New service aims to ditch wholesalers and let stores buy from manufacturers

By Éilis Cronin in Industry News 15th July 2021

An e-commerce platform that plans to help convenience stores by-pass wholesalers and buy direct from manufacturers is to launch by the end of this year.

Subscribbe, which is intended to help convenience stores compete on price with the big supermarkets, is aiming to create a “corner shop conglomerate”.

Co-founder Erica Donna said that one of the site’s virtues will be that it will allow shops to buy goods “at wholesale prices without purchasing at wholesale volume”.

The technology platform uses proprietary design, pricing fulfilment and logistics algorithms and technologies to connect independent warehouse and logistics operators.

Subscribbe can also help stores to become more “stock efficient” – ensuring the most popular items are always available and any stock wastage is vastly reduced.

The founding team hopes that when Subscribbe is launched in Q4 of 2021, it will have an initial 150 stores signed up across London.

Their ultimate goal is to have 5,000 stores signed up in the UK by 2025 .