After incremental increases in April and May, wholesale prices – as measured by the producer price index – rose by 1.8 percent, or twice as high as expected. Just as seen in November 2007, when wholesale prices rose by 3.2 percent, rising energy costs made up most of this increase. Gasoline prices alone rose by 18.5 percent last month.

But, without the consideration of food and energy costs, wholesale prices would have increased by just 0.5 percent. Prices for cosmetic and toilet preparations, in addition to soaps and synthetic detergents, had risen incrementally after falling in May.

This month’s increase has already scared Wall Street a bit, as shown through yesterday’s declining stocks. But economists remain assured that June’s wholesale price increase is only a momentary spike.

Brian Bethune, IHS Global Insight economist, predicts that prices will level off in July, as he told the Associated Press. Besides, with the current economy, companies still cannot justify jacking up their own prices to match.

Wholesale prices also may have slowly climbed in 2009, but they still add to an overall decline of 4.6 percent over the past 12 months.

For some, this decrease could be interpreted as a preventive measure against inflation, as Bloomberg reported this morning. Wholesale prices last declined in December 2008, by 1.8 percent.

Measured by the producer price index, wholesale prices serve as one of three gauges of inflation calculated monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Rapidly declining energy prices led the overall decrease, as the costs of both gasoline and home heating oil each declined by 13 percent.

On the other hand, the prices of finished goods sans food and energy had increased by 0.1 percent, following a 0.4 percent increase in February.

Prices of women, girls and infants’ apparel fell slightly in March, after a 1.5 percent increase the month before. Prices of toys and consumer plastic products fell less than they had in February, while prices of sporting and athletic goods rose by 0.6 percent after a 3.5 percent decline.

“We needed to create something that would be useful for wholesale buyers,” said Jean Bahnik, goWholesale’s director of advertising solutions, “but considering how large the wholesale industry is, we wanted to create a directory with the help of everyone and their input.”

By this, Bahnik means that wholesalers, distributors, importers and suppliers can all register to create their own profiles. From these companies, just a short description and contact information is required – but, profiles can also be updated with press releases, product launches, upcoming trade shows and more.

“If people control their own listings, and they are the ones adding more info and more updates, it makes for a better directory than one that is updated by the people who are managing it,” Bahnik said.

Monitored by goWholesale staff, the directory already has over a thousand companies listed. All company profiles are also free to view, no registration required.

For more information, visit the goWholesale directory.

Wholesalers had cut inventories by 1.5 percent from the previous month’s levels in February, more than double of what Wall Street experts predicted. Since lower holiday sales led to more leftover goods than expected, cutting such excess inventory over the past few months became a necessary step toward economic recovery.

“It’s easy to see this reduction as an assurance that the contraction is continuing,” said Frank Ahrens, Washington Post analyst, in his column. “However, the sooner wholesalers adjust their inventories to match diminished demand, the closer they come to resuming profitability.”

Wholesale sales also increased by 0.6 percent to $319.7 billion – the first uptick seen since June 2008, and quite a recovery from January’s 2.4 percent sales decline. Coupled with the drop in wholesale inventories, this further indicates a slight resurgence in production as wholesalers began to seek new goods.

In the meantime, this senior vice-president of strategic direction had to organize an annual executive summit for 2009, “a meeting of the collective leadership of the wholesale industry.”

Then the two thoughts converged. He realized that the association and its members should create a productive discussion, “to go beyond just articulating what the problems are.”

“Yes, it’s difficult,” he thought, “but there are things that companies are doing that are going to help them succeed. Let’s talk about those.”

And so the 2009 Executive Summit – “Distributor Success Stories: Profiting Despite the Difficult Economy” – evolved. From January 27 to 29, hundreds of senior executives filled the seats allotted in the District’s Fairmont. The attendance levels surprised Schreibman, as he figured that its costs would have set them back.

“Given the difficulties with the economy right now, we had been hoping for the best but preparing for the worst,” he said.

The speaker who gained perhaps the most attention was Alan Beaulieu, president of the Institute for Trend Research. For two executive summits in a row he gave his yearly forecast, and then attendees requested his return yet again this year, after he gave a memorable prediction for 2008.

“The reality is, we’re not at a recession,” he said, as reported by Electrical Wholesaling. “We will grow at a tepid pace in 2008, and you will have one more year of growth. In January 2009 you will be in a recession.”

His prediction for the rest of 2009 generated a similar mood, more or less, amongst this year’s attendees. Among other statistics, he told them of how unemployment will rise, industrial production will fall, and how deflation will arrive – but then comes recovery, though mild, during the second half of 2010.

“I would say that the audience appreciated Alan’s candor,” Schreibman said, later adding, “The news he delivered wasn’t uniformly presented because of the difficulties out there right now. But we feel that our job is to tell it like it is.”

With that came the purpose of the summit: to reveal how current economic conditions have encouraged many businesses to strategize for and demand success.

Adam Fein, founder and president of Pembroke Consulting, had talked to many executives who have already implemented a number of strategies that are keeping their companies competitive: “Work harder” for every sale. “Stay connected” to every customer. “Keep perspective” – “the tide will turn again,” as Fein wrote.

The trade association also sought to teach strategies, regarding business relationships in addition to sales and marketing optimization. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N.; Nina Easton, Washington editor of Fortune magazine, and Ed Gillespie, former counselor to George W. Bush also spoke regarding what wholesaler-distributors could expect of the new presidential administration.

In sum, the two days of lectures and discussions turned what Schreibman had hoped to see – effective counseling for wholesaler distributors.

“It’ll be interesting next year to visit folks who attended this meeting, to see how 2009 turned out for them given the preparation, the suggestions and recommendations made at this meeting,” he said.

There is quite a lengthy article on the Modern Distribution Management website that explores one of the biggest problems the wholesale/retail industry faces — counterfeiting. It sites statistics such as "The Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau estimates counterfeiting accounts for 5 percent to 7 percent of world trade" and "most counterfeit goods (close to 95 percent) can be traced back to China, according to a report from the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition."

While counterfeiting is not a new trade by any means, what IS new is how the development of e-commerce has aided in its proliferation. “The Internet has made it possible for people to represent themselves more readily to more people in a professional manner that makes it look like they are legitimate.” So what is the industry doing to counteract this widespread (and growing) problem?

Well, there have been many associations; national government policies; and international agreements that were formed as part of the World Trade Organization. Individually, companies can create agreements with "authorized distributors" as well as pursue legal action upon catching any counterfeiters.

What are you doing to protect yourself from fakes ?

http://www.fox6.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=403404@video.fox6.com&navCatId=5 (be patient as there is a long ad you have to watch before our segment).

In addition, the Orange County Register featured LSI in its Saturday edition Money Section, generating great local exposure for Liquidation.com and the STR facility in Fullerton. The online version of the article can be seen here: http://www.ocregister.com/news/services-liquidity-merchandise-1957504-warehouse-buyers

As head of marketing for goWholesale, I’ll be posting tips you can use about search and online marketing. You’ll also see contributions from our talented staff of search consultants and from various product sourcing and small business experts.

I also encourage you post comments, as your feedback will help us to make this blog and goWholesale better for everyone. You can also email your feedback to us by clicking here .

Best,
Kari Rippetoe
Marketing Manager
goWholesale