The Wholesale Forums merge with Stockshifters

The Wholesale Forums and Stockshifters have merged and at the same time acquired TIC Trade to to create Europe’s largest online wholesale trading community.

The companies

In 2011, Stockshifters successfully cleared over £11m of stock for its sellers and expects this to more than double in 2012 following these two transactions.

The Wholesale Forums, is Europe’s largest networking & advice community for trade buyers & suppliers and was founded in 2004 and has over 100,000 members.

TIC Trade has been operating for over 10 years and has built a customer base of over 15,000 loyal trade buyers, spanning most of Europe.

The new Stockshifter Group

Stockshifters is a secure marketplace for traders looking to buy or sell bulk stock and allows its vendors to sell for free via auctions or timed sales. Stockshifters features popular formats such as daily deals and flash sales offering trade buyers exclusive opportunities to secure high value, profit yielding stock at cut-prices.

Following the merger and acquisition, Stockshifters now has access to over 250,000 registered trade buyers and suppliers across Europe, making it the largest wholesale marketplace of its kind.

Stockshifters is eyeing international expansion with plans to extend its reach globally by launching in Poland and Dubai later this year.

Why did The Wholesale Forums partner with Stockshifters?

Anthony Trollope, founder of The Wholesale Forums explained “Our community of 100,000 active trade buyers & suppliers have been calling out for better access to stock and the capability to transact within one secure environment. Consolidation of our marketplace with Stockshifters gives us the opportunity to offer this“.

Partnering with Stockshifters gives The Wholesale Forums a scalable platform that already has an infrastructure and support team behind it to offer a robust and safe trading platform.

The Wholesale Forums will stay as a separate website for the foreseeable future and remain an advice forum where trade buyers and suppliers can network.

Benefits for The Wholesale Forums buyers

• Locate stock fast, navigate easily
• Access a wider variety of stock from small vendors to large brands
• Full transactional engine, featuring full purchasing process from start to finish
• Safe payment methods, track & trace shipping, including secure Escrow for all purchases
• Dedicated email & phone support team
• Clear escalation process for disputes

Benefits for The Wholesale Forums advertisers

• Free sales channel – 0% commission (active The Wholesale Forums advertisers only)
• Extensive suite of tools to manage stock, sales & fulfilment
• Opportunity to sell stock to a pool of over 250,000 buyers
• Promoted formats such as deal of the day & flash sales to drive quick sales
• Transparency over buyers, all StockShifters members are fully profiled before they can trade
• Escalation process for problematic transactions

TIC Trade Acquisition

TIC Trade customers will be migrated to the Stockshifters platform and benefit from access to a wider variety of stock and the secure Stockshifters trading platform.

Stockshifters CEO Commentary

Harvey Sinclair, Stockshifters CEO told us “These two transactions are incredibly exciting as they offer critical mass within this highly fragmented industry which will transform our existing business. We expect our active customer base to double overnight which is great news for both our buyers and sellers alike“.