Hey Product Hunters! I wanted to introduce our company that we launched last year called Wholesale In A Box. We work with maker businesses such as those you would see on Etsy or at craft fairs, and help them scale by getting their products into brick and mortar stores.
We offer a monthly software subscription which includes 20 hand-picked store profiles (customized to their business), a system for reaching out and following up with stores, and a help desk to guide them along the way. It’s a method that works and a tool to get in stores faster.
We find that our makers are gaining an average of one new wholesale account per month that they work with us which translates to a 4-10x return on their investment.
@etanrbf interesting idea to take some of the hassle out of outreach, especially for small, hobbyist style stores.
A few questions:
1. Any interest in a free trial, maybe just 5 free leads or something? I see the money back guarantee, but it's always nice to see it live first.
2. What sort of help do you provide for the outreach? Is it phone numbers and emails? Are the distributors prepped in anyway that someone will be reaching out to pitch them?
3. Do you have any product categories that work better or worse then others? (for instance books vs hats)
Good idea and what looks like good execution! I plan on giving it a spin!
@swetzequity
1. It is definitely something we’ve thought about and will consider for the future. For now, we are really committed to investing in each customer with intensive support, onboarding, and what is really wholesale consulting -- and it's hard for us to provide that in the ways we want to if we offered a free trial.
2. We provide a full store profile which includes a description of the store, buyer/ owner contact information, pictures of the store and other products that they carry for reference, links to all social media, press as well as any specific submission requirements of the store. We are in touch with some of the stores but for the most part we are simply giving makers a method and system for outreach and enabling them to do the outreach themselves, to stores that are a good fit for their brand.
3. This is an interesting one! I think that their success has had more to do with their persistence than their specific vertical/ product area. So far businesses that make apparel, hats, stationary, jewelry, cosmetics, art prints, handprinted towels and bags have all had success!
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@etanrbf@swetzequity
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1. Second on the free trial. Would love to see how your quality compares to say me googling or something.
2. Sounds great! Do you do any checks around a store's general responsiveness? I am worried you might have scaling issues as you start bombarding stores with similiar product requests - though I suppose this is a good problem to have. Also would love to get a sense of MOQ or what kind of revenue one could expect (e.g., the sale does $20K / month).
I'd love to try this with some adorable kids hoodies I make for fun.
@kowalskiajason@swetzequity
1. We definitely hear you on the free trial Jason! Though re the quality, we don't have any secret industry sources though we are crazy thorough between brand samples, product pictures...etc. The store profiles are mostly in response to makers that we have spoken to who have said that they would love to reach out to stores but a. don't have the time to do the research themselves and b. are overwhelmed by the process.
2. Great question! We get a ton of feedback from our makers as we send out the stores. We have a feature that allows a maker to say if they have heard back, if the store placed an order, said no, asked to be followed up with at a later date...etc. We then use this information to further refine the stores we send to makers.
The scaling issue has occurred to us though from our research many stores get several hundred inquires a month so as long as we can send over targeted product requests (brands that would really be a good fit for the store) I believe that it will be in the service of the stores as well.
In terms of revenue/ return, think slightly smaller scale! Many of the makers we work with have a minimum order of $300-500 so if the average store orders three times over the lifetime of the account, that is $1200 in revenue or a 12x return on their investment. Does that answer your question Jason?
I am not interested in buying wholesale goods of various household items, I prefer to buy industrial parts for my business and a small project suits me for this https://eltra-encoder.eu/catalog... everything is delivered quickly and, moreover, quality goods.
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