Tools

The Basics

Starting a new brand and selling products is an exciting endeavor and one of the fastest ways to scale a new business. When deciding to sell there are two common options: retail which includes brick and mortar stores such as Walmart, Target, and Costco and online which means direct to consumer or through online retailers like Amazon. Getting into stores is done a few ways, here are some common ones: meeting with retail buyers and securing orders, working with distributors to carry your products and have them sell into stores, or hiring and paying a brokerage to take care of the selling. Online is a little easier to setup, here are some common ways: you can start your own website and ship orders directly to consumers or work with a online retailer like Amazon to list your products and pay a fee to ship them.

We help breakdown the process for each of these and give you the basics of what you need to know to start your business and get your products selling.

Retail Channels

Retailers

Whether it be Home Depot or Kroger, brick & mortar stores are a big way to see your product sell into the millions. Most retailers start with a review process where they look at new products sometimes up to a year in advance. Based on these reviews they decide what to carry in their stores and start the setup process for placing orders.

Getting your product reviewed by a retailer can be done in a number of ways, whether they happen to find you through social media or at a tradeshow or in the more formal context of a buyer meeting. Getting your product seen and in front of retail buyers is the first step, you will also have to impress them enough to place their first order.

Distributors

Distributors are another great way and sometimes easier way to get your product into stores. Distributors cover territories and a wide range of stores. They add another layer of margin to your product price so expect to forfeit a bit in profits in order to get in with a great distributor.

Distributors can cover a lot of stores quickly, so this is a great option to see your store count rapidly grow and cover small regions that may want your product but aren’t serviced by some of the big box retailers.

Brokers

One way to help boost your chances of getting into retailers is working with an established broker. Brokers do a good job of taking the work-load off you and handling all of the selling. They have established relationships with accounts and can secure meetings and push your product so you don’t have to. This all comes at a cost though and can mean money up front and commissions for sales.