How To Get Products Into Retail Stores?

How you write a letter to get your products in the stores?

• Answer:

  First find out who the buyer for the particular item you are trying to sell, then you send the letter to the person attention. If you send it to the store to no one in particular it will just be trashed. Answer You don't. Instead, you make appointments with the stores' buyers and sell the products in person. As a recovering retailer, I can tell you that stores generally do not care if your product is new, innovative, unique, feature-rich or whatever. This is what we care about: 1. Does this product sell? Any time I bring a new product into my mix, I have to reduce, or eliminate, shelf space for a different product. If you're selling a new soft drink, and all the ones I sell are in these nice neat little rows, I've got to remove a row of a product that is selling to put your product in. If your soda won't sell at least as well as the soda I have to pull out of the rack, I don't want it. Be prepared to prove your soda sells. 2. Product ordering procedures and lead times. Big retailers all order through EDI. Small retailers fax orders in. Can you accept orders via EDI? What's your cycle time--the lag between ordering product and receiving it? If I drop an order for a 40-foot container full of your product on you, can you just containerize and ship or do you have to make them? 3. Tell me about your RTV procedure. If you send me a container full of Valentine's Day pink teddy bears holding hearts that say "I Love You" on them, and it's May, can I ship it back?