Many brands have the goal to get shelve space with local, regional, and national retailers. It can be a challenging process and sale for many manufacturers and marketers. To make effective sales and have successful meetings with retail buyers, skin care brand representatives should be prepared and know what to expect.
Successfully pitching and selling skin care products to retailers involves a few steps and some knowledge. Basically, brands must look big with their identity, online presence, and how many people are involved. Plan well in regards to customers, competition, and scalability. Also perfect the pitch itself for selling and negotiating deals. Finally, grow and expand the business. Replicate what works and keep at it.
Sell to Retailers Skin Care Products
How does a brand get into retailers with their skin care products? First, buyers of retailers are responsible for making these decisions. Different types of buyers decide what products are being sold through the stores. For example, for the skin care market and products, personal care buyers of local, regional, and national retail chains make those decisions.
Smaller retailers will potentially have buyers that are willing to deal directly with the skin care brand. Larger retailers will not talk to brands directly, but order from distributors. Just like the retail chains, there are local, regional, and national distributors who supply retail stores with products. The larger the distributor or retailer is, the harder of course it is to land a deal.
Larger distributors also these days have rules that force skin care brands to retail products locally first. In some cases, brands must have each of their product SKUs on the shelves in at least 15-20 retail locations before national and larger distributors will entertain carrying the product line.
Selling Skin Care Products
What does a brand need to sell successfully skin care products to retailers? Skin care brands should have the following ready prior to approaching retail buyers. To improve chances for retail, the following should be considered by skin care brands.
Quality Packaging and Design of Skin Care Products
The quality of the packaging will be the first that a buyer will see and this is true for consumers as well. Regardless of the quality of formulations, for brands that wish to gain retail distribution and deals, the packaging of the products has to be of a certain quality and match the price points and desired target market expectations.
Brands must be ready to supply buyers of retail stores with their product line to review them for quality of formulations and product packaging. The packaging must be appealing and attractive to have a chance.
Sales Sheets, Price Lists and Product Details
With the product line, buyers from retailers expect to receive product details, pricing lists, and sales sheets of each product and SKU. These are materials that buyers will expect to receive and some of them need to be by industry expectations. For example, sales sheets need to be double-sided 8×11 in color and gloss quality.
The price sheets need to list all the appropriate prices such as Wholesale, Suggested Retail Prices, and any discounts and financial details relevant to selling the product line.
Professional and Quality Skin Care Website
Once a retail buyer gets pitched or introduced to a new brand and skin care product line, most buyers will research the brand online. It is very important for brands to have quality and professional looking websites. A proper website can make a brand appear larger, more established, and retail-able.
Quality skin care websites can drive sales for a brand offline as well. A quality website design can provide the proper image to buyers in addition to the quality of formulations and packaging. Buyers prefer to give brands a chance that have great PR and visibility in the market.
For skin care brands to have better chances to land deals with buyers and get distribution with retailers, brands must be ready and meet the standard expectations of buyers. Unprepared brands do not always get a second chance.
Having quality skin products, packaging, branding, and online presence can drastically increase the chances to get retailers to carry the products. Brands must ensure to be prepared and ready prior to approaching buyers and distributors. Skin care brands that would like to drive sales can always get the help through skin care business consulting services.
