How to Wholesale?

kaseencook · Nov 10, 2008

I would like to approach some businesses with my soaps to wholesale, but I am not sure how to go about it. I suppose I feel nervous about coming off a pushy sales person or bothering the business owner and completely turning them off. Could any one give some tips about how to best get my foot in the door with local businesses, maybe your personal experiences? Also what is the edicate for these type of situations? What do you say to store owners about your products when you approach them? Thanks, I think I just need a bit of confidence, hopefully when I get a better sense of how it is best done I will feel better about approaching people! Cheers!

Lindy · Nov 10, 2008

I've spent most of my professional life as a salesperson and what I find works is to go into the store and talk to the people there hand-made soaps. Find out if they are carrying any, if they have carried any and what they liked as well as disliked about their current/previous supplier. Talk to them about what you do, how you do it and why you're excited about it. Basically you want to develop a repoire with the shop staff as well as the owner. Give them a reason to not only remember you but to like you as well. A "slick" sales-person doesn't care about anything except making the sale and don't take the time to find out about the people/businesses they deal with.

Remember people buy from people.

Cheers

kaseencook · Nov 10, 2008

Thanks for the tips! Is it usually polite to set up appointments to visit stores, or is it acceptable to just walk in, do most stores get wholesalers who approach them without an appointment? Or is an appointment a bit silly? Cheers again! I can feel the confidence rising

Lindy · Nov 11, 2008

Hi Kaseencook - depending on where you live appointments are a good idea because it shows you respect their time. If you live in a small centre, pop in, look around to see what they already have and then start chatting up whoever is in at that time. Make sure you have a business card with you and then if they are interested you can arrange to come back with a couple of samples of your soap. Make the samples small - you want to leave them wanting more. When you return you can give them a brochure (you can create this using MS Word and Avery products for a tri-fold brochure).

It is never a good idea to bring everything in with you on the first time in - this would define you as a pushy sales-person. You would rather have them think of you as a person who happens to run thier own small business.

Another really good idea is if you do book an appointment you are still going to want to visit the store so you can familiarize yourself with the store, their products and what their target market is.

I hope this helps you.

Cheers

Tabitha · Nov 11, 2008

I have been a buyer at a couple different shops & would never see anyone w/o an appointment. It was very frustrating for someone to walk in & assume you had nothing on your schedule or that you could drop everything to talk with them.

I have approached shops w/o an appointment, but I make it VERY brief. "Hi there, I know you must be swamped, but I would like to leave these samples with you. My contact info is in the box also. Would that be OK?" :