Innovative Technologies for Sales Strategy Formation of Wholesale Trade Enterprises in the Food Market

Abstract

The article substantiates the theoretical and applied foundations for forming a sales strategy for wholesale trade enterprises in Ukraine’s food market under conditions of digital transformation and martial law. A research gap is identified: although considerable scholarly attention has been paid to individual digitalization tools (ERP, CRM, WMS, EDI), a comprehensive substantiation of sales strategy formation specifically for wholesale food-market enterprises, accounting for limited shelf life, heightened traceability requirements, and wartime logistics risks, remains insufficiently developed. The aim of the study is to substantiate the theoretical and applied foundations for forming a sales strategy of wholesale trade enterprises in the food market based on innovative technologies. The methodological basis comprises methods of systemic and statistical analysis, comparison and structural-logical modeling. The information base consists of official data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine for 2021–2025 and the Unified State Register of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs. The results show that the physical volume index of wholesale trade fell to 64.1% in 2022 due to the full-scale invasion and demonstrated unstable recovery during 2023–2025, whereas retail trade recovered faster and more steadily (average annual growth rate of about 102.2% compared to approximately 90.4% in wholesale trade for 2022–2025). It is found that the number of food wholesale enterprises is shown to keep growing even under wartime conditions. Five key directions of innovative transformation of sales strategies for wholesale food-market enterprises are identified, and the impact of each technology on specific elements of the sales strategy is substantiated. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the systematization of innovative technologies for sales strategy formation of wholesale trade enterprises in the food market under martial law. The practical value of the results lies in the possibility of applying the proposed directions by wholesale trade enterprises to increase the adaptability and resilience of sales activities to external shocks. The article proposes an original economic and mathematical model for developing an innovative sales strategy for wholesale enterprises in the food market. The model integrates market, technological, logistics, customer-oriented, and risk-related factors, enabling the assessment of sales strategy efficiency, the identification of priority areas for implementing innovative technologies, and the enhancement of enterprise adaptability under martial law conditions.