Trade Show FAQ: “A Retail Buyer Came By My Booth. How Do I Convert That Into A Purchase Order?”

Your brand is exhibiting at a trade show and FINALLY, a retail buyer from a major retailer drops by your booth.  You’re excited and nervous. You answer their questions, give them your marketing material and order form and ask for an order. They tell you they’ll have to review your materials, along with all the other booths they have visited, and will contact you if they plan to order.

Awesome! But NOW WHAT? How will you cultivate this buyer relationship? How will you turn this and other leads into future orders? And lots of them....

Making Trade Shows A Smashing Success

This week is ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas. Leading up to this show and remembering my days walking the floor, I have some DO’s and DON’Ts for how to influence retail buyers.  I’ll focus on the DO’s:

    • DO send emails in the 2 to 3 weeks leading up to the show to set up buyer appointments.
    • DO incentivize buyer appointments with “free shipping”, order discounts or other promotions that make sense.
    • DO create a sense of urgency with a deadline.  Nothing threatening.  But a deadline for when to order to receive the promotional discounts or for when to receive inventory to leverage your marketing activity.
    • DO recognize buyers prefer anonymity and can be afraid to approach a booth if it looks empty...

Do Retailers Want Me To Do A Show Like "Shark Tank"?

Of course! Any exposure on national media is always welcomed by buyers. It drives foot traffic to stores, which converts to sales. Plus those reruns are known to drive additional sales lifts when they re-air.

Here’s a handy dandy checklist.

  1. Announce to your current retail accounts your air date. 
  2. Ask past Shark Tank entrepreneurs what their average store sales lifts were.
  3. Give them ship dates (hopefully you heeded Romy’s advice and stock-piled your inventory levels) and order lead times.
  4. After your appearance airs, measure the sales lift...

My Buyer Asked For A Media Plan And Calendar. What Is That?

In every pitch that came my way, I always posed the question, “Where’s your marketing calendar?”

Why did it matter to me so much? Because I would coordinate my buying timeline and in-store promotional activities to piggy-back off the brand’s marketing and media activities. If you don’t give me a marketing calendar, I don’t have an incentive or deadline to buy that product line.  It would just languish on my desk indefinitely...

Why PR Matters to Retailers?

There is one question I see buyers pose often in the Buyerly Product Feedback system: “What kind of PR is your brand doing?”

And I can relate. As a buyer, I always requested to see brands’ marketing calendar, which is a schedule of marketing, media and PR activities intended to promote brand awareness and support sales in stores...

Do Retailers Care About My Products PR Exposure?

It’s not just PR exposure that retailers care about, but your overall ability to build brand awareness and create demand for your product.

  • Use that customer list you have built over time. 
  • Leverage social media. 
  • Strike strategic partnership deals
  • Focus on driving impulse purchases
  • Show your sales history. 
  • Get creative with solutions.

Do Retailers Care About Your Social Media?

As long as brands use social media as one prong of a larger integrated marketing campaign and tie it to a clear marketing objective (e.g., brand building, drive trial or repeat, etc.), then yes it matters.  But if a brand is doing social media without clear objectives which is true of most small companies, it doesn’t impress buyers and they won’t care you are active on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest.  Above all, be able to show results – site traffic, sales lifts, something measurable!

Does Social Media Matter?

As long as brands use social media as one prong of a larger integrated marketing campaign and tie it to a clear marketing objective (e.g., brand building, drive trial or repeat, etc.), then yes it matters.  But if a brand is doing social media without clear objectives, it matters less to a buyer that you are active on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest...

My Product Is A Game Changer and Unlike Anything Currently Out on the Market. What Can I Do To Make Sure A Retailer “Gets It”?

1) PR and the media are usually fast to embrace new trends or game-changing products. If your game-changer is featured in a magazine, show that to the buyer as evidence of an emerging trend. Plus, media attention serves as consumer education and builds consumer demand, which appeals to retailers.

2) Do research into the unmet needs of consumers.

3) But more likely than not, you’ll run into a lot of retailers who do not get it. Not to fret. Those risk averse retailers are usually the bigger ones.

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Video Tips: How to Create a Brand that Retailers Desire

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Wondering where to start when it comes to building a brand for your small products business? Retail Path Founder and Buyerly’s co-founder and resident Retail Buying expert, Vanessa, presents this course to cover the basics of products branding and marketing.