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Want to sell your product in Big Retail? What you need to know!
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IntroductionSelling in through Retail partners is a challenge, difficult, expensive, time consuming and full of risk.
I’m trying to give a few tips over the most usual challenges involved dealing with the big retailers in the USA and Europe.
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A few facts on retail sales
Purchasing Decisions• Over 2/3 of the consumer-buying decisions are made at the store, with customers often switching brands.
• 90% of those decisions are influenced by the sales staff
• Price is only responsible for 40% of the final purchasing decision
• In-Store stock, pricing and easy to use are the most important deciding factors.
Retailer motivation• Marketing funds
• Training to sales staff
• Special promotions
• High product rotation
• Sufficient stock volume
• Easy return policy
• Working with preferred distributors
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Sales staff influence
• Recommendation of a knowledgeable salesperson is the #1 in-store purchase influencer and that salespeople “sell what they know” the best
• Effectively educating these key individuals on your products is essential
• Some retailers allow in-store training of the sales staff by the vendors or distributors, others prefer organized seminars on selected dates
• It is essential to convince the sales staff of the quality of your product, and to ensure the return ratio is low, otherwise they get frustrated
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Location, location, location
• What you pay in retail is for traffic, so you need to be found
• Product visibility is one of the most important factors
• If you sell a high volume small product it needs to stand out from the rest. You need to have more stock visible to the customer.
• For larger items you need at least one unit on display.
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What the retailer wants?
• Marketing funds, lots of them…..$$$$$$
• Participation in all special promotions, catalogs, sales, etc..
• Free stock and fast rotation
• Very long payment terms (2nd most important business is cash flow)
• Exclusive promotions with them
• Free advertisement from the vendor
• Lowest Price Guarantee (paid by the vendor)
• Fast return and credit
• Funded heads (sales people you pay to be there)
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What you need to provide
• Stock rotation
• Price Protection
• Sales people training
• Marketing material (Displays, interactive presentations, etc.)
• Fast access to stock (logistics)
• Local support
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The importance of the distributor
• A distributor can take up to 90% of the pain working with retailers
• The conditions for payment, credit, stock rotation, price protection, logistics, etc. can be negotiated with the distributor and they will transfer them to the retailer.
• Some distributors specialize in working with eTailers and act as their logistic arm.
• For specific marketing programs it is important to work directly with the retail partner
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A few Ideas• Invest in Store training and promotion, it will give
much more ROI than catalogs, email. Remember that most purchasing decisions are made at the store.
• Work with your distributors to standardize the payment, rotation and stock policies.
• Get a distributor preferred by the main retailers with strong financial situation
• Don’t overstock the retailer. They really hate that, but also you need to have product available to restock them as needed
• Work the sales people on the floor. They are your best chance to move your product fast.
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If you want to know more, let me help!
Email me at [email protected] call +1-814-317-6155
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