Ask the Expert: Finding Distributors

Nicole Donnelly

Q: Nicole, I would love to get some insight into how you were able to get merchandise into stores and distribution channels. My company is moving from an internet e-commerce based company to selling products in the three dimensional world. My background is law and business, but not merchandising so I find myself with more questions than answers at the moment - which is not my usual position:)

Looking forward to your insights!

Linda

ND: Hi Linda,

Thank you for your email, I feel strongly about the info that I'm going to share with you. It's my personal philosophy formed by the BabyLegs experience and reinforced by others that I see do this.

It all starts with the customer, they create the demand for the product, once they start asking retailers, then retailers will want your product, when retailers sell tons of your product, distributors will take notice and want your product too. If you start from the top down, it'll take a whole lot of marketing to create the awareness of your product to create the demand. SO, if you create the demand first and sell tons of product at high margins on your site, the rest will follow.

If your site sales are going flat take a look at your Google analytics and get to know your numbers. Learn who is talking about you online, see if you can get more people to talk about your product by giving it to them to review. Marketing is such an important part to the success of your product and brand for the future too. SEO-Search Engine Optimization, is a great way to get more of the right kind of traffic.

When you start selling to retailers, there's less cash in your pocket, so make sure that you have healthy margins and can afford to grow your business. A typical business should have a NET profit of at least 10%, and cost of goods no more than 50% of what you sell it for, including packing, and shipping.

Tip:
Invest in your site! Make sure that whomever you choose to design your site that they do usability surveys to design for the user experience and explain SEO to you and tell you what they are going to do to your site to make it "SEO'd." A good firm will do all of this as well as design, which is actually the last step in making your site make money for you. When we redid our site with all of this in mind sales went up over 450%!!!