moving from selling direct online to letting others sell your product...

[CLoughie]

Hi,

I am currently running a sports supplement website and we've done pretty well in the last few years JUST selling directly to customers online.

An obvious way to grow the business further is to start approaching independant gyms and stores to see if they want to bulk purchase our products at wholesale prices.

I would like your advice on how to do this. I think I can pull a fairly slick sales letter together but I would like your advice on how much to charge on top of cost to get to some sensible wholesale prices. Is there a formula for each industry?

I was going to send off some letters and follow up with some phone calls.

Any advice or recommended products would be great.

Cheers,

Daniel

[NamesCody]

I'm not sure if there is a market for this, but have you considered trying to create "one serving" products and put them in a vending machine type setting and sell something like that to gyms?

Only reason I ask is because there are a few gyms that are 24/7 that are obviously not employed 24/7 but have clients in at all hours of the day. It could be a marketing idea you could pass on to the gyms for consideration.

I would also think creating creatine tablets instead of the powder would be beneficial,if you haven't already, I know I prefer tablets over the powder and maybe do a protein shake already in a can (like Muscle Milk). I'm not a gym guy but I know a little bit about some of the stuff.

If your main purpose is to increase sells, invest in marketing, depending on your budget contact fitness magazines and see how much it costs to advertise, if its to expensive right now, if you have a city magazine that is just distributed to residents if your area that could be a starting point. If there is a popular gym in town print flyers and put them on cars or ask if you can sit a stack inside. Maybe contact bodybuilding.com? Consider selling on eBay as well.

Maybe sponsor a gym for a day, give out free stuff (samples, stickers, t-shirts, etc) and coupons, if people go back to the gym and ask for your product enough (even though you can't really tell a difference of a product like this after one dose) I'm sure the gym owner would want to start buying from you.

If you want to get into the wholesale business then do what you suggested, contact stores and gyms. Try getting it into Vitamin World, GNC or Golds Gym - you might not think you would be able to but you never know until you try. Maybe do some sort of affiliate program, get Commission Junction or another one to handle it for you.

The hard part is, I think, that your going to have to tell them why they should buy your product over the competition, usually people learn about fitness products by online reviews, see commercials or word of mouth from other gym members/body builders if they don't know about a product they wont buy it (at least thats how it is with the people I know who work out and take supplements)

Anyway, if I didn't help you, sorry.. I'm just giving my opinion on what I might consider trying to do if I was in the same position.

[rogercbryan]

From the simplest sales fundamentals you have the right idea. Create a sales package maybe with some free samples for the larger gyms. I would start with a phone call and then mail out the package. You may find that if you call 100 people only 10 will ask you for a package. This will save you from wasting money on the other 90.

You need to have a better follow-up plan. You need to be able to visit these places after you have sent them things in the mail. I would start locally or regionally so that you can be the person to visit the gyms. Once you have some experience in doing this then you will be able to hire and train sales reps to go out and repeat the process. The key here is to do it yourself until you have a firm grip on what your customers want to see and hear.

Vitamins and supplements are a hot items these days. Just don't overlook basic sales principles when trying to expand your business. Good Luck!

[CLoughie]

Hey Cody, thanks for the reply, very useful indeed!
Because you suggested lots of great ideas, I have commented on each one below.

I'm not sure if there is a market for this, but have you considered trying to create "one serving" products and put them in a vending machine type setting and sell something like that to gyms?

Only reason I ask is because there are a few gyms that are 24/7 that are obviously not employed 24/7 but have clients in at all hours of the day. It could be a marketing idea you could pass on to the gyms for consideration.

Great idea and some companies actually have done this. I have seen EAS protein drinks in a one time serving carton purchasable from a machine in my gym before. I would imagine that you might have to get into gyms first and then expand into something like this, but maybe not? It might be a nice little product to have anyway, saves messing around mixing it and washing out mixing cups etc… so I will look into it.

I would also think creating creatine tablets instead of the powder would be beneficial,if you haven't already, I know I prefer tablets over the powder and maybe do a protein shake already in a can (like Muscle Milk). I'm not a gym guy but I know a little bit about some of the stuff.

Another great idea, I’m ahead of you here though We actually just used to have creatine in powder, but we introduced capsules a few months ago and they are selling well! Higher profit margin too!

If your main purpose is to increase sells, invest in marketing, depending on your budget contact fitness magazines and see how much it costs to advertise, if its to expensive right now, if you have a city magazine that is just distributed to residents if your area that could be a starting point. If there is a popular gym in town print flyers and put them on cars or ask if you can sit a stack inside. Maybe contact bodybuilding.com? Consider selling on eBay as well.

We do advertise with some magazines, but on the whole have found them expensive and ROI is pretty low but we are persisting trying to find one with the right balance. We have found a couple. Ebay, we tried, but just found it wasn’t worth it. We also sold a product on bb.com for a short while, but decided to pull it so we could consider our non direct way of selling approach properly and then do it big time.

Maybe sponsor a gym for a day, give out free stuff (samples, stickers, t-shirts, etc) and coupons, if people go back to the gym and ask for your product enough (even though you can't really tell a difference of a product like this after one dose) I'm sure the gym owner would want to start buying from you.

Nice idea 

If you want to get into the wholesale business then do what you suggested, contact stores and gyms. Try getting it into Vitamin World, GNC or Golds Gym - you might not think you would be able to but you never know until you try. Maybe do some sort of affiliate program, get Commission Junction or another one to handle it for you.

The hard part is, I think, that your going to have to tell them why they should buy your product over the competition, usually people learn about fitness products by online reviews, see commercials or word of mouth from other gym members/body builders if they don't know about a product they wont buy it (at least that’s how it is with the people I know who work out and take supplements)

Anyway, if I didn't help you, sorry.. I'm just giving my opinion on what I might consider trying to do if I was in the same position.

That’s what I was thinking but starting off with smaller gyms and stores, independently owned. Then moving up the chain basically. Agreed on the hard part, we are going to put together a nice brochure which outlines the USP’s of our company and products.

Thanks for your opinions and time you took to reply to me, I appreciate it and your advice was helpful.

Daniel

[CLoughie]

From the simplest sales fundamentals you have the right idea. Create a sales package maybe with some free samples for the larger gyms. I would start with a phone call and then mail out the package. You may find that if you call 100 people only 10 will ask you for a package. This will save you from wasting money on the other 90.

You need to have a better follow-up plan. You need to be able to visit these places after you have sent them things in the mail. I would start locally or regionally so that you can be the person to visit the gyms. Once you have some experience in doing this then you will be able to hire and train sales reps to go out and repeat the process. The key here is to do it yourself until you have a firm grip on what your customers want to see and hear.

Vitamins and supplements are a hot items these days. Just don't overlook basic sales principles when trying to expand your business. Good Luck!

Thanks for the advice!

Nice to know you think I am on the right track and I agree about just getting out there. My problem is I am still running this with another job, so I am a bit limited in what I can get out there and do. Plus, I am not naturally a sales person, but… luckily my partner is and he could easily do this.

Here is what I plan to do:

Create a professional looking PDF which clearly lays out the USP’s of my company and products, along with some testimonials and awards we have won. Get a bunch of samples made up also.

Then do as you say, start sending them out. I think I will start with small independent gyms and stores and follow them up with phone calls. Once I start to build a customer base here, I can start to approach larger ones and then eventually some of the big, big guys or maybe a large scale distributor.

We have stock in the USA, so I think it would be useful to find some key distributors in some other countries. I would assume that they would already have a nice customer base to sell to and it could be an easy move into other countries.

I have some work to do : Thanks for the advice!