There are 4 things every e-commerce owner needs to think about before they start selling their product to retailers and distributors.
Failing to think about it can be the difference between success and failure.
Want to see it? Here they are š
I often get requests from founders who have launched their product and want to take it into retail.
Now, why did I turn down a request from a startup recently that wanted to get their products into some Norwegian retailers and sports chains?
Because I saw that they would be better off focusing on growing their brand as a pure D2C company. Yes, I could have taken on the consultancy project, made a good strategy and sales process for them and they would probably get a few sales.
The reality though is that selling a product into retail and to distributors is not for every product-based startup. In this case, the big sports chains are already selling a similar product under their own brand.
And the smaller stores would not be able to commit to big orders. We could sell it directly to chiropractors and physiotherapists, but it would never become any big sales and would require a significant amount of energy to get each sale closed.
The result would have been a lot of energy, effort, and resources put into getting a few sales and growing the revenue very little. These founders were better off spending all that on growing their D2C sales and scaling up their own Shopify store.
Unfortunately, a lot of founders of product brands get lost spending 50% time on direct sales to their customers and 50% on selling towards retailers and distributors where they might be better off focusing on just one activity.
How do you know if your product should be sold to a retailer or distributor? Ask yourself these 4 questions.
- How long time will each sale take from start to finish?
- What will your average profit be from each B2B order? Will it be worth the time?
- Do you have the necessary resources to follow up a B2B order?
If you're a product-based founder, what's your experience?
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