before they reach a retailer’s shelves, with design, sourcing and manufacturing involving suppliers overseas.

Retailers have their own buying windows, while trade shows create fixed deadlines that don’t conveniently move when something gets delayed.

Through our work with wholesale businesses at Marketing 101, and drawing on the wider industry experience within our team, we’ve seen how quickly one change can affect several departments.

A collection is delayed by a couple of weeks, which pushes back photography and affects the brochure deadline. The sales team may then be without the materials needed for a retailer presentation, while digital product information is still incomplete and the marketing team is suddenly trying to recover time lost much earlier in the development process.

These situations can create real frustration between teams, even when everyone is working hard and doing their best to deliver.

Quite often, the business has several different calendars operating at once. Product development has its milestones, sales has its customer commitments and marketing has a schedule of campaigns, exhibitions and content deadlines. Each plan might make perfect sense individually, but unless they’re connected, the consequences of a delay can remain invisible until someone misses a deadline.

This is one of the reasons I’ve become a strong advocate for integrated commercial planning.

Marketing should understand the product development critical path, know when sales teams need materials and have enough visibility of retailer buying cycles to plan activity around genuine commercial opportunities.

A good commercial calendar makes those dependencies clear, establishes responsibilities and gives everyone enough visibility to identify problems before they become urgent.

If samples are running late, the conversation should happen when the delay becomes apparent, so the business can understand what else will be affected and agree how to respond. That might mean adjusting the photography schedule, prioritising certain product assets or giving sales an alternative way to present the collection.

For companies managing hundreds or thousands of products across different categories, that level of coordination can make a considerable difference. It also gives marketing teams more opportunity to concentrate on doing good work rather than constantly trying to recover lost time.

Sales and marketing should be having more of the same conversations

At Marketing 101, we’ve been exploring how giftware businesses can approach trade shows more commercially. It’s the subject of a wider industry white paper we’re developing, drawing on conversations with buyers, exhibitors, industry leaders and retail specialists.

One of the themes emerging through those conversations is the importance of what happens around the exhibition itself.

A trade show can bring hundreds of potential customers into contact with a business, but its eventual commercial value depends on which customers the business wants to reach, how well their needs are understood and what happens to those relationships afterwards.

The same principle applies to the wider wholesale operation, where sales and marketing need to be working towards shared commercial priorities.

If the business has identified a group of national retailers it wants to develop, I’d expect marketing to know who those accounts are and what the sales team is trying to achieve with them.

If the priority is growing existing independent accounts, there should be a shared understanding of their ordering behaviour, what might encourage repeat purchases and where marketing could provide useful support.

Yet it’s surprisingly easy for the two departments to operate alongside one another without really sharing a commercial plan.

Marketing reports on campaign activity, website traffic and engagement, while sales reports on orders, account development and revenue. Each department may be doing a perfectly reasonable job, but there isn’t always enough discussion about how one is influencing the other.

There’s also an important distinction between generating buyer interest and creating a commercially actionable opportunity.

A retailer might download a catalogue or spend time looking at a new collection, which tells us something useful but doesn’t necessarily indicate a serious buying opportunity.

A conversation with a relevant account, where there’s a clear commercial fit, a potential requirement and an agreed next step, gives the business something much more specific to develop.

I think marketing needs to understand that difference and work with sales to improve the quality of the opportunities being created.

Some of the most valuable marketing activity won’t produce an immediately measurable order, particularly in an industry where buying decisions can take months and customers may remain with a supplier for years.

Brand recognition, retailer confidence and long-term relationships all matter, but there should still be a clear understanding of what different activities are intended to achieve and how their contribution will be reviewed over time.

Marketing needs to be involved before the decisions are made

One of the most significant changes a wholesale business can make is to involve marketing earlier in commercial planning.

If a new product category is being developed, marketing should understand which customers the business wants to reach, what opportunity the range is intended to address and how the launch will be supported.

If the sales team is targeting a new group of retailers, marketing should have the opportunity to contribute to the approach rather than simply being asked to produce materials once the plan has been agreed.

The same applies to exhibitions, seasonal campaigns and customer retention activity.

I’ve seen situations where marketing teams receive perfectly reasonable requests but aren’t given enough background to understand the commercial purpose. They know what needs producing and when it’s required, but have relatively little involvement in the decisions that determine whether the activity is likely to be successful.

That’s a missed opportunity, particularly when the business already employs experienced marketing people who understand its customers and products.

Earlier involvement also gives marketing an opportunity to challenge assumptions.

Perhaps the planned campaign doesn’t quite match the buying cycle of the retailers being targeted. Maybe the proposed product launch requires better digital information before a wider promotional campaign begins. There could be an opportunity to support existing accounts more effectively rather than concentrating the entire budget on finding new ones.

Those conversations are much more useful when there’s still time to influence the plan.

What better commercial alignment looks like in practice

I don’t think improving the relationship between marketing, sales and product development necessarily requires an elaborate new management structure.

For many established wholesalers, the starting point is simply establishing a more consistent approach to planning and making sure the right people have visibility of the decisions that affect their work.

That means agreeing the major commercial priorities for the year and understanding what each department needs to contribute.

The product development timetable should connect with sales requirements and marketing deadlines. Key account opportunities should be visible early enough for appropriate support to be planned. Trade show activity should reflect the customers the business most wants to develop, with clear responsibilities for what happens before and afterwards.

It also means agreeing how progress will be reviewed.

A marketing report showing that an email campaign achieved a strong open rate may be useful, but it tells a business relatively little about the commercial outcome on its own.

If the purpose of the campaign was to encourage existing retailers to explore a new collection, I’d want to understand what happened next. Did customers view the range? Did they make enquiries? Were conversations generated for the sales team? Did orders follow, and what might we learn about the accounts that responded?

The same thinking applies to key account development, exhibitions and wider customer activity.

It’s important to recognise that marketing cannot control every outcome. Pricing, stock availability, product suitability and retailer demand all influence commercial performance.

However, shared planning and reporting make it easier to understand where marketing is making a contribution, where other factors are affecting results and what the business might need to change.

Making the improvements without disrupting the business

One of the realities of working with established wholesalers is that the business has to keep operating while improvements are introduced.

There are still collections to launch, sales targets to meet, exhibitions to prepare for and retailers expecting support. Any changes to planning, responsibilities or reporting need to work alongside those commitments.

At Marketing 101, we generally begin by understanding the existing operation and the commercial priorities it needs to support.

That means looking at how decisions are currently made, where information is shared, which processes are working well and where unnecessary pressure or duplication may be occurring.

There may be opportunities to improve the commercial calendar, establish clearer responsibilities or introduce more useful reporting. Some businesses will benefit from better CRM systems and automation, while others may need more experienced marketing leadership to help connect strategy with everyday delivery.

The right approach depends on the business, its people and the challenges it’s trying to address.

I’ve always been conscious that established wholesale businesses often have a great deal of valuable knowledge within their teams. People understand their products, know their retailers and have developed processes through years of experience.

The aim should be to make better use of that knowledge, improving the areas that need attention without losing what has helped the business succeed.

Marketing should have a clearer place in commercial decision-making

Giftware businesses operate in a demanding environment. Product development cycles are long, retail requirements vary considerably and the pressure to deliver new collections on time is constant.

Marketing has an important role to play in supporting all of that, but its effectiveness depends heavily on how well it’s connected to the decisions being made elsewhere in the business.

For me, that’s where the conversation needs to develop.

When marketing understands the commercial priorities, has visibility of the product development process and works closely with sales, it becomes easier to plan activity that supports genuine business opportunities.

It also creates a healthier relationship between departments. Teams can agree priorities earlier, understand the effect of changing circumstances and make decisions based on a shared view of what the business is trying to achieve.

For wholesalers looking at their next stage of growth, I think it’s worth examining how those relationships currently work.

You may already have the people, experience and knowledge needed to make marketing considerably more effective. Bringing them together around a shared commercial plan could be one of the most useful improvements you make.

About Marketing 101

At Marketing 101, we work with established UK giftware and wholesale businesses to develop marketing strategies that support their wider commercial ambitions.

Our team brings extensive hands-on experience of the giftware industry. We provide strategic consultancy, fractional CMO support and phased marketing development, working alongside existing teams to improve planning, commercial alignment and marketing effectiveness.

If you’re looking to improve how marketing connects with sales, product development and wider commercial planning, we’d welcome a conversation about your business and the opportunities ahead.