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Posts Tagged ‘retailer’
Retailers are part of your marketing
If you are an entrepreneur and still haven’t heard of Marketing Mixand four Ps of marketing, hurry up and do some reading.
Basicly the four Ps, Product, Price, Place and Promotion together make your target where your would like your product to be. Promotion includes what most people wrongly think is “marketing” - the advertising, PR and what ever the sales person tells you. But like the fancy graph above (marketing for girls, should also look like girls, right?) shows, Promotion is only one part of the Big Marketing Mix.
I’ve had several interesting discussions with the women in our network this week, and seems like many people struggle with one part of the marketing mix - the Place.
PLACE
-Distribution, market coverage, channel members, inventory management, warehousing, distribution centers, order processing, transportation, reverse logistics
Ok, I understand that now you might feel that your company is so small, you might never have a “distribution center” and your “transportation” is you going to the post office and mailing your products, and “market coverage” is only a word you can dream of, and this post is not worth reading.
No, this post is specifically for you - the small business owner, the mom making her products from home, and even for the designer who already has many retailers but doesn’t understand why it isn’t working out the way she thought it would.
According to a PR professional in our network many designers and manufacturers feel that their biggest problem is how to get their products in the right stores - and seek help how to market their products to retailers. I recently had a discussion with a designer whose products are in almost 200 retail stores, but she feels she is competing with her own retailers. I recently said in a PodCast interview that I as a retailer I’m lucky that sometimes I don’t even have to do my work as hunting down the best products - they find me.
So I thought - I need to write down a little bit of why your retailers are important part of your marketing strategy, and how to choose the right retailers. And most importantly, how to make this P of the four Ps in the marketing mix to work for you. This is just very basic marketing talk, from a girl to a girl, but I realized this week, that some of these concepts are not as commonly known (or at least in use!) in our network that I thought of and there is a need for some girl-to-girl-marketing-talk. The most important part of this is “Carol’s Cuties Case Study” in a separate post.
CHOOSING A RETAILER
I know, you might be tempted to say that I’m happy if just anyone buys my products, but think again. YOU choose your retailers, and your retailer always has to represent also your company and your product.Obviously, the same product is not sold at Wal-mart and Dillards. The retailer gives customers an idea what to expect (cheap price, high quality, great customer service…) even before she steps in.
CHOOSE A MESSAGE YOUR PRODUCT SAYS - AND RETAILER WITH THE SAME MESSAGE
If your product says “unique and high quality”, your retailer shouldn’t say “we have the lowest price”. Your retailer should also say “unique and high quality”. Your retailer shouldn’t say “we ship the same day” if your product is made to order and takes a week to finish. The message your retailer is giving out, always has to go together with your message. The customer looking for a “unique and high quality” is not going to look for it from “we have the lowest price” store - she will never even go in, and if your “unique and high quality” product is in there, you are not reaching your potential customers. (I know, should be evident, right?)
Can your product have several messages? Yes, they can, but obviously your messages can not be “cheap” and “luxury” - your product can not have two opposite messages. But your product can be “gift item” and “everyday item” or “low price” and “practical” - and you can choose different retailers to voice out the different messages your product voices out. But also when two of your retailers voice out two opposite messages - your product is in a wrong place in one of them.
I’m thinking here as a customer - if I go to a “store I like” and see a product, and then I go to a ”store I can’t stand” and see the same product - I’m not going back to the “store I like” to buy it. I don’t buy it at all. Because I will think, “well, I really liked that product, but it was sold at “store I don’t like” and all the people who shop there buy it too; I think I’ll keep looking for something else”. End of story.
Just think about it, it’s not always the product you’re buying, it’s also the buying experience in a certain store. Yes, sometimes you tolerate a bad experience for a low price, or a product nowhere else available, but as a manufacturer you shouldn’t think your retailers as the last straw the customer has - you should give your customer the opportunity for the buying experience she expects with a product like yours.
RETAILER HAS TO HAVE A MESSAGE TOO
This same mixed message idea goes for retailers too by the way. I know a children’s boutique, where they sell expensive luxury clothing AND have a room full of used clothing and strollers. Even though I say too, buy higher quality, so it lasts longer, and you can recycle it afterwards - I wouldn’t sell used clothing in my store. The customer who will pay 60$ for a children’s t-shirt wants to feel she is buying her product from a “high quality boutique” - not from the “store where they also sell used clothes”. Same for the customer who buys the used clothing - seeing a 60$ t-shirt intimidates her to even step in, and she might think “their used clothes are probably too high for me too”. While there are customers who buy both, 60$ t-shirts and used clothing (yes, I’m one of those), the store is still sending out a wrong message; or better yet, a mixed message or no message at all. Believe me, the “general store” idea “little bit of something for everyone” doesn’t work often.
SELLING TO RETAILERS
DON’T GIVE UP
That’s my most important message. Keep pitching and selling and until you get a very specific “no thanks” and “don’t contact us anymore”, don’t give up. I get a lot of e-mails, brochures and other sales material of different products. Actually so much I don’t always have time to answer back to the manufacturers (I promise, I’ll try to do better). Many times it’s not the product why I am not buying it for my store, it might be that my inventory is already too big, I have already made my orders for the season, or I love the product but it doesn’t go with the message I’m trying to voice out. And as an online retailer, often it is that the product pictures are bad.
I got a brochure of really nice products and thought I’d love to offer them for my customers, but I already topped my budget, and didn’t contact the designer. She contacted me and offered to do drop-shipping - me just placing the products on my store and as I sell them, the designer will ship them straight for the customer. If the designer hadn’t contacted me and followed up, her products wouldn’t be sold at my store right now.
Always follow up. They might be just busy, and haven’t gotten into making an order - and need your help. Or you’ll find out a reason why they are not ordering. Then you’ll know if the timing was just bad, and maybe the retailer might want to buy from you next season, or you’ll know to take them off your list and not waste your time anymore. If you feel your product’s message is the same as the retailer’s, and see your product sold there, the retailer most likely would love to have your product in. The buyers just get so many sales pitches, that sometimes the good ones can be un-noticed or just forgotten. It is your job as a seller to follow up. (And when I do my pep talk to retailers, I’ll of course say to them it’s their job to follow up).
Now, I will follow up with this blog post, and gather from several retailers, how they would like to be contacted and do another blog post just focusing on that.
RETAILERS BUILDING YOUR BRAND
The “message” your product sends is part of the brand you are trying to create for your product.
BRAND A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service. A brand serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer. A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality. (from Wikipedia)
If you choose a retailer that doesn’t voice out your message, doesn’t go together with your brand, having that retailer might do your brand more harm than good. Do not sell your products “just to anyone who will buy” - of they will be the only retailer ever buying. The good retailers do not want “bad retailers” selling the same product as they do. This is why I’ve had some amazing moments with my store, that “I got the priviledge to buy” some brand and also a big dissappointment when a huge retailer wanted to buy one of my vendors products but said that they wouldn’t buy, if it was sold in small stores, like mine. I also had one really nice product in my store, saw a couple other stores, where they were sold, and didn’t want to offer that product in my store anymore.
But when you find a good retailer, a perfect match for your product, sometimes it is good to have that store as your retailer even if money wise it wouldn’t make sense (they don’t want to order for the limit you have set as your minimum wholesale order, or they bargain the price lower etc). And online - you might want to use drop-shipping as your method of getting your product in stores. This offers the stores an opportunity to try out your product without a risk. I will write more about drop-shipping in a separate blog post.
Having “the right” retailer can also help you to get other retailers to buy your product. Remember, they don’t know that you made a special arrangement with that first good retailer, they just see they are sold in the good retailer. It is so important to list all your retailers in your marketing material. If your retailers are truly building your brand, the list of them is almost like part of your product’s resume. Or like a girl scout badge - something to be proud of - you should be proud your product is sold in these stores. If you feel that you are not that proud of some of the stores - they shouldn’t be your retailer. The right retailers will make your brand stronger and send the right image - to your customers and other retailers.
