We’re back today with another amazing wholesale store owner, Leanne Tubby from Baby BeeHinds – creators of a much loved modern reusable cloth nappy.
17 years ago Leanne set out to offer alternatives to disposable diapers to lessen waste. Today she shares her experiences, tips and some of her future plans for her store.
Learning from your fellow store owners can help you grow your wholesale business and we are very privileged to have Leanne interview with us today and share her experience growing with Wholesale Suite.
This is the third of our WooCommerce store highlight case study posts and just in case you missed the past 2 articles, you can check out our full list of Case Studies here.
Could you tell us about who you are, where you are located, and what your business is all about?
We are one of the largest reusable cloth nappy manufacturers in Australia. We have been established for 17 years this year. Baby BeeHinds provide a range of reusable, modern cloth nappies and accessories and have customers all over the world.
We are around 70% direct online to consumer 30% wholesale. Our wholesale channel is growing very quickly as retailers are seeking sustainable products for parents & babies.
Parents are looking for more planet-friendly alternatives to reduce their waste. Also, save money and generally be more aware of the impact of their decisions on our planet. Our range of reusable nappies and accessories caters for newborns, toddlers, special needs kids through to swimming nappies & toilet training.
Our Head Office is located in Adelaide, however export to retailers in US, China, Netherlands, UK, NZ, Spain and beyond.
When did you start selling wholesale and what made you consider selling wholesale in the first place?
We started selling wholesale around 13 years ago. It traditionally has only been a small part of our business. In the last 2 years, there has been a big increase in the number of wholesale accounts across the world. This is our fastest-growing channel.
It gives us the ability to get our products in front of different customers who may not have thought about reusable nappies, or think they are the old-style cloth nappies that need pins & soaking.. but that isn’t the case anymore.
We have a wide range of wholesale accounts from companies who just sell cloth nappies, we have boutique baby stores, major online eco/ecommerce retailers, childcare centres, swimming centres so there is a very diverse range we cater for.
Is wholesale a big part of your overall business? How does wholesale fit into the bigger picture?
Yes, wholesale has grown to around 30% of our business over the last 2 years. It’s a key channel for us now. So much so we need to hire a dedicated channel manager to look after our retailers.
We have around 100 wholesale accounts across the world and growing, and have around 10 new applications per week without doing any business development.
It’s a fine balance of being able to manage our supply chain to ensure we have the stock levels to support our current retailers demand, as well as our direct to consumer demand so we have had to tighten our wholesale approval process to maintain that balance for all channels.
If you could wave a magic wand, what would be the thing you’d make instantly better in your wholesale paint business and why?
A new website re-design for our current site! We only switched to WooCommerce/WordPress 2 years ago. Currently, I’m building a new website myself for our new brand and I’m using Divi, with pre-made layouts which is surprisingly easy for a non-IT person. I have realised how poorly designed our current site is and what poor advice we had at the beginning of rebuilding our website.
Don’t get me wrong, the wholesale part of our current site is great and the only thing I’m 100% happy with (thanks to Wholesale Suite Plugins) but I know we are going to have to re-do our site within the next 12 months which I’m not looking forward to so I would love a magic wand to re-do our site as it’s not a project I really want to do again.
What is a great way you’ve grown your wholesale reusable cloth nappy business that you could share and recommend to others?
When we have a new wholesale account sign up & place their first order, we send them out an extra prize pack of goodies they can use as a competition to promote our brand – they feel loved, customers get excited about a new range and it puts our brand in the spotlight within that retailer. The more they order the bigger the prize. It’s a lovely surprise when they receive their first order from us.
We also engage our wholesale accounts every quarter with a survey so we can get feedback. Whether it’s a new range of colours, a new product idea, or how we can make their ordering process easier (which is why we introduced the Wholesale Suite Order Form Page which is amazing and so quick) – we engage them to ensure we are on the right track and continually assessing how we can improve.
Our photo-bank for social media images also is one point of difference we provide for our wholesalers. We have around 10 content creators we work with who provide us beautiful images of our products each month, all with different styles of photos. These photos are added into our photo-bank. All our accounts have access to use these images in their social media or websites.
It means they don’t need to take their own images which takes up a huge amount of time when you consider the volume of brands a retailer has to work with. This quick access saves them time and delivers brand consistency for us.
If you had to start it all over again, what would you do differently?
I wish we had the Wholesale Lead Capture installed much sooner – it makes processing, approving or rejecting new accounts so quick and I love the fact you can customise the email they get based on approved or not. It saves so much time! As I’m currently managing all channels this has been a real time saver for us.
What’s in store for Leanne Tubby & Baby BeeHinds for the rest of the year?
We are launching a new business called B Clean Co at the end of April. It is focused on a range of plant-based, Australian made laundry detergents and skincare. It is specifically targeting cloth nappies & sportswear markets. We are really excited about this new brand. It will both complement our cloth nappy customer base and open new markets in the sports industry.
The exciting step for this new business is all our current wholesale accounts for Baby BeeHinds will be stocking this new range of detergents. The new site will have fully integrated wholesale suite plugins as well.
As for Baby BeeHinds, we are excited to hire a Wholesale Channel Manager who will look after both Baby BeeHinds & B Clean Co wholesale accounts & continue to expand our retailer network.
We are working on a new range of limited edition prints and a range specific for Special Needs older kids. There really isn’t any reusable options for that market. Oh and I think we are going to need a bigger warehouse!
8. Where can people follow you and find what you’re doing?
You can follow our new journey at www.bcleanco.com.au and www.instagram.com/the.b.clean.co.
You can follow us for Baby BeeHinds either on our website www.babybeehinds.com.au or www.instagram.com/babybeehinds.
