More Hard Advice

On Sep 10, 2011, at 4:16 AM, P@aol.com wrote:

We have also as I mentioned, given this to people we know to actually test and ask them would they honestly, buy it in a shop, to which the answer was yes. These people dont sign purchse orders but they are potential customers.

***Unless you plan to sell door to door, they are not potential customers.  Their opinion is neither valid nor reliable. Retailers are your customers, and they are very likely to tell you no.  The "no" is often "no, because..."  and if you fix the objection, there is still a chance, but the most likely is "no."  Until you are in front of purchase order signers, you have zero customer input in your plans.***

 

I was hoping you would be able to share your experience of shipping procedure and these distribution problems but may thanks for your input anyway.

 

***You do not have any distribution problems, because you do not have any customers.  I could tell you 100 options for distribution, and their costs, but it is possible not a single one would apply.  You would know instantly the single one that applies to you if you were to start with the customers, and not everything else under the sun.  In fact, most stores tell you exactly what freight carrier to use.

Six months ago, had you brought in a dozen cases to usa, and pitched a case directly to a dozen stores, price 2 times your cost, delivered one case at a time yourself, and followed up in  a month, you' d know exactly what you need to do.  You'd have a dozen stories about a dozen price points and what happened. Worrying about forming biz, license, customs, "market research", exclusives, patents, biz planning based on no real information, etc, all a complete waste of time.

Your efforts are probably the most common approach people make, and it rarely if ever pays off.  At some point you MUST approach real customers.  Why not make that the FIRST thing you do?  If nothing else, you then learn what the right questions are.

John

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