Finding the right vendor that will work with you and help your business is one of the hardest parts of retail. If you are just starting out not only must you find the true wholesaler suppliers, you have to find ones that will open the door to you. In many ways, retail is like the ‘good old boys club’ they really don’t want newcomers to join.

Here are a few tips to get you started.

Make sure you are buying from a reputable source.

• Look at their history
• How long have they been in business?
• Generally it’s better to find your source offline; like a trade show or through a business association
• Check the suppliers references with the Better Business Bureau, do a Google Search on the company, etc

Start small and build a relationship

Ask what the MOO is (Minimum Opening Order) and try to keep the first order at that amount. 

Try to conserve your capital (cash) don’t over-order. Ask for show discounts if you are at a trade show.

Once you’ve ordered, reviewed the products and company the next step is to set-up a credit account.

Purchase on credit (not your credit card – on the vendor invoicing system) and pay off completely before due date, but not too soon. Keep your cash as long as possible. But always pay your suppliers on time. This one step will get you more goodwill than anything else you do!
After you have ordered and paid a few times, it’s time to start negotiating. Suppliers and sales representatives will be more open to working with you after you show them you are a reliable seller. Find out if there are any ‘early order’ discounts. Early Orders are placed before they bring in their supply. Vendors will give you a discount if they know you’ll take delivery as soon as their shipment comes in.
As you start to build trust with the vendor and see how they control their inventory you can decide whether the company is reliable enough to approach about drop shipping. If the supplier keeps good stock, has a good communication system (or customer service support) you should consider approaching them to work out a deal. Ask the vendor drop ship the larger or more expensive items while you continue to order the smaller or less expensive items in larger quantities.
If your vendor agrees to drop ship don’t expect a super discount on the drop-shipped items. Because your supplier is holding the inventory, tying up their storage space and capital investment, they’ll expect the lions share of the profit. That’s OK, you’ll still be ahead of the curve because you can offer a greater ‘depth of inventory’ or larger selection for your buyers.

Building a relationship with your suppliers takes time. Expect to start slow. As you get started (unless you have an ‘in’ with the company) you probably won’t get the best prices on products until you prove yourself. Conserve your cash, start small and build slowly, and always be on the look out for the next vendor to start a relationship with. It’s healthy in business to have more than one source for your products.

Using Twitter & Facebook For Business

I know that social media is all the rage these days.  You’ll hear every marketer and guru tell you that you “must be on Twitter and Facebook.”
They tell you to get out there and be friends with others but they never tell you how or why. Without that important piece of the puzzle you wonder what the value of it is, and how it works.

Let me quickly tell you. Selling products is more than filling a need for a customer. It’s an exchange. Sometimes, it’s simply an exchange of an item or cash – but often, in the buyers mind, it’s an exchange of cash for a lifestyle improvement. That’s a pretty big thing to your customer and they want to know they can trust you to give them what they seek.

That’s where social media comes into play. Using blogging, facebook or twitter to show people who you are, what you know, and how you can help them builds trust in an otherwise faceless medium; the Internet.

The main focus of “being social” is to use these applications to build relationships with your customer. However,  I think many of us are Twittering – or using Facebook or MySpace and not seeing the results we are looking for – because we are targeting or ‘friending’ the wrong group of people. In other words we are not targeting our segment of buyers.

Start thinking of who you have on your friends list – are they your family and friends – or your customers? Here’s the difference if you have friends and family, are they your purchasing customers?  For example: It’s great to have all your family following you on Twitter, it makes you look very popular indeed. But those thousands of followers aren’t necessarily your buyers.

If you enjoy the ‘social’ part of social media, perhaps you should have one account to talk with friends and another account to build your list of potential customers.
You’ll get a lot more return on investment by following the one simple rule below.

SOCIAL MARKETING GOLDEN RULE: Spend your time on socializing with YOUR CUSTOMERS.

 If you have time and energy left at the end of the day, spend the rest socializing with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

 Here are five more tips to maximize your social marketing:

1. Focus your Tweets and Facebook posts on your business. Make the blurbs benefit your customer; “just in rare first edition Harry Potter” or “check out this blog post about Starbucks Collectibles” These types of tweets are much more interesting to your buyers than which conference you attended or what you had for lunch.

2. Toss in an invitation to join your blog RSS feed, Twitter Account, Facebook or MySpace account in every email or package you ship to your customer and tell them what’s in it for them if they join. Super bonus – make it a handwritten invitation signed by you!

3. Don’t waste your valuable time on sites that don’t return the investment. Check out the social media sites demographics before spending time building a following. Facebook is more likely to be your place if you sell products to women over 40 – Twitter if you are selling to Internet geeks and marketers – MySpace to the youngish rockers, etc.

4. Post regularly – people love stability – but don’t take up all the oxygen in the room! Twitter & Facebook can seem like a really loud party with everyone shouting to be heard. Tip: People who post too much, get removed from feeds.

5. Ask questions! Your clients and customers want to know you are listening to them more than anything else in the world! Set up surveys, invite them to reply to your tweets and posts and be open to comments.