Retail is a war- read at your own risk!

Why do I say that?
After about half a year we have the products available in the market, I still struggle (if I must say), or have challenges to get into more retail stores (not even mention about more marketing to let the consumers know)


Here's the trick part: 
1. The retailers are hesitate to take new products because they are unsure how it will sell (or it's not a guarantee sell)
2. The retailers want to take products mostly only from distributors because it's easier to just pay 1 invoice
3. The retailers expect the demo, price discount, coupon, in-store flyer, etc marketing to promote the products to help sell through (which is understandable)
4. The distributor are even more hesitate to take products from a new vendor because they are unsure how many retailers are (really) interested
5. The distributor and retailers are concerned about the shelf life (good thing our products have long shelf life) and returns
6. The distributor expect even more of the marketing (ad calendar) tools to get the retailers to buy
7. The distributor expect a big margin... plus the big one demand to use a broker as sales person so they are sure the products will be sold to the retailers. 
8. The brokers should represent us, however they also represent many products, and could build up the costs before cash flow even comes in. 
9. And that is not the end; with big distributors the manufacturers are expected to have at least 9 months of cash flow ready before going into them and before getting paid off. 
10. All these will take a big chunk of the retail price consumer pay to get the products, leaving the manufacturer little margin.. so it's definitely a state of art to get it done!


Tricky, tricky, tricky... !!  There is no short cut, and we will just have to fight this retail war!


I guess that will require good strategy, steady cash flow, persistent, and many more communication, marketing, etc to get it right!!  Wish us good luck!! 

Vegan Essentials

Have I mentioned Vegan Essentials?  Besides the fact that they are a huge and awesome online vegan retailer that supplies all the eco-friendly and cruelty-free vegan products, as a business partnership they are just so wonderful to work with!!  Friendly, professional, timely, well-manner, I cannot think of anything that's not positive to say about them!   I sincerely hope this will be a long term relationship!  :)

Learning something new everyday- the "relationship" between Distributor and Retailer

If one is at the natural food business, one's gotta know UNFI- major natural food distributor across the country, besides many other similar size or rather smaller ones that one can find online.  I guess our goal is also to get in with UNFI so the products can be widely distributed.  

The article posted by Jane Hoback on Natural Food Merchandiser says so beautifully that the partnerships between the distributor and the retailer is really like a "relationship" that needs time and effort from both end to develop, on top of the pricing, marketing promotion, flexibility, and inventory availability, along with a large selection of products to choose from, and the service.  There are many things a retailer look for in a distributor that distributor look for in the vendor.  Learning this will help us to provide exceptional services and products to our end-customers while staying competitive and a valued vendor for others!  That's what ecoVegan strives for!