Selling wholesale to craft stores means a lot more exposure and sales for your crafts. If you manage to get into a successful whole sale contract with a craft store, a lot of extra work hassles are taken care of. You do not have to concern yourself with marketing, advertising and selling as that is the role of the business you are supplying to. You can concentrate on creating and manufacturing your craft item. However, in order to land with a successful whole selling contract with a craft store you have to follow a right approach. There are several important points you need to keep in mind.
The most important thing is to make sure that you business is ready to handle the increased number of orders you are likely to generate from the wholesale orders.
Selling wholesale is likely to give your business more exposure which likely to be followed by more orders. Nothing will hurt your long term reputation then being unable to meet the deadlines for your orders.
Once you are sure of your capability to meet the orders, you need to start identifying the stores are interested in selling to.
Do not apply to any and every store you can spot. You need to do a research. To begin with make two separate lists of craft stores. One list contains the business you are really keen on working with and the second should contain the ones that you are really not all that concerned about. I will explain the reason for this later on in this article.
Now you need to start contacting these stores.
Be ready for the appointment. You could get it anytime. Be prepared to go if the store asks you to come by the very next day. Have your very best samples to show them. They should be accurate representatives of what you are going to be supplying to them. Match the paperwork to make identifying the products and the details about them easy for the store. There are two essential documents you will need to make. One will be a description sheet and the other will be a price sheet. The description sheet should have the details about each craft item such as size, color, weight, material used or whatever else is relevant to your craft. There should be a system where you can allot product codes to each craft. This is usually an alphanumeric string. This makes future reference to the product much easier and prevents confusion when it comes to placing orders.
The sales sheet should have the prices of all craft items and their variations according to size, color etc if they apply.
You should have you business information printed out on a business card. Make sure to leave a copy of all three with the craft store.
Prepare yourself with a presentation and potential questions that might come up. Be ready to prove the marketability of your craft. If you have done some research for this, make sure you have it with you at this point. Common questions that you need to be ready to answer is:
- How is your craft better than the rest? ( if it is something that is already there in the market)
- What makes your craft different from the rest?
- What makes you think that it is going to sell? ( If it is a completely new craft)
- How soon can you deliver the first order? ( This is usually a good sign as it means that the person has moved beyond doubting the credibility of the craft and is thinking ahead)
In the beginning you were told to make two lists of craft stores. Ones that you were not so keen on while the second of the names that you really wanted to work with. Here is the reason why. It is important to be confident of your craft and presentation when you approach a craft store for a whole selling offer. You need to be convincing about your ability as a crafter and manufacturer. If you are starting out fresh and this is the first time you are going to be doing something like this you may feel shaky in the beginning. It will be a good idea to practice first with the craft stores on the first list, wiz, the ones that you are not so interested in. After visiting a few stores and getting a feel of how things usually go, you will feel much more prepared and confident of hitting the stores you really want a business tie-up with. Good luck!
