If you’re new to wholesale selling, you have a lot of work ahead of you.
Right now, the most significant obstacle in your path is the fact that nobody knows about you. As a new business, you don’t have a ton credibility as a seller quite yet. Retailers aren’t going to know that they should be searching for you unless you do something to draw their attention.
So, how are you going to let those retailers know that you exist?
Trade Shows
Attending trade shows is an excellent way to get your name out there as a wholesale business.
They give you the chance to speak with the very retailers that you’re trying to sell to in person and let you market your products in a way that you just can’t with any other method. There aren’t many opportunities where you can meet thousands of potential clients in a single location. You can even speak with other wholesale business owners, learn from them and incorporate new ideas into your business model.
Trade shows are incredibly effective ways of letting retailers know that you exist. Attending one will undoubtedly cost you in terms of time and money, but that’s well worth the reward if you manage to get your name out there. ASD Market Week, in particular, is one of the best trade shows you can attend, providing you with the chance to interact with thousands of vendors and tens of thousands of buyers.
Emailing
These days, everyone has an email, businesses included.
With that level of saturation, that makes emails as one of the most effective methods of creating awareness about your brand. Mass emailing can work if you have a substantial enough list, but if you’re interested in getting more replies back (and you should be) then personalizing those emails should be part of your strategy.
There are plenty of automated programs that can let you do that without needing to go through them one by one, which will certainly help if you have a large enough mailing list. It will still take time, but if you get it done right, you’ll be able to send emails out to tens of thousands of people every week if your so desire.
Even if only a fraction of a percent responds to them, that’s a lot of potential customers. Also, if they don’t respond, you’re still getting your name out into the world and letting the businesses know that you exist. If they didn’t respond to this email, they might react to the next one, or even approach you themselves if they’re interested.
Platform
More and more businesses have online platforms these days.
Having your own website for your business is a great way to get your name out to the wider world. It’s constantly up and broadcasting to far more people that virtually every other method and provides a way for retailers to make purchases from you in a convenient and efficient manner.
Now, running a website can be difficult, but there are places that you can go to that can take care of that for you. These websites can serve as a location to market your products to retailers and provide you access to the customers who already use those sort of websites. Instead having to start at zero, you can piggyback off them to improve your relevancy on the internet instead of trying to drag yourself up from the bottom yourself.
The process of getting to the point where you’ve managed to engrain yourself in this industry is going to take a long time, and it will take far more than these three very simplified steps. You’re going to be working for years on this, constantly looking to gather more and more buyers under your banner.
However, if you succeed and your products are good?
People will be coming back to you.
Tips
- Communicate Regularly. Keep your retailers in the know of what’s going on and how their orders are coming along.
- Social Media. Having your own social media can go a long way to getting your business out into the wider world.