Searching for a Reliable Grocery Supplier in Malaysia? Here are Five Tips

Congratulations on taking the brave step of starting a retail business or supermarket!

Finding an outstanding grocery supplier is essential for the success of any supermarket and for keeping its customers pleased.

In this post, we will share five tips on how you can find the right grocery supplier in Malaysia for your new store or supermarket.

Five Tips to Find a Reliable Grocery Supplier

1. Check Their Credibility

When selecting a trustworthy grocery supplier, the first thing to do is verify their credibility. The idea here is to ensure that they have a good track record in the way they deal with their clients. To check their credibility, you can:

• Read reviews and check references. With this, you want to read reviews from their clients and also, take the extra step to interact with some clients and ask them questions about their experience with suppliers.
• Inspect their facilities. Take the step to visit the warehouses, factories, and any other physical location of the supplier to have a first-hand view of their business processes and where they do their business.
• Ensure that they have the necessary certification. In Malaysia, any business that plans on selling foods and beverages needs to have at least these three certifications  – MESTI, HACCP, and GMP. Therefore, you must confirm that your supplier has all the certifications needed to guarantee the credibility and quality of the product.

2. Vet Your Supplier Financially:

This is a crucial step that you should not neglect. Checking the supplier’s financial records can help you understand their financial status.

You want to work with a company that has a solid financial standing and is capable of meeting the demand of your business and that of other businesses.

Assuming they are a public company, you can check their financial statements, insurance, payment history, profitability ratio, liquidity ratio, and any other financials you deem necessary.

To do this, you should check their financial statements, insurance, payment history, profitability ratio, liquidity ratio and any other financials you deem necessary.

3. Availability of Inventory

Next, confirm if they have the products or groceries you need by visiting their physical location. Make sure that they have enough inventory with enough capacity to suffice your demand.

Due to Covid-19, supply chains might be affected so make sure to check with them to ensure that they can still deliver your goods on time.

4. Price

Once you are done checking for inventory, you should have a couple of businesses that meet your standard. Now the next step is to check the price vs quality. You want to ensure that your supplier is giving you a price that is good enough to help you make some profits; however, you need to ensure that the product they are giving you is of the quality you need as well.

Therefore, what we request you do is to request quotes from different suppliers that have met all the standards we have outlined in this post, and then choose the one with the best price and quality.

5. How Reliable Are They In Delivery/Fulfillment

When selecting a reliable grocery supplier, it is important to check their delivery options. You want to ensure that they have the necessary resources and capabilities to deliver your goods on time and in good condition.

Therefore, you should ask them about their delivery options such as whether they offer same-day delivery or next-day delivery, what type of vehicles they use for deliveries, how long it takes for them to deliver goods and any other information related to their delivery services.

In Summary:

It is good to have multiple suppliers for each category of products you want to sell. Having just one supplier can be disadvantageous in an event where they aren’t able to meet your demand. That being said, whether you are looking to work with one supplier or multiple suppliers, ensure to have these five tips in mind.