Know-How Exchange : Other

Dear Beestill03

Hearty congratulations on desinging a new thingy, whatever it is.

OK. Here’s the deal. The name of your thingy isn’t its brand.

The true meaning of a brand is the relationship your thingy forms between its function and your customer’s need, want, or desire.
A brand is literally an embodiment or promise of the quality or
trait the thingy offers your customer: quality. Style. Grace.
Eternall youth, etc.,.

By selling online, you create exclusivity and scarcity, which is good. But you also limit yourself by not giving your thingy wider marketplace exposure.

To get a logo designed you could visit those jolly nice people at www.elance.com, or go to www.99designs.com and turn your search into a competition.

Your vision to produce a few samples and walk them into one of the local Wal-Mart stores is ambitious, but flawed.

Alas, dear heart, regardless of senority, no one in your local Wal-Mart (or any major store) is going to whip the thingy from your hot little hand and offer you a life changing order there and then. They have no authority to do so and you’ll be wasting your time and theirs.

Wal-Mart, Target, and the like all have armies of buyers and product sourcing staff, and before any new line is added to the roster it must run the gauntlet of selection, production prototyping, test marketing, and a good many other things.

So, contact the head offices of the outlets you want to approach, ask for details on product submisison policies and follow those rules to the letter.

Then, be prepared to wait.

And wait.

To retain exclusivity, you might be better off approaching owner/designer boutiques and smaller outlets where you’ll deal face to face with the person likely to be your buyer.

But make contact with them first. There are few things more annoying than a vendor who just walks in out of the blue and expects (or demands) to be seen there and then.

So make an appointment that suits your potential reseller.

Before you visit them, get someone else to carry out a secret shopper mission of your chosen store to see if your target is a good fit for you as a potential vendor. Your spy needs to tell you what’s selling, what’s not, and who they serve, niche-wise. Your spy also needs to report back to you about the possibility of this store being a good match for your product.

If so, make an appointment with the owner or the person responsible for buying. ask them what their policy on buying is and ask as many questions about them as possible before you ask if they’d be willing to consider reselling your thingy.

Then, if they want more information, show off your thingy, cover its many benefits, and discuss possibilities for wholesale and retail pricing.

But resist the temptation to peddle your thingy to every store.
If one of your sellers cuts their retail price, they’ll all jump on the band waggon and your profit margin drops like a stone.

There's a ton of great information on this subject in "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss. https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307353133

No doubt brighter, more experienced minds than mine will add far more detail to help you into the thorny world of retail, but what you’ve just read ought to be enough to help you make some headway.

Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmingotn, DE, USA