Justine Smith Media

This is part 3 of my Push Past Selling series. The first post in the series talked about the guilt of selling.

Part of the reason I created this series was because I asked the Facebook community “What terrifies you most about selling?”

The majority of the answers had to do with fear of rejection, which I wrote about here, but another few answers had to do with sellers worrying they would not being able to meet the demands of larger orders.

These responses shocked me because I realize just how many people are holding themselves back from higher sales and success because of fear they can’t produce quickly enough, afford enough materials or juggle all the different income streams coming through. Over the next 3 days, I’ll go over exactly how you can push past selling by tackling each one of these common selling demands.

When I began selling on Etsy in April 2009 I had dreams of making my business huge, but at first my focus was on reaching Etsy only goals like getting lots of sales and making the front page. Within a couple months, I had over 150 sales and was featured on the front page 5 times so my plans started expanding off Etsy.

The big shift in my business happened when I saw a thread in the Etsy forums requesting sellers submit their work for a new brick and mortar store in the U.S. While I didn’t know much about wholesale (other than it meant larger minimum orders) I sent her a message and a week later got a $150 order for my jewelry.

Besides the thrill of making big sales, the idea of having my jewelry in stores I could actually visit made me so excited that I went nuts emailing stores in hopes of buyers loving my work. After not receiving the response I hoped for, I purchased a custom designed line sheet which I used to create a wholesale catalog.

After emailing the new line sheet with my pitch, my business got treated differently. I heard back from stores more often, I landed meetings with buyers and even had several out of area stores place large orders without asking for samples.

The problem was, I didn’t plan for wholesale and so instead of sitting down and mapping out this new path, I ran with it and found myself with three major problems. I started overspending on materials, barely meeting (and in some cases, missing) production deadlines and struggling with my Etsy orders.

I was so overwhelmed with wholesale and inventory management that I eventually put my Etsy shop on hold to regroup. I used the time to finally sit down and figure out how to make things work better and after some experimenting, found several solutions that helped me stop overspending on materials.

Here they are:

1. Keep your selection fairly small

I’m a moron. When I first created my wholesale catalog, I literally showcased everything I could possibly make in hopes that offering more of a selection would get me larger orders. Some items I hadn’t even designed were plopped on top of other pieces and styled in a way they looked finished when they weren’t, just so I could snap a quick shot and add it to the line sheet.

I ended up with over 300 items available for wholesale and that meant if buyers wanted 4 of every piece (and me not knowing ahead of time, which pieces), I had to have enough materials to make 4 copies of each 300 designs.

My advice to you, keep your selection fairly small by offering only 50 items or less. It will ensure you have a nice sized collection to offer buyers while keeping your sanity in check.

2. Use as little suppliers as possible

After I realized how ridiculous it was to try and wholesale 300+ pieces, I began designing my collection based on suppliers in order to cut back on the number of people I purchased from. While it may sound silly to design a line that way, it really helped me save on material costs and still offer a beautifully tailored product selection.

It doesn’t matter if you make jewelry, sell soap or create bows for babies, there will ALWAYS be a shiny new materials you happen upon that you think will give you the design breakthrough you hope for. While it’s great to be as unique and original as possible, ordering crap without thinking (or budgeting accordingly) will seriously affect your profit margins and well being.

If you have too many suppliers right now, start weeding them out based on prices (better bang for your buck is always better than buying the cheapest materials) and location (the closer the better). You should also take a good look at your best selling pieces so you know right off the bat which suppliers you for sure have to keep.

My last word of advice: collections and styles change so if you do get to under 5 suppliers like I did, make sure they offer a good selection of materials for your creations, that way you can always introduce new lines down the road without adding a new supplier.

3. Raise your prices

A couple months into wholesaling I realized that I needed to seriously raise my prices because while I made enough to pay my living costs, I had little left over to reinvest in my business (for things like materials, supplies and marketing costs).

Once I raised prices I did see a decline in wholesale orders (only at first) but I no longer was working for peanuts (my well being and financial outlook improved) and the respect I got from other local designers increased since I wasn’t flooding the market with under priced items. I also began adding new stores who were willing to pay for the higher priced items and eventually worked my way back toward income that paid for living and business expenses.

The most important aspect of raising prices is that you will make a bigger profit on each piece sold and need less materials on hand for creating.

For pricing help, check out my 4 tips in Pricing Your Products for Wholesale or check out these great pricing posts by Megan here and here.

4. Stock up, wisely

Advice on how much material to have on hand will range depending on the designer you ask but I followed a simple rule with large orders and it helped me tremendously with overspending on materials.

I kept enough inventory in stock to create 4 of every item I wholesaled because while the buying habits of stores varied, the majority of them wouldn’t buy more than 4 of one design.

Two buying trends I noticed were buyers from kitchsy, eclectic stores would buy 1 copy of tons of designs while buyers from upscale, trendy boutiques would buy 3-4 copies of a smaller group of designs (that normally complimented each other).

5. Follow your own rules

Your terms and conditions are created to help make wholesaling easier for your business so stop chasing the money and follow every line you put in there to a tee.

If a buyer wants her order rushed and your soap won’t be ready by then, tell her no. If you can fill the order as quickly as she wants it but your terms and conditions say you must charge an extra $100 for rushed orders, charge her.

Same goes for materials. If they want 5 of something and you only have 4 in stock, tell them 4 are available and resist every urge you have to call up your suppliers and rush a shipment of more materials over (HUGE profit waster).

By following your own terms and conditions each and every time, you’ll enjoy selling a lot more and worry less about materials.

6. Keep diligent track

It’s easy to keep track of supplies and materials when you simplify your product line and stock up wisely but make sure you set up a time each week to sit down and track your inventory to ensure you order only when needed and never have to do an extra physical check because of slacking.

If you have nothing set up for material tracking, here are a few popular solutions:

FREE Inventory Tracking Spreadsheet from Holly @ Accounting Spot

Raw Material Manager by Miss Sideburns $$

Jewelry Design Manager (not just for jewelry makers!) $$$

Check back tomorrow for the next part in the Push Past Selling series, where I’ll offer some words of advice for how you can produce your items quicker (while keeping your sanity) to meet the demands of big selling.

(photo credit: rowhouses by jen skelley)

How do you keep a handle on your raw materials to encourage big selling success?