sell rolex Question&Answer:
Question by nice_gentle2000: Is it true that major name brand companies will not sell to wholesalers?
I’m talking about real items like rolex, coach, etc. Not the nock offs just the real stuff.
Best answer:
Answer by Dave M
It is true. I used to be a sales rep, and some companies’ products were “not found in stores”. But what seems to be the normal evolvolution of a product/company is that first they don’t sell to wholesalers, like Walmart, Sam’s, Costco, Target, Best Buy, Kroger, Home Depot, etc… but only to boutique stores, coffee shops, small businesses. But as the company gets better known, they usually agree to sell to larger and larger retailers so that they can get the big orders, though usually at some discount. Then eventually they sell out to anyone who will buy their product, like a crack whore would.
I worked for a coffee roaster once, and tried to persuade the owner to only sell to coffee houses and gift basket accounts. But he wanted to be all grandiose, so he agreed to BUY shelf space in a low end grocery store called Bi Lo. I was shocked and knew that the shoppers of that store wouldn’t be interested in paying more, just to have gourmet coffee. And it WAS very good coffee, with the best packaging I had ever seen on coffee bags.
Well, the coffee didn’t sell in Bi Lo at all. So, he wasted his money, and now he sells to coffee houses all over the northeast GA region. But one of his biggest businesses is in the gift basket business! Oh, and when I say, “he”, I mean the new owner who bought him out when he ran the business into the ground. This new business has now also gone into Publix, which is a more upscale grocer. But I’ll bet Publix came to them, rather than them going to Publix.
I worked for another company that sold bath products. We sold to small boutiques, gift shops, salons. We didn’t try to get into Bed Bath and Beyond or any place like that. But we did lots of shows, and I once went to a hotel gift shop and showed the products to the manager, who loved it. She told her division manager about it, so they put it in their 5 stores. It did well, and so the corporate office got interested, and put it in all of their airport stores. That was the W.H.Smith airport shops. And then Paradies wanted in on the business, who is Smith’s competitor.
Then onetime, the owner was at a gift show, and a buyer came up and wanted some samples. Well, he said he would SELL her some, not give her any, since she was with Disney World. And he figured she was just using her position to get free stuff. Weeks later after he had sold her a number of samples, she called him and told him that Disney had decided to put 2 of the items in all of the gift baskets that they gave to guests in their hotels. And could we handle about a 10,000 dollar order every 6 weeks or so. He was shocked, as we were a small company. Of course he said we could though.
But we never had to sell to discount stores at all, and got into all kinds of great places, all over the country.
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