WBENC 2024: women owned business & CPG insights
After celebrating our fifth business anniversary, it was a joy for Ange to join thousands of women-owned businesses and entrepreneurs at WBENC 2024 in Denver, Colorado, with support from the Trade Commissioners Service and Can Export SME. Five years is a milestone about half of all small businesses never experience. As we continue to grow our companies, and overcome obstacles to scaling success in our respective industries, it remains critical for women of intersectional identities to access capital, mentorship, networking, and equal opportunities in a business ecosystem that wasn’t originally designed by us, for us. In this brief article, we’ll share three focus areas: key insights for CPG stakeholders from WBENC 2024, the most relevant data in Canada for women in entrepreneurship as we look to 2025, and lastly, Ange will outline some of the big goals our business will tackle ahead of the WBENC national conference coming to New Orleans in June 2025.
CPG insights from banner retailers.
WBENC runs a program with corporate partners called “Women Owned in Retail”, which is a fantastic avenue to access direct learning from key accounts you want to partner with, while also networking with other product based businesses owners who can share in the experience of scaling omnichannel success. Here are a few key themes we gathered from this year’s sessions:
Perseverance and preparation. We all want something for nothing, yesterday. But with very few exceptions, success in distribution and retail takes time - even pitching, sampling and listing to onboard with a retailer of substantial size can take 12-24 months (or more). Be ready with patience and prepared to address all the vendor requirements necessary to succeed with key accounts like Target. And be sure to brush up on your negotiation skills - a contact from CVS disclosed that there’s a lot a category manager can support in the listing process, especially when it comes to the financial commitments (minimizing or dropping listing fees, better net payment terms and more). Our team can help you understand what that means, how to prep (and persevere) to get on shelf and stay on shelf, in your preferred channels of trade.
Shore up sustainability. Every retailer featured in the Women Owned in Retail program is pursuing ambitious sustainability goals - and their metrics are impressive. Recently, Walmart shared they had achieved a massive climate goal, called “Project Gigaton”, with an original timeline stretching to 2030, but achieved early in 2023. And these retail partners are offering comprehensive access to resources and tools that empower suppliers to achieve their own sustainability goals, like the Supplier Sustainability Portal.
Concentrate on what happens AFTER you are on shelf, in store. Getting the listing is only the beginning - celebrate those planogram placements and recognize that what happens next will help your brand soar on shelf. Invest in value added promotions, merchandising and transparency. Retailers can only manage so many surprises! Be honest about your company’s capabilities and marketing dollars, making sure you can support those POs OTIF (on time in full). Key account management is not a ‘set it and forget it’ approach to growth. Retail success requires ongoing relationship management, and investments in excellence. We can help.
State of Women’s Entrepreneurship Canada 2023
Whatever sort of company you lead, we know that the entrepreneurial experience is unequal, for many of us, and we don’t access the same resources or start with the same supports. To frame what these means for women of diverse identities, we draw on the research and findings of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub report released in June 2023.
Read their research, quoted directly, below:
In 2022, 988,400 women in Canada were self-employed.
The number of women-owned businesses is growing—despite the crushing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By our estimates, 18% of all businesses are majority owned by women in Canada—with more than 99% of these small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Women-owned businesses focus more on innovation and are much more likely than men-owned businesses to put in place marketing innovations.
While these show women entrepreneurs are making progress, they continue to face challenges. Women have a hard time getting credit through financial institutions. They may not qualify for a loan, because their businesses tend to be smaller, have fewer employees and be in industries hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, like retail and hospitality. They also get less funding: the average amount of financing for men-owned businesses is about 150% higher than that for women-owned businesses.
The challenges are even greater for women with intersecting identities.
Indigenous women face barriers when accessing western financial services due to systemic exclusion that prevents them from meeting basic approval criteria.
Financing and borrowing costs for Black women entrepreneurs remain challenging; and they, like Indigenous women, must grapple with systemic racism, along with a lack of networking opportunities, mentorship and training.
Less than 1% of Canadian SMEs are owned by people living with a disability; the data is lacking on how many of these are women entrepreneurs.
There are more than 100,000 businesses in Canada owned by people who identify as 2SLGBTQ+, contributing more than $22 billion in economic activity. Yet these entrepreneurs face identity-related challenges, including discrimination, difficulty obtaining funding and government assistance, and harsh public evaluation. “ —
And in terms of access to capital, there are a number of approaches that are making an impact to address the issues of access and allocaiton. “The51 is one of a growing number of women-led VC funds in Canada that are specifically interested in funding women founders—a group grossly underinvested in. According to The51, just 10 per cent of VC deals in Canada have gone to women-led start-ups since 2014. Globally, Pitchbook data shows that women-led start-ups in the U.S. received just 2.3 percent of VC funds in 2021.” — as outlined by Canadian Business.
The data reveals we have a long way to go to create equality in entrepreneurship. We will continue to grow our companies, as we advocate for better and equal access in entrepreneurship.
Goals for 2025 - focusing on growth factors
Although women-owned enterprises, and especially those led by women with intersectional identities, face headwinds in achieving good growth as outlined above, we’re determined to build our businesses in 2024.
Here at AWIA we have many growth goals as we look to 2025 , but here are three core concentrations as we expand:
New import model for global brands entering the North American market - we’re expanding with Scale Conscious Import Inc. (SCII). We have signed with out first global brand from India, Ceuticoz, and will be launching in Canada and USA before May 2024.
Investments in regional USA business development, for both the East & West coasts. Our boutique brokerage model exports more than 50% of services to the USA and we look forward to developing deeper operations and relationships in those core regional markets. Let’s grow!
Funding and additional entrepreneurial ecosystem supports. We’re exploring further funding opportunities, including fintech lending to women owned business, additional project support for USA regional growth through Can Export and other supports to increase our success.
We’re grateful to be part of a community of women-owned business that’s solving worthy problems in the world, offering the best goods and services to our customers and pursuing purpose with business as a force for good. Here’s to the next five years and all we can achieve, together.
