That theme surfaced repeatedly during Winning in Wholesale: Closing the Tech Gap, a recent webinar featuring NuORDER industry experts Evan Fleming, Inge Erickson, and Marie Baldauf-Lenschen. Drawing on decades of experience working alongside global brands, the panel explored a reality many wholesale teams know well: strategy has evolved quickly, but the day-to-day inner workings of wholesale haven't always kept up .
As Fleming observed, a decade ago the challenge was convincing brands to adopt digital tools. Today, many organizations have already made that leap. The frustration comes later, when teams find themselves surrounded by systems yet still struggling to move information efficiently, align workflows, or access the data they need when it matters most.
That disconnect shows up most clearly in the retailer experience.
Brands often view inventory visibility, reporting delays, and workflow inefficiencies as internal operational concerns. Retailers experience them differently. They experience slower answers, uncertainty around availability, and more friction throughout the buying process. As Fleming put it during the discussion, "operational problems become buying problems."
The implications are larger than they might seem. Wholesale relationships are built on confidence. Buyers want to know inventory is accurate and they want answers quickly. They want to place orders without jumping through unnecessary hoops, so when that confidence starts to erode, so does momentum. As the panel noted, friction has a way of showing up where brands least want it: in buyer conversations, reorder activity, and long-term account growth.
The brands highlighted throughout the webinar approached this challenge from a different angle.
Arc'teryx, for example, was discussed as a brand that treats wholesale as a cross-functional effort, bringing sales, marketing, support, and technology teams together around shared goals and long-term planning. Other brands, including Herschel Supply Co. , Skida, and Burlebo, are investing in more intuitive buying experiences, helping retailers discover products more easily, navigate assortments with greater clarity, and place orders with less effort.
What connects these examples is a focus on operational discipline. The conversation repeatedly returned to the importance of reducing manual work, creating a clearer source of truth across teams, and making better use of existing systems.
That philosophy came through clearly in an observation from Baldauf-Lenschen, who argued that winning in wholesale comes from "operationalizing and utilizing more intelligently what you have today."
For brands looking to make progress, the panel's recommendations were practical:
The wholesale teams creating the strongest buying experiences today are paying close attention to the fundamentals. In an environment where retailers expect speed, visibility, and flexibility, operational excellence is becoming a competitive advantage in its own right.
Watch the webinar recording on demand to catch up on the full discussion.
