Simplify Your Wholesale Ordering Process: 15 Do's and Don'ts
We’ve all had those “Hey! Take my money, for heaven’s sake!!” moments.
You’re in a store, items in hand, and they’ve made it almost impossible to complete your purchase and leave. Maybe the line is 20 people long but one cashier is stocking toothpaste while the other checks everyone out. Maybe they only take cash. Maybe they’re rude when you ask basic questions or make it hard to try things on.
In short: the folks running the store are too busy, too disorganized, too rigid, or too oblivious to make it easy to just buy what you’re trying to buy.
Every maker wants to make it easy for store owners to order from them. You know that if your ordering process is easy, friendly, and professional, you will improve your wholesale growth and momentum. A bad ordering process can slow you down and make it much harder to grow (even if you have a great line and a lot of interest.)
But despite the best of intentions, most makers have things in their ordering process that make it a struggle for store owners to understand the line and place an order. So today we’re talking about:
Why you might be making it hard for store owners to buy without meaning to.
How to remove obstacles in your wholesale ordering process
Our take on common conundrums you might run into.
Your wholesale ordering process is probably worse than you think it is.
It’s hard for you to accurately assess your own materials and ordering process because you are familiar with them. When you look at a photo of your work, you are familiar with the piece, so you mentally fill in missing information without realizing it. For instance, in your mind, it’s obvious how big your notebooks are… but if there isn’t something in a photo to compare the size against and you haven’t provided dimensions, then there is no way for the viewer to infer size.
Similarly, when you look at your website or ordering process, you’re familiar with your story, your line, your terms, and your process -- so everything seems a lot simpler and straightforward than it might seem to someone else. That’s why you might evaluate your wholesale ordering process as “not perfect, but pretty easy” while a store owner may decide it’s just not worth the trouble.
2 ways to assess whether your wholesale ordering process is simple
When I was in 10th Grade health class, my legs in Express bootleg pants, we were learning about the serious consequences of driving while intoxicated. The health teacher was concerned we would underestimate how hard it is to drive while drunk -- so she introduced beer glasses.
Walking between the aisles, she handed out goggles with obscured lenses, as if smudged slightly with Crisco. “These,” she said, “are beer goggles.” When you look through these, it’s as if you’ve had two beers -- now imagine trying to safely drive home with them on.” As we put them on, everything in the classroom seemed to tip and blur -- it was one of those moments of instant understanding. Your perspective shifted from “I’m sure it’s not that hard to get home with a beer or two in you” to “Ok, it would be completely impossible.”
That is the kind of perspective shift you need to assess the simplicity and logic of your wholesale ordering system. You can’t assess it with your regular “maker goggles” on -- so you have two options:
Put your bored/busy/overwhelmed goggles on. Like we did with the beer goggles in health class, I’ve found that you actually can trick yourself into having the mindset of a store owner who is on the phone with a complaining customer, has a toddler on their lap, and opened your email to review the line. Go through from start (your email) to finish (placing an order) very quickly and without thinking about any step very carefully. For instance, click on the first link in the email that’s clickable… open your line sheet and scroll for 3 seconds only… see if you can quickly understand the aesthetic, price, and ordering process while also keeping an eye on your imaginary toddler and talking on the phone. Then, evaluate where you get stuck, confused, bored, or disinterested. Make a list of those sticking points and do whatever it takes to remove them.
Get a friend (or your team at Wholesale In a Box) to go through it. One of the things we do in our coaching with our makers at Wholesale In a Box is to go through their line sheet, terms, ordering process, and website, identifying any sticking points or obstacles. It’s easy for us to be objective because we’re on the outside of their business. So if you’ve signed up for the Wholesale In a Box Course with Coaching feel free to shoot us an email and we’ll be happy to do that process for you too! If you’re not a Wholesale In a Box maker, you can learn more here or ask a friend -- send them your outreach email and ask them to review the line, consider placing and order, and actually order… and have them share where they got stuck or confused.
The simplest possible ordering process
There are a lot of pieces to refine to ensure you have a simple wholesale ordering process. But there are simple ways to ensure a smooth process. For instance, if all else fails (or you’re just getting started with wholesale), use this uber-simple process:
Introduce your line to store owners with a concise, warm, personal email.
Create a simple PDF line sheet in Canva (or even Word) with crystal-clear photos, pricing, and descriptions. And our Wholesale In a Box Course Makers have access to the easy to use Wholesale Line Sheet Template as a free bonus!
Write a Wholesale Terms page that is written in friendly plain English (not legalese) and covers turnaround time, shipping, ordering process, and other key details.
Be responsive and friendly when the store owner reaches out with questions or an order.
This is a process you can set up in a single day, likely with the resources and skills you already have -- and despite its simplicity, it often ends up being the smoothest process and structure. Any “improvement” to this process should make it simpler, more fun and faster to order from you -- if it doesn’t, consider using this process instead.
how to get your free Reference guide
To help you out, we’ve set up 15 Do’s and Don’ts as a quick reference guide to revamping your ordering process. From the more obvious tips like ensuring that you explicitly state your wholesale and retail prices, to the more obscure (ordering with you should be just like ordering a Chipotle burrito!), you can easily simplify your wholesale ordering process with a few quick fixes. Grab your free download below!