what to do after you land a stockist, according to a product business strategist
A chinwag with biz whiz Melissa Robins from The Lot Co.
Congratulations, you’ve nabbed a stockist to retail your biz’s bits – now what? Well, according to product business strategist and clever clog Melissa Robbins, this isn’t the end of your sale – you’re just getting started. We caught up for a chinwag with the business expert to pick her brain about all things wholesale, stockists and recurring revenue.
Who are you and what do you do? I’m Melissa Robbins, a product business strategist, and I’ve worked in retail and wholesale for more than 25 years. I’ve owned my own product brand and my own retail store, so I’ve been on both sides of the wholesale relationship, pitching to retailers as a brand and buying products as a retailer.
Today I work with product founders to help them build profitable businesses, get their products in front of more people and generate more sales across multiple sales channels, particularly ecommerce and wholesale. A big part of what I do is help bridge that gap between brands and retailers. I understand what brands need to do to grow, but I also understand what a busy retailer actually needs from the brands they stock.
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What are the first things small-business owners should clarify with stockists before sending their first order? Once you have the order, I actually think it’s less about asking the retailer another 400 questions and more about making the experience incredibly easy for them. Be really clear about what happens next. Confirm payment, expected dispatch dates, delivery information and communicate immediately if there are any delays. You want to pre-empt the questions they might have rather than making them chase you.
When you send the order, include a physical copy of the invoice or packing information too. The person who placed the order isn’t necessarily the person unpacking it, pricing it or entering it into their system. I also love including useful point-of-sale material. That could be a small sign that tells the story behind the product, information that helps staff understand how to sell it, or something they can display alongside the range. Think beyond simply getting the box from your warehouse to their store. You want to make it as easy as possible for them to receive, understand and start selling your products.
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What are the key things that encourage retailers to reorder stock? For me, it comes down to three things: communication, promotion and support. Stay in contact with your retailers. Ask how the products are going, find out what they need and make it easy for them to know what’s available to reorder.
Then promote your stockists. This is something I see brands get weirdly protective about because they’re worried about losing sales from their own website. But if someone wants your product today and there’s a shop around the corner stocking it, send them there! Share your retailers on social media. Show your products sitting beautifully on their shelves. Have a stockist page on your website. Encourage your audience to shop with them. A strong network of retailers gives your brand more visibility, introduces you to new customers and builds credibility. When other retailers see that you genuinely support your stockists, you become a much more attractive brand for them to work with too.
Finally, give retailers the marketing tools they need to sell your products. Provide great product imagery, videos, product information and content they can quickly use on their website, emails or social media. The easier you make it for a retailer to sell your product, the more likely they are to sell it. And if it sells, they reorder.
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What should the relationship between a brand and a stockist feel like? It should be symbiotic. Both businesses should benefit from the relationship and support each other. I always encourage brands to stop viewing a retailer as a single $300 or $500 wholesale order. That retailer could become a $5000-a-year customer, and they might stock your brand for five or 10 years. Suddenly that initial $500 order looks very different.
Treat your stockists like long-term customers from day one. Help them sell your product, promote their store, communicate with them and make doing business with you easy. In return, you want retailers who value your brand, represent it well and continue to support you. The best wholesale relationships really do feel like partnerships rather than transactions.
How can small businesses turn wholesale into recurring revenue? Start treating your existing retailers as recurring customers. Make reordering ridiculously easy. Let retailers know what’s in stock. Send regular product and stock updates. Tell them about new releases. Check in at sensible intervals and learn how each buyer prefers to communicate. Retailers have dozens – sometimes hundreds – of suppliers competing for their attention. If you disappear and wait for them to remember you exist, you’re making wholesale much harder than it needs to be. Your job isn’t just to get the first order; it’s also to make the second, fifth and 20th order easier.
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Any other tips for small businesses that have just landed their first stockist? Don’t drop off that first order, celebrate for five minutes and then assume they’ll contact you when they need more. Retail buyers wear a ridiculous number of hats. They might completely sell out of your product and still forget to reorder it. They might know they need more but have 27 other things they need to do first.
Be the squeaky wheel, without becoming the annoying wheel. Follow up. Tell them what stock is available. Make it really clear how to reorder. Let them know how quickly you can dispatch. Keep supporting the retailers you already have while continuing to look for new ones.
And finally, wholesale requires two things I talk about constantly: persistence and consistency. Be persistent about approaching new retailers. No response doesn’t automatically mean no. And be consistent about nurturing the retailers you already have. Wholesale becomes a powerful, predictable sales channel when you stop treating it as a hunt for one-off orders and start treating it as a network of long-term customer relationships.
Melissa Robbins’ Wholesale System teaches product founders how to get wholesale-ready, find and approach the right retailers, convert them into stockists and build the relationships that keep them reordering. Find Melissa and The Wholesale System at @thelotco.
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