I’ve said before that I’m not a big fan of buying store lists for doing wholesale. So how can you go about getting a good list of stores for pitching your wholesale line? Here’s some great resources:

1. Yelp
Yelp is an indispensable resource for finding brick and mortar businesses. You tell it what area to search and what kind of business you’re looking for, it gives you the list. It even tells you about similar businesses in an area. So if you find one boutique on Philadelphia you want to pitch and then you plug it into Yelp, it will give you a list of a bunch of other stores just like it that are also in Philadelphia. Just check the right hand column for the list titled “People Who Viewed This Also Viewed…”

2. Other People’s Store Lists
Some designers share their store list on their website. If you know of some brands whose products you can see your own products sold along side with, check to see if they’ve got a store list on their site.

3. Trade Shows
Trade shows are a great way to discover stores to pitch and meet with buyers face to face. They can be pretty expensive to do, but it will save you some online sleuthing time if you’ve got the cash to do trade shows. Be prepared to not make a ton of money right off the bat with trade shows. Some buyers take months to place an order so it’s much more of a long term investment.

4. Similar Web
Similar Web is a great tool for building both your press list and your store list. You plug in a site you know of (like a store website), it gives you a list of websites that are like it.

5. Fans
Your customers know their home town best. So if you sell online and have a bunch of customers on Facebook or your mailing list ask for their help. Let them know you’d love to have your products sold in their home town and ask them to suggest stores for you to try. Super fans might even be willing to lobby stores in their area on your behalf to get your stuff on the shelves.

I’ve noticed recently that a lot of fellow biz bloggers and biz coaches are selling press or store lists (or offering them as a value-add for premium products). I’m pretty much against buying/using pre-made store or press lists, and here’s why:

1. They might make me lazy
It’s tempting to use someone else’s list. Making a list of stores or media outlets to pitch is time consuming, so why not let someone else do the work? Because working from someone else’s list is like working with blinders on. I promise you, there are more stores and media outlets that are great for your company that are not on that list you just bought. If you’re relying on a pre-made list, you might not go hunting for them.

2. They don’t give me an edge over my competitors
If someone is selling a list of store or media contacts, you have to wonder who else bought the same list. Are those stores or editors being bombarded with pitches from your competitors? That’s going to make it tougher to get them to focus on you.

I love when I find a hidden gem of a contact and it pays out for me. I’m great at thinking of unconventional places to pitch my work that competitors might not be trying. As a result, I can stand out and probably get a better response. Some of my best media placements for Ex-Boyfriend haven’t been Good Housekeeping or Elle or Design Sponge, they’ve been outlets that focus on niches relevant to my products, like geek culture blogs or outlets with a focus on animal lovers. Other tee labels might all be fighting for a placement in the same dozen or so coveted outlets, but personally, I prefer to skip ‘em. I’d rather go where my competitors haven’t thought to look.

Case in point, earlier this fall my company was featured in a magazine about cheese. We saw quite a few orders stemming from the placement. The average clothing company might not think about working with an outlet about cheese. By working with a media outlet that isn’t the first one our competitors think of, we were able to score a win.

3. They probably aren’t perfect for me
Even if I take competitors out of the equation, if a friend who had a jewelry line or a handbag line offered to give me her press list or store list, I’d still say “no thanks”. Media lists and store lists have to be highly customized to be valuable. The press contacts and store lists that are good for another business are not necessarily useful for mine. Even if I could get lists another clothing company was using, it probably still wouldn’t have all the stores and media outlets I should be pitching.

There’s more to your products than being a shirt or a necklace or a bag. Our products have so many niches they could appeal to that it’s important to build our prospect lists with those niches in mind. Hopefully there aren’t a lot of businesses out there with your exact combination of product types and niches, which is why the best store or press list is going to be the one you created yourself.

Purchased Lists as a Jumping Point
The case can be made for using pre-made lists as a starting point. You could use them to get ideas for your own custom list and cross off the ones you don’t need. This can work okay if you understand that the list you’re getting isn’t “your” final list and you want to spend the time checking out each contact on the list to see if they’re a fit for you. It’s not my preferred approach, I’d rather spend the same hours just making my own list, researching my own niches.

If you do decide to start with someone else’s list, make sure you’re not taking their list as gospel. Be prepared to spend the time checking each contact to see if they are suited to your business and then spend the time adding your own contacts that aren’t on the list initially.

Today I want to let you know about this amazing find I discovered from Justine Grey: The Wholesale Action Ecourse. This ecourse will teach you every single thing you need to know about selling your products wholesale. I know because I used this course myself, since my clothing company is about to start doing wholesale. We learned about a zillion useful things from the course that we’ll be using for our own wholesale efforts. This ecourse is like having your own personal coach guiding you through every step of the process! Justine’s ecourse is incredibly detailed and full of insider tips you can only get from first hand experience doing a lot of wholesale business.

Here’s what you’ll get from this ecourse:

• Help defining your target audience
• Tips to determine what makes your products unique in the marketplace
• Must-have advice on how to avoid getting taken advantage of by wholesale customers
• How to select the right products for wholesaling
• How to price your wholesale line
• Invaluable advice on developing your line sheet and wholesale terms
• Advice on finding the right stores for your product line
• How to sell your products to wholesale customers via phone, email and face to face
• Nitty-gritty, actionable checklists and workbooks that will get your products into boutiques and larger retail stores

Here’s why you can’t afford to go without Wholesale Action:

• Wholesaling leaves you with about a million opportunities to make mistakes that can cost you a fortune or even ruin your business! Wholesale Action tells you how to avoid those mistakes that you’re likely to make without the benefit of Justine’s experience.
• Wholesale customers will throw you curve-ball questions. If you don’t have the answers ready, it could cost you sales. Wholesale Action prepares you for selling to even the pickiest and trickiest of wholesale clients.
• Just picking up a few wholesale clients will easily more than pay for the cost of this course. Justine got over $8,000 in sales in just 4 months!

Wholesale action provides you with your path to success in an easily-digestible format that even the least business-savvy “dreamer” can handle and accomplish. You’ll finish the course with a well-organized and manageable step-by-step plan for getting your products into tons of stores in a short period of time.

If you’re ready to get started, head over to Wholesale Action now to sign up!

Today I’m addressing three popular ways to get products into stores. Even if you have your own online shop, getting products into stores can be a good additional source of revenue or a great way to get your brand in front of more customers. None of the solutions for getting products into stores is perfect, each has pros and cons.

1. Consignment
When you offer products to a store on consignment, the deal is they take the products and put them in their store, and they only pay you if/when the products sell.

Pros
This is a low risk proposition for retailers, which means if you’re having a tough time getting wholesale buyers, this alternative might get a store owner to take a chance on your products. Once you’ve got a proven record of selling your products in their stores, these shops might consider switching to wholesale buying.

The other potential pro, is that the revenue split may be more favorable. With wholesale, shop owners typically get a 50% discount on merchandise because they are assuming the risk. If it doesn’t sell that’s their problem. With consignment, the deal is pretty risk-free for the store owner, and more risky for the designer, thus the designer might only offer the shop owner a 30% or 40% commission on sales.

Cons
With consignment, the risk mostly falls to the designer. You are handing over product you might be able to sell on your own, to another business, that may or may not be able to sell it. If they merchandise your items poorly or don’t get much foot traffic, you might wind up with no money and missed opportunities to sell your products for 100% share of the retail value.

If you enter a consignment arrangement, choose the stores carefully. Pick a place with a lot of foot traffic that you think is likely to sell your products effectively. You should also consider limiting the amount of time the shop has to sell your products (for example, they can hold the product for 3 months). Otherwise, they could hold your inventory indefinitely and never pay you a dime.

2. Wholesale
When you sell products wholesale, you typically sell the products to a store owner for 50% off their retail price. Usually the agreement is that you do not accept returns on these items unless there is a defect. In exchange for the discounted pricing, the store owner agrees to a minimum purchase (i.e. 12 units or $500 or 3 case packs, whatever terms you establish).

Cons
You are offering your product at 50% off so you need to make sure your production costs and materials are such that you can offer a 50% discount and still be profitable.  Wholesale terms also need to be crystal clear and cover a lot of important details such as exclusive territories, shipping terms, order minimums, etc.

Wholesale is really an enterprise for a more serious business owner. You may need to hire sales reps. You will definitely need to produce buyers packets with line sheets. If your goal is to sell wholesale, talking to an experienced expert on the ins and outs of the process is a good idea. (I recommend Nicole at Retail Minded, if you are looking for a consultant on this subject.)

Pros
If you get your wholesale terms right, and your production budget is structured such that you can afford to offer a 50% discount, wholesale can be pretty profitable and low risk. Your wholesale buyers are usually guaranteed to not send returns, spend a minimum amount of money and they are likely to be repeat buyers if you’ve got a good product that sells well.

The other nice thing about wholesale is that your buyers will tell you exactly what they want and how much of it. With retail you have to produce products based on guessing what you think retail customers will buy. With wholesale buyers, you know exactly what they are buying, so you can plan your production accordingly.

3. Drop Ship
Drop ship is an arrangement that works best with custom made items or online boutiques. With this arrangement the store doesn’t actually hold your products. They may have a sample or two, but the products that end up with customers remain with you. As the retailer sells the products, you ship them to the buyers and the store owner pays you a commission.

Pros:
This is a nice middle ground between wholesale and consignment. The shop owner doesn’t have to give you money unless they sell your product. But you don’t have someone else holding product you might be able to sell on your own. It’s a relatively low risk proposition for both parties.

Cons:
For this relationship to work well, the designer has to be pretty reliable and responsible.  The shop owner’s reputation is in your hands, so you need to strictly adhere to ship times and policies that you’ve agreed to.

You are also parting with a commission to the shop owner (usually 50%), so it may be less profitable than selling your own products retail. On the other hand, the additional exposure you can get having your products distributed in more stores, may make it worth sharing the profits.

Since selling to retail is a common interest among artisans, I’ve compiled a collection of links that you may find useful that cover this topic (some I’ve shared in past newsletters, some are new)

• How to Find a Fashion Showroom to Represent Your Line
• How To get Your Work into Stores
• What A Rep Looks For When Picking Up A New Line
• Preparing to Pitch Retailers
• Things To Ask Potential Reps
• Pitching Retailers – What Retailers Want From You

Places to Look for Wholesale Reps*

• Erayo

• Great Rep
• Rep Hunter

*I am not endorsing the services above. I am just sharing these sites as a resource, but can’t speak to their effectiveness since I have never used them personally. If any of you have tried the services above and want to share your experience with them, please feel free to do so in the comments.