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SAN FRANCISCO — ECRM’s RangeMe has launched RangeMe Verified brands, a new service to help retail buyers to identify “business-ready” products and companies.
RangeMe said Wednesday that the RangeMe Verified brands service is designed to make the sourcing the right products less time-consuming for retailers.
The buyer dashboard for the RangeMe Verified brands service
“Getting a product on store shelves can be a challenging task for both the buyer and the supplier, but it doesn’t have to be,” stated Nicky Jackson, founder and chief executive officer of RangeMe, whose core offering is an online platform for product discovery. “By launching RangeMe Verified brands, we are defining a new industry measure for product sourcing as well as creating increased opportunities for both suppliers and buyers.”
In developing the verification process for the new service, RangeMe said it collaborated with retailers to determine the criteria suppliers needed to meet to assure buyers they’re sourcing the best products ready for market. The criteria include high-quality images, insurance, bar codes and nutritional labels, among others, which are verified by the RangeMe team.
“To keep up with consumer demand and stay competitive in our industry’s fastest-moving and most innovative category, we need the ability to onboard on-trend brands quickly and efficiently,” according to Sarah Groves, buyer for natural and organic foods at Southeastern Grocers, whose retail chains include Winn-Dixie and Bi-Lo. “RangeMe Verified brands help streamline our category review process by making it easy to identify high-quality manufacturers that are ready to do business now.”
For suppliers, RangeMe Verified brands helps raise their visibility to buyers by up to seven times over non-verified suppliers, RangeMe noted. Verified brands and products appear on buyers’ dashboards above non-verified brands, sport an eye-catching badge to stand out to buyers, and come up in advanced search results in which buyers can request to see only verified brands.
“Being a RangeMe Verified brand has absolutely changed how retail buyers view and discover my products,” commented Kenney Joyal, founder of Clayton, Calif-based Snowflakes Candy. “In a short time, I have been able to leverage the opportunities created on RangeMe to launch with three retailers, including Hy-Vee.”
Since its U.S. launch in 2015, RangeMe has drawn more than 95,000 brands to its platform and established relationships with a number of retailers, including Whole Foods Market, Target Corp., Albertsons Cos., Rite Aid Corp. and Sephora. RangeMe was acquired by Solon, Ohio-based ECRM this past June.
