Wholesaling to retailers

[Ikke]

Hello,

I have a small brand in a particular niche. I want to enlarge my reach onto the market by having my products sold by the big retailers in this niche.

I have made a catalog with all my products and their relevant details.

My question is, should I put the the MAP, WSP and MOQ in the catalog, or should I only include the MAP and give each retailer a separate tiered discount table based on total order volume?

Looking forward to your experiences.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

My question is, should I put the the MAP, WSP and MOQ in the catalog, or should I only include the MAP and give each retailer a separate tiered discount table based on total order volume?

I have the MAP and wholesale price listed. I do not have MOQ but would list it if I did. I would then have in Terms and Conditions that further discounts are available based on order volume and to contact you directly for more information. Now, I have not solicited to big retailers as of yet. Only smaller retailers so take my advice for what it's worth.

 

[Ikke]

I have the MAP and wholesale price listed. I do not have MOQ but would list it if I did. I would then have in Terms and Conditions that further discounts are available based on order volume and to contact you directly for more information. Now, I have not solicited to big retailers as of yet. Only smaller retailers so take my advice for what it's worth.

Thanks for joining in @AllenCrawley. The big retailers of my niche are small/medium sized (online) stores which are one of the largest in this niche.
Another question: when you do not have a MOQ, do you have a minimum order value? If yes how do you decide the number? I can only of thinking something like 10 times of what a regular order would be.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Thanks for joining in @AllenCrawley. The big retailers of my niche are small/medium sized (online) stores which are one of the largest in this niche.
Another question: when you do not have a MOQ, do you have a minimum order value? If yes how do you decide the number? I can only of thinking something like 10 times of what a regular order would be.

Yes I do. I have a set minimum for their opening order and a lower minimum required for subsequent orders. I just picked a number that wasn't too high to scare off these smaller retailers but was still high enough to justify wholesale pricing. So far, my retailers have purchased for way more than the minimums.

 

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[Ramble On]

We sell to retailers also. Brick and mortar and on-line. Mostly small to medium size. We also have the MAP and wholesale prices listed in our catalog. We do not have a MOQ but we do have a minimum order value. Like @AllenCrawley said we set the minimum order value at a point that makes sense for us but is still low enough for the store to try our stuff. Many start with the minimum order but then greatly increase their order after they have had some success selling our products.

One other thing to note. Right or wrong, we indicate in our Terms and Conditions that they cannot sell our products on Amazon or Ebay. No one has complained about it and it keeps all of that business to ourselves.

We also do not offer any tiered discounts in our catalog. Only one store has asked about it so far. They were one of the larger stores and we did go ahead and offer them tiered discounts. I am sure the big retailers would definitely expect tiered discounts.

 

[AllenCrawley]

One other thing to note. Right or wrong, we indicate in our Terms and Conditions that they cannot sell our products on Amazon or Ebay. No one has complained about it and it keeps all of that business to ourselves.

Same here. No one is allowed to sell on amazon, etsy, wanelo, 11main, ebay, groupon, etc, etc. except for us.

 

[1step]

I put my price in the catalog along with MOQ and MAP. If in the future you offer someone a discount and do your tiered system then the customer will feel like they are truly getting a deal since you have something else printed in the catalog. As mentioned above we prevent wholesale customers from selling on any third party sites without written permission.

 

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[Ikke]

I have removed the MOQ from my catalog and added a minimum purchase amount as I think that is indeed a good idea. I have also added a higher amount from where on I will pay shipping to try and get bigger orders. I also added an ordering sheet to the end of the catalog which the retailer can fill out to order what he wants. I have send this to the first retailer and will see what sort of response we'll get.

 

[AllenCrawley]

I have removed the MOQ from my catalog and added a minimum purchase amount as I think that is indeed a good idea. I have also added a higher amount from where on I will pay shipping to try and get bigger orders. I also added an ordering sheet to the end of the catalog which the retailer can fill out to order what he wants. I have send this to the first retailer and will see what sort of response we'll get.

I've found that retailers would rather not get catalogs/line sheets as attachments in emails. I use https://docsend.com/. It's perfect as it's hosted in the cloud and you just email the link to view. Why not dropbox or google drive? What's also great about it is you can track who views the catalog, how many pages they viewed and how long they stayed on each page. And... it's free.

 

[BlakeIC]

@Ramble On @AllenCrawley @1step
do you guys have them sign a contract in some way to ensure they don't sell on specific platforms?

 

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[1step]

@Ramble On @AllenCrawley @1step
do you guys have them sign a contract in some way to ensure they don't sell on specific platforms?

Yes

 

[BlakeIC]

Yes

Digital?

 

[Ramble On]

@Ramble On @AllenCrawley @1step
do you guys have them sign a contract in some way to ensure they don't sell on specific platforms?

No we don't. Haven't even considered it. Maybe we should. We just regularly check the various platforms to make sure it is not taking place. If we ever caught someone our plan was to just simply stop selling to them if they continued after a warning.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

@Ramble On @AllenCrawley @1step
do you guys have them sign a contract in some way to ensure they don't sell on specific platforms?

No but under my terms and conditions that's included in my line sheet I explicitly detail they are not allowed to sell on other platforms or marketplaces.

Example...

"All approved resellers are only authorized to sell on their own web address. You may not use a subdirectory of another company’s URL, such as an Amazon.com storefront. Additionally, you cannot sell products through any other website or online marketplace including, but not limited to, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Wanelo, 11Main, OpenSky, Craigslist, Groupon or any other flash sale sites. Failure to comply will result in the termination of your wholesale account. "

By placing a wholesale order, you are stating that you understand and adhere to all policies set forth by [company].

I also speak with them over the phone to make sure they understand just in case they missed the info in the line sheet. Like @Ramble On we just monitor all marketplaces to make sure of compliance.

 

[Ikke]

Recently I went to the shopping area of my city trying to find any store that wanted to carry my products. Almost all retailers I spoke to did not want to carry my products because there already was 1 store in the area which sold a similar product. I went to this one particular store figuring if they are already selling these type of products they may want to expand their range with an additional brand.

The store owner told me that they didn't want to have an additional supplier due to administration complexity. I did however have a nice conversation and received some tips on where I could possible sell my products and more importantly what a normal markup for these type of stores and products is.

Regardless of still not having any store interested I pressed on until I finally found a small store that was interested. I showed my product to the store owner and we talked prices and margins. We agreed I would send him further information regarding my products by email and go from there. When I got home I quickly made a catalog with my products, retail prices and wholesale prices. I send it to him via docsend so I could track the interaction as recommended by @AllenCrawley. He watched the 6 page document for a total of 11 seconds total. After several days I called him to ask how it was going and he told me he was not interested anymore and that he rather invested his resources in products that he had more faith in. Quite a disappointment I must admit but even more an interesting and insightful experience.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

As a retailer, I always used to sell on the online platforms anyway and only had one company tell me to stop. And even then it was after many months of doing so. As a wholesaler you definitely need to monitor it!

 

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[AllenCrawley]

As a retailer, I always used to sell on the online platforms anyway and only had one company tell me to stop. And even then it was after many months of doing so. As a wholesaler you definitely need to monitor it!

This is why I have an actual phone conversation to make sure they understand. I have alerts set up and will manually monitor every 2-3 weeks. I will not hesitate to drop a retailer. I imagine most companies don't take control over their brand as seriously as they should.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

This is why I have an actual phone conversation to make sure they understand. I have alerts set up and will manually monitor every 2-3 weeks. I will not hesitate to drop a retailer. I imagine most companies don't take control over their brand as seriously as they should.

Exactly. Even 2-3 weeks is pretty generous.

 

[Ramble On]

One other thing to keep an eye on. We allow our brick and mortar stores to sell online if they have their own website, but not on Amazon, Ebay, etc. We periodically check the ones that do. We found one a while back that was discounting our products on their online store on a continual basis. We immediately contacted them and they stopped. We haven't had a problem since and they still order from us.

 

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