Getting your product onto store shelves will be one of the greatest challenges you will face. Be sure you can answer some basic questions that will help you identify retailers most likely to be interested in your product. Black Enterprise Magazine offers these questions to ask yourself:
• What kind of consumers want your product?
• What are their income ranges, lifestyle, and interests?
• Where do they live?
• Where do they shop?
The answers to these questions reveal which retailers to target and those to leave off your list.
Here are some tips that you may find helpful for getting your foot in the door.
• Reduce the risk to the retailer. Stand behind the product by taking some of the risk off the retailer. If a retailer agrees to give some shelf space to your product, offer to buy back anything that doesn’t sell within a reasonable period of time.
• Offer to cover the cost of point-of-purchase marketing, such as signage.
All of these things will reduce the extraordinary costs to the retailer of introducing a new product. Once the product has proven itself, you can establish a more traditional wholesale/retail arrangement.
Regardless of the approach you choose, unless a retailer sees some clear benefit to your product over what she/he currently offers, convincing him or her to make the switch will be a tough sell. Your product needs to have the potential to improve profits, increase customer traffic or satisfaction, or in some way make the retailer's job easier.
