Best way to go about introducing a wholesale option?

[Pap_sak]

Holiday was great!

Yeah, see you being a little stuck between a rock and a hard place, your cost are quite high, but what you feel as a fair retail price is not much higher. And I tend to agree with you, R350 is about as high as you can go. Retailers do take smaller margins on certain item, like tennis balls - but these are generally "stock" items that move out the door pretty quickly. Even some brands have lowish margins, like your basic Converse takkies - but again this moves pretty quickly and is a quite a big brand and they can be found in Markams, Edgars ect.

Have you looked at any other places that offer sublimation and try get your cost price down? Secondskins are quite big down here in the Cape and do quite a bit for larger brands. http://www.secondskins.co.za/ might be worth getting a quote.

You might find, at the end of the day, selling on the internet works best for what you do, it seems to have work for the laughitoff crowd.

[Mark Atkinson]

You see, all this was factored into my original plan not to sell to retailers. There are just so many variables to consider.

We are hoping that our shirts will move quite quickly too, though. I have spoken to 2 other retailers who contacted asking me if they could resell the shirts. Both of them seem to be quite keen to buy them at the suggested prices, so I think we will probably go ahead with that plan.

I think +- R100 per shirt profit for the retailer is decent, particularly if they become popular. I have had tons of people asking me where they can buy the shirts offline. Unfortunately, if retailers don't see it as enough of a profit margin, there is really nothing we can do. They can always attempt to mark prices up even further.

Regarding our costs and suppliers, to be honest I don't think we could do much better. The great thing about our supplier is that we are provided with a finished product. We don't deal with label companies, we don't need to source materials, nada. They import all their own stuff and at the end of the day, we get our product, complete and with minimal input from our side. We have actually asked for quotes from many places. Most say it's impossible to do. Others are priced much higher (30-35%) than what we already pay.

Our supplier gives us good prices and an outstanding quality (the shirts really do look very, very good). The thing with sublimation is it's a slow process that produces high quality products, hence the cost is higher. We do not wish to sacrifice quality for price whatsoever.

So at the end of the day, I am indeed stuck between a rock and a hard place. :? Nevertheless, we will continue forward with our plan and introduce the wholesale option to those who wish to use it, seeing as we have had interest expressed on the matter. Hopefully the shirts will move quickly, retailers will be happy, we will be happy, and the customers will be happiest of all.

Otherwise, we will simply continue with the online sales. Either way, I'm happy. :P

[Pap_sak]

Well, you have a great idea, so am sure you will make sales, and yes, I am sure some retailers will be happy with that margin - in fact, for some retailers (I am thinking food) that is a great margin - maybe the local SPAR would take a few? Who knows, if your orders pick up, maybe you can get the costs down at a later stage.

All the best.

[Mark Atkinson]

Thanks for the feedback, Pap_sak.

@ms123: It's easier said than done. Our product is not just any product. It is rather unique so we have found that it markets quite easily.

Also, we prefer to make and build on our own business model as we go - it's how we roll. I like to explore different things rather than to choose somebody else's idea of a "good" business model. Of course, I might (and probably will) go wrong plenty times along the way, but I can bet you that I'll pick up on a whole lot more techniques and learn a huge amount more that way.