Coalition Joins Forces to Enhance IRR Industry Outreach and Efficiency

A growing group of brands, incentive, master fulfillment and technology companies are working together to make it easy for brands to launch transactional and points-based redemption platforms specifically designed to help incentive representatives and other industry suppliers automate small order purchasing in the IRR industry and to help educate the corporate marketplace on the industry.

Feeds Can Be Managed by Rep Link
Enhanced Efficiency and Market Education

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Using a platform known as the Corporate Connection powered by WooCommerce, Luxury Name Brands, Citizen Watch America, and Partners for Incentives are joining forces with the Brand Media Coalition to create carefully gated transactional sites designed to help brands, master fulfillment companies, incentive and recognition companies, incentive representatives and other authorized resellers better manage the small orders often purchased for samples, small event or occasion gifting or incentive and recognition programs generally unprofitable for traditional incentive, recognition, and loyalty companies. The platform is also designed to provide them with a tool to educate their prospects about the IRR marketplace, expertise, and services provided.

The new platform is designed to help brands and their distribution partners address the 200,000 or more companies with sales of under $10 million rarely called on by incentive, recognition, and loyalty firms. The platforms are live for internal testing and review and will become officially operational in early 2025.

Feeds Can Be Managed by Rep Link

Rep Link has made it easy to upload and maintain available products for any Rep Link brands wanting to participate in this new platform that offers gated transactional brand web sites accessible only to approved companies and participants and which is designed to make it easy for incentive representatives make small transactions in a way that ensures they get credit for them. It will be made available to incentive representatives and other designated users of participating brands at no cost.

Explains Bruce Bolger, whose RRN media platform is supporting the initiative with marketing, “The Corporate Connection is designed to digitalize the last mile of the incentive, reward, recognition, and gifting business, frequently handled either at retail or with cumbersome manual processes, to make it easier for brands, master fulfillment companies and their incentive representatives to automate business gifting and points programs sold through promotional distributors, incentive, and recognition and other players either requiring samples for evaluation or small orders for business gifting and events.”

As a result, he claims, it can help:

Educate end-users and other resellers about the industry.
Make it easy for authorized representatives and distributors to not only access real-time inventory but to also make purchases for individual and small bulk purchases.
Enable authorized associations and other organizations to offer discounted buying clubs for their members and employees, subject to brand approval.

Enhanced Efficiency and Market Education

Explains Ree Wysong, CEO of GGI Luxury Brand Names, the founding participating master fulfillment company, “The lack of a good buying experience for incentive representatives, distributors and other third-party firms not only hurts the brand of the industry but is inefficient. Even worse, large numbers of businesspeople have never heard of this market. Helping the industry address these issues just makes sense for us, especially when there is a platform like Rep Link already available to manage the feeds.” GGI manages the transactional web sites, transactions, payments, and customer service for the brands based on standard master fulfillment terms.

Adrienne Forrest, Senior Vice President of Citizen Watch America Corporate Markets, explains, “We have always supported initiatives that help expand the corporate market, improve efficiency and support our reps. Giving them an easier way to efficiently manage a large market largely overlooked in our industry while educating businesspeople about the services we offer not available at retail is a natural extension of our mission to support the industry.”

Partners for Incentives, the 74-year-old Ohio-based incentive company that sells only through distributors, is participating by helping brands and master fulfilment companies power points-based catalogs for smaller gifting and incentive programs that often buy at retail. Explains Mary Anne Comotto, CEO, “Anything we can do to make it easier for companies to feature specific brands in their points- and plateau-based gifting, incentive, and recognition programs aligns with our commitment to supporting our distributors and our other partners in the market.”

Kate Fabienke of Executive Vice President and Partner at Rep Link, says, "We’re happy to support an initiative that is trying to enhance industry awareness of the incentive, recognition and loyalty business.”

Concludes Bolger, “This effort is an outgrowth of years of work that today addresses the growing need for brands to take an omni-channel approach to distribution and the need for greater efficiency. Given the scale of the $176 billion US incentive, reward, and recognition company, the corporate market certainly deserves the attention of leading brands, some of which generate as much as 10% or more of their revenues from corporate sales. We are delighted that Rep Link already has all the tools to seamlessly support this effort for participating brands. We know that many reps waste a lot of time handling small orders for clients that can be addressed with this solution.’

For More Information
Bruce Bolger, EEA Founder
914-591-7600, ext. 230
Bolger@TheEEA.org

Ree Wysong, GGI Worldwide CEO
636-561-4900
Ree@ggiww.com

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