And what have we learned?

In case you haven’t been paying attention to the news this week, the economy has been on some kind of bizarre roller coaster ride. The stock market has made huge gains and losses from day to day, the Fed cut their short-term interest rate by a staggering 0.75%, one of Europe’s largest banks was defrauded out of billions of dollars, and the President and the House have settled on a bipartisan “economic stimulus package.” All this comes on the heels of rising unemployment and the sub-prime mortgage crisis, not to mention during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

So what does all this economic craziness translate to? In short, making things hard for the small wholesaler like me. I’ll go into the details of my recent sales experiences in a minute, but let me just put some general advice out there first. If you are thinking of releasing a line of design goods for wholesale:

• Make sure you have a back-up source of income.
• Take a bookkeeping class and price exactly how much your line will cost to produce, ship, store and market, so that you know exactly how much money you will need to raise, save or borrow to pay for your entire first shipment.
• Start with something small. Smaller, less expensive items are easier and cheaper to ship, to store, and to find buyers for, because it means less investment in cost of goods and store space for owners.
• Start early in the year. The whole process, from pricing manufacturers to receiving your first shipment can easily take six months and stores begin buying for the holidays in July and August. You will definitely want to ride that wave your first time around.
• Set up a website where you can sell your goods retail, in addition to wholesaling them. You may sell fewer items at a time this way, but you’ll make a much higher profit off of each one.

These pieces of advice are ones I wish I had received before starting out on my Sweet Meats venture. It turns out that releasing a line of plush toys is a royal pain in the ass. Not that I regret doing it, or that I will give up anytime soon, but it is an expensive way to learn through trial and error.

Last week I exhibited at the California Gift Show in Los Angeles. The show ran from the 18th-21st, and while many people expressed interest in my products, none were really buying. I got the same response from everyone when asked if they would like to place an order: “Let me talk to my sister/wife/partner/boss about it and we’ll let you know.” This is exactly what buyers say here, too, when I visit their stores. I find this especially frustrating with buyers who already know my products. A few have mentioned seeing them sell out at craft fairs and one even owns a Sweet Meat already. What gives?

I have a few theories about the lack of sales to store buyers–all of them, I think, equally likely and valid:

1. It’s after the holidays. Business is slow, and the last thing store owners want to do is buy more items that will just end up sitting around.
2. The economy is not great and people are much more cautious in their spending in general, but specifically don’t want to invest in anything new and untested.
3. I’m not a good salesperson yet.
4. My price points are wrong.
5. I’m waiting until March (when I can sell these retail, as well) to send out press releases.

I’m going to give door-to-door visits a couple of more weeks to work out. At least this way, if people don’t order from me, I can ask them why, face-to-face. Then hopefully I can fix whatever I’m doing wrong and get back on track. Either way it works out, I’ll keep you posted.

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