R E L A T E D C O N T E N T

Wasp targets VARs in Auto-ID expansion plan

Growing barcode gear vendor sugars sales to attract VARs stung previously

Fleur Doidge, CRN 21 Aug 2008

Auto-ID vendor Wasp Barcode Technologies is ramping up its UK channel business in response to growing demand in the UK and Europe.

Hugh Furness, sales and marketing director at Wasp UK, said sales were surging by an additional £1m each year.

“I would say we have doubled the size of the UK office and added probably five new desks for our expansion but already we’re finding that too small,” he said.

“In the first year, we did something like £500,000, and almost got to £1m, and then it has doubled every year.”

The barcode technology vendor moved into larger premises in West Malling, Kent two months ago, but is already considering moving somewhere twice as large again, or buying its own site.

Wasp’s European business is masterminded from the UK also, and is also seeing growth, he said.

“We are running at about £5m for the UK and it is thought that next year we will be looking at about £6.5m.”

Furness said Wasp wants to sign more VAR channel partners to target the SME market in particular. The vendor also plans to expand its WASPLINK online channel programme in the UK to assist channel partners.

The company has 300 independent resellers on WASPLINK and 35 specialists in the UK but wants about 400.

According to Furness, the US based company’s hardware and software packages for Auto-ID, asset tracking, inventory control and point-of-sale hit a sweet spot for SMEs.

“We are building up to a major September launch. The UK SME market is just waking up to the efficiencies to be gained from inventory or stock control and asset management,” he said. “And margins of 20 per cent are possible.”

Smaller businesses tend to be dismayed by the cost of some cutdown ‘SME’ offerings in the barcode space from vendors that traditionally target much larger companies, he said.

“That is why we are going through the retail and independent reseller channel rather than the Auto-ID channel,” Furness said.

Wasp still manages to sell kit successfully to large enterprises though.

Although Wasp focused mainly on businesses with five to 250 seats, everything from one-man operations to companies like Barclays and construction contractor Balfour Beatty had deployed Wasp technology, Furness said.

Wasp also offers various additional items for free – sometimes hardware such as barcode scanners, and so forth, which resellers could then on-sell and make 100 per cent margin.

“So you might potentially make 120 per cent margin on Wasp,” Furness said.

Resellers would have access to 30-day moneyback guarantees, warranties, and support throughout sale and on-site implementation, he promised.

Wasp Barcode Technologies is a business unit of European barcode giant Datalogic.

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