7 Things That Predict Wholesale Success or Wholesale Failure
Growing wholesale as a maker or independent product business is an investment – you invest time, money, and effort – and you hope that over the long term, your wholesale sales will thrive and your business will be stronger.
Before folks dive in with that investment, so many of them want to know: Will my line succeed in shops?
I get this question from makers every day, and I wish I could give you a clear yes-or-no answer. Truthfully, it can be hard to predict. The timing, season, economy, style, and types of stores you’re targeting all play a huge role in whether you will ultimately make wholesale sales.
That said, although it’s hard to say for sure, in working with 1000+ brands, I have found several things that are excellent predictors of wholesale success. None of these is a must-have necessarily. But taken together, you can start to get a good sense of whether wholesale success is more likely or less likely for you, at this time. And, you can build and strengthen any elements that aren’t yet strong for you. Interestingly, some of these elements relate directly to your line, others to things like pricing / terms, and others to mindset and approach.
7 Key Pieces Of Wholesale Success
1. A great product.
Of course, each product line is great in a different way. But it’s crucial that whatever the style or focus, your line be high-quality, special, and also fits with the zeitgeist of the current moment in some way.
2. Success with retail customers.
We’ve worked with some people who have gone “straight to wholesale” and not sold directly to retail customers. But the majority of lines benefit from the trial-and-error experience and “proof of concept” that is achieved by selling on Etsy, in craft markets, or the like before tackling wholesale. When a maker comes to me with a line that is already beloved in one of those contexts, it becomes a lot easier to find their path forward to wholesale success.
3. Pricing terms, and an ordering process that aren’t dealbreakers.
Sometimes a maker will have everything in place… but they insist on pricing their products in a way that doesn’t give a store owner an adequate margin. Or they’ll require adherence to a Byzantine ordering process. Or write up unnecessarily rigid wholesale terms. Any of these things can be a dealbreaker for stores.
4. Not getting in your own way.
“Getting in your own way” could mean taking two months to draft an email template because you’re scared to get that first “no” from a store. It could mean quitting after a store owner says she doesn’t like your work. It could mean signing up for Wholesale In a Box but not investing the time or money to get good product photos that show your work well.
5. Good Packaging.
It’s hugely helpful to stores if your line looks great on the shelf. This doesn’t mean fancy, expensive, (or sometimes any) packaging – but it does mean thinking it through and making a reasonable plan, given the specifics of your product. For some lines, like jewelry, the line can look just fine with no packaging at all. For other lines (for instance if the product type is new, unfamiliar, or tricky to lay out on a shelf), clever packaging is a strict necessity.
6. Commitment to iteration and improvement.
Wholesale is very much a process of experimentation and iteration. We talk about “starting with good enough, then making it better.” That means, of course, setting yourself up for success with adequate materials. But it also requires a willingness to jump in as quickly as possible so that you can learn what’s working and what’s not about your approach – and then improving as you go.
7. Consistency, endurance, and keeping the long view.
Our most successful customers are those who have good months, and bad months and forge on throughout. They’re the ones who say, “My focus is on growing my business over the next 12-24 months, so it doesn’t matter that much whether I get a new store account this month or don’t, as long as I’m making progress towards that goal over the span of several months.” They don’t worry overly much about "nos" or mis-steps. They are discerning but not picky, when it comes to which stores to reach out to. They respond thoughtfully to stores, but don’t stress about every weird response. They have a system for sending follow-ups and don’t obsess about stores that never respond (or intend to order and then disappear.) It is simply too hard to be consistent if you’re getting stuck at the daily bumps in the road. Consistency is where growth comes from.
The one thing I can tell you for sure is that every single one of these things is something you can change, build, or develop. Makers who are successful at growing wholesale are made -- not born. We do our best to help every maker who works with us to develop in these ways -- as well as do everything we can on our end to make sure they have the tools to succeed.
So whether you’re a Wholesale In a Box maker or not, we want to cheer you on, on your journey. Wherever you are, there is room to grow and ways to get there.