Buyers don’t necessarily want to see the results of your market research, but rather, they want to know you have validated your decisions and the product itself. Decisions like product name and concept, packaging design, packaging copy, product claims, marketing messages, formulas and flavors/colors. For example, conducting in-use testing (a consumer takes your product home and uses it for a week, then answers questions about their experience) assures that your product delivers to the promises and claims your product makes. This helps reassure retailers that if they put your product on their shelf, customers will enjoy the experience thereby making their experience at that store favorable. No retailer wants to be known as a store that carries products that don’t work...
How To Get Your Products On Mass Retailer's Shelves
Interview with Vanessa Ting: "Getting Your Products into Retail Stores"
What are some of the stumbling blocks people make, when attempting to get their product line into stores?
a. Not building credibility or laying foundation for trust
b. Not building the financial/business case. Your product needs to make business sense to retailers.
c. Saying,“Retailer A is good for my product because…” instead of “my product is good for Retailer A because…”
d. Not understanding the difference between selling as many units as possible vs. selling enough to meet consumer demand
e. Not scaling up slowly
f. Not having incorporated the retailers’ perspective earlier in the game. Like during product development (e.g., packaging)
Vanessa's Expert Interview on BizChick Podcast
I had the recent honor of recording a podcast with fellow web-enterpreneur, Natalie Eckdahl, who does this fantastic podcast series called BizChix.
I set high standards for myself but rarely do I critique myself publicly. But today I want to use myself as a Retail Pitch Tip example to benefit you, the product entrepreneurs.
I often say preparation is 90% of the recipe for success. Before heading into any presentation, whether it is a retail pitch, TV interview, consulting engagement – and in this case, a podcast recording – it behooves you to do a few things in advance:
- Think about your talking points
- Do research on your interviewer (or the person you are meeting) and the types of questions they typically ask
- And then an hour or so before game time, clear your head. Get present in the moment. I like to close my eyes and visualize how I want to come across.
- Keeping with the sports analogy, get your game face on and start talking in your game “voice” prior to when you go live. For me this usually requires me to slow down my speech and smooth out my cadence.
How Do I Find A Retail Buyer’s Name And Contact Information?
Quick tips from the retail buyer: Not sure who your buyer is at a given retailer? This video gives you one quick tip for how to find a retail buyer’s contact info in one easy search. Learn more http://www.buyerly.com
Cool News: The One Thing This Brand Did To Get Into QVC And Kroger Stores
We are so proud of our client, Click & Carry. Watch this 1:30 video to see what simple action they took to make a positive first impression and land QVC and Ralphs (Kroger) as retail accounts.
Retail Buyer Decision Fatigue: It's a real thing!
We've all joked at one time or another about how tired we are of making decisions. It's a REAL thing! "Decision Fatigue" is a term coined by social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and very much affects how we make decisions and our moods.
Case in point, a few months ago when I was in the throes of wedding planning, I was overwhelmed by the volume of decisions. "Blush-pink or ivory-blush napkins? Do you want the same shade table linens or a contrasting color? Do you want to match your flowers or complement? Will your cool tone shades clash with the gold mercury glass candle holders?" and on and on. I was paralyzed by the sheer volume of options in front of me and I just stopped caring. I told the vendors to pick. And then I'd go home to my fiancé cranky, stressed and tired. Not fun for anyone.
Can you relate?
Well, this dynamic happens with retail buyers too. Especially during their buying cycles. Imagine having to select 100 SKUs for your shelf assortment. To arrive at those 100 SKUs, you probably have to sift through 500 SKUs just to narrow your options. Compound that with the number of vendors who send samples and pitches unsolicited. That's easily another few hundred additional SKUs pouring into my inbox or the mailroom. Shoot me now.
It got to the point where I was too tired to make a decision on what to eat for lunch. I would stand dumbly at the expansive Target cafeteria hoping someone would just direct me on what to eat.
Get what I'm saying?
So considering the overwhelm a buyer encounters. What can you do to facilitate their decision making? What can YOU do to DIRECT THEM ON WHAT TO BUY?
As a vendor, your best move is to take the onerous chore out of sifting through pitches and help the buyer figure out which ones are truly worth considering. Take the buyers' guesswork out of determining whether your brand represents good sales potential. Only YOU have the POWER to limit the number of questions a buyer has to ask to narrow in on the information he/she needs to make a decision.
You may think you have done that already. But have you really? Are you opening as many retail accounts as you thought you would have by now? Are you getting a response (yes or no) from retail buyers? Are they buying?
If you cannot confidently say yes to those questions, then you are not presenting your pitch in a way that facilitates decision making.
And based on my years as a retail buyer, only 5% of all submissions I've received presented the information in the way I needed it to make my decisions. So chances are, you could do a better job.
My job is to teach as many small product companies as possible the right techniques in hopes that 5 years from now, retail buyers see a significant difference in the quality of pitches they receive. I will reduce their "decision fatigue". And I will increase the number of stores your brand is sold in, meaning more sales for you.
So help me with my mission - and check out more information about how we can do this together.
VIDEO: The INSIDE SCOOP on how to successfully get your products into the largest retailers in America
This morning, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tamara Monosoff, best-selling author of The Mom Inventors Handbook. We had a lively discussion and she shared what she did to get on the shelves of large retailers! Great interview packed with good info. Enjoy!
Post by Mom Invented.