Wholesale questions...

[classiccandle]

For those of you who are retailers or have knowledge of what retailers look for when they're considering selling your products in their stores would you mind answering a few questions for me?

1) Probably a pretty obvious one but do most, if not all, retailers require bar codes on your products?

2) Do they require a guaranteed sale? For example, if your product doesn't sell or if the retailer wants to stop selling your product, do you have to buy back what they have remaining in inventory?

3) Do most require samples prior to offering your products?

4) Do most require some kind of sales history for your products? In other words if you haven't sold a lot of product will they even consider putting it in their store?

Any other nuggets you care to share would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Russ

[ksranch]

For me at least - it depends on the retailer. For example, I have candles/melts in a tanning salon - they do not require bar codes and I do give them "samples" to burn in the salon because I find it boosts sales. I also have them in stores that put their own bar codes on them, and no, I don't guarantee sales. However, on the ones that are good customers, if they have a scent that isn't moving I have been known to trade them in for another. It's going to depend a lot on the type of retailer you deal with - I'm sure big time store would require more, but I'm not big enough to tackle them yet! HTH

[JanetsCandles]

1.) Most of my own retailers do not require bar codes. However, that depends on the retailer. Size of the shop will matter here too.

2.) I've never had a retailer demand that I take back my product because it didn't sell. That's their problem. If they purchase on wholesale, they pay out money to you for the product. Just like with every other product they have. I'd be very wary if that came up in contract. (Note, places like Walmart and Kmart and such may do this, I'm not sure.)

3.) I've always brought samples along with me to talk with shop owners. It's good business. They can see what you have and it helps the sale a lot more than "Oh, I'm a candle maker, but don't have any product with me." Brochures are OK, but an actual sample is worth so much more.

4.) Again, I'd be wary if someone demanded to know my exact sales history for all my products. In part because it's nosy. They may ask you in general terms though. Something like "What are your best sellers?" or something similar. But the thing with retail is this: every shop is different. They have different clientele and often will be able to sell things differently than you might find at another store.

Be prepared for some questions about what you use in your product. Some places hate soy. Others love it. Same goes for the Essential Oil vs Scent Oil argument. You may also come up against a lot of misconceptions. Be prepared to answer those. Have a price sheet with you when you come in, especially if you don't have a sample of every single kind of candle you make. And it's not a bad idea to research your target retailer too. Get an idea of what they have in the store already. Do they already carry a highly successful line of product that you want to replace? Information is always helpful and may also clue you in on some business practices you may not want to deal with. Not all shops are shady or have bad customer service, but some do. You may want to sniff around and see if they have a good rep before approaching them. If they are known for shorting their wholesalers or being late on payments (you might find that info out, you may not too), you may not want to be working with them. If they are rude to customers, same story. If they treat their customers badly, they will not make good sales.

Also set up a system to track your sales, who owes you for past deliveries, ect. Your book keeping is going to save your sanity...

[DebM]

My experience over the last 7 years:

>1) Probably a pretty obvious one but do most, if not all, retailers require bar codes on your products?

Bigger stores do, Mom & Pops don't (generally). But even that can vary - I was with Whole Foods for a while (soap) and one store worked really, really hard to get local products in (their big marketing angle) and set up internal codes. Other stores wanted codes *real* codes, not just something run off out of Microsoft Word.

>2) Do they require a guaranteed sale? For example, if your product doesn't sell or if the retailer wants to stop selling your product, do you have to buy back what they have remaining in inventory?

That was asked of me once and I knew the store was big into community support so I told them if they decided to drop me, to donate the products to a shelter for the tax write-off, I would not be able to do buy-backs. I, like another poster, have traded out slow-moving items for either new or faster moving ones too.

>3) Do most require samples prior to offering your products?

I always do that and also offer to do sales training (I make herbal soap so there are some qualitites that are good sales points).

>4) Do most require some kind of sales history for your products? In other words if you haven't sold a lot of product will they even consider putting it in their store?

That never seemed to be a factor for me.

>Any other nuggets you care to share would be greatly appreciated.

Be excited when you do your sales pitch and make them understand it is a business *partnership*.

Edited October 27, 2011 by DebM

[David Fields]

We are a wholsaler/Retailer for 15 years. We do not advertise, give out samples (unless the mood strikes us), offer barcodes (some of our wholesale customers have asked for them, but that is their problem), no buy-backs, and no one has ever asked for sales history. Everyone of our wholesale customers either came into our store and bought a product or bought one from a wholesale account; they liked them enough to ask for a wholesale account. So, basically I would say having good products at a reasonable price in attractive packaging are the keys to getting and keeping wholesale accounts. We learned a long time ago that trying to be all things to all people does not work.

[ksranch]

Amen to that!!!