Are you hoping to find wholesale buyers? As the eCommerce industry continues to grow, so do opportunities for sellers. With more and more brands looking to sell directly through their websites, there is increased demand for both manufacturers and wholesalers.
However, doing business alone as a wholesaler or manufacturer can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. That’s where the internet plays a big role in making it easier for wholesalers to find buyers.
This article covers seven simple ways that you can find wholesale buyers in your WooCommerce store. From taking a product photo to writing an automated email recipient list checker, discover how you can boost your chances of selling to businesses that buy in volume and value alike.
Identify Your Target
Almost every online business owner would want to have more wholesale buyers. Customers are the lifeblood of any online business. You need people who will buy from your online store most especially those who will buy in bulk or wholesale.
The first thing that you need to do is to identify your target customers. If you haven’t identified your target market, you can learn about how to do it here. Identifying your target market will let you determine the best channels for marketing and promotion. By doing this, you can advertise to the right customers who would most likely buy from you.
List Prospective Wholesale Buyers
List all the possible wholesale buyers who/which you think your products will best fit. After that, research more about them by browsing through their company website and getting their contact numbers and emails. Also, find out the best way to approach these wholesale buyers. Know that these wholesale buyers are also looking for your products especially if it will sell like hotcakes to their customers.
So, how do you promote your products? There are a number of ways to do this, but remember that it involves trial and error to know which one will best work for you and reap the most benefits from.
7 Ways to Promote your Products to Wholesale Buyers
1. Reach out to Wholesale Buyers
First off, you need to understand the motivations of your prospective wholesale buyers- what will make them buy your products? Once you’ve laid that out on the table, it’s time to reach out to them. If your target wholesale buyers are located in another state or country, you must maximize digital technologies to promote your wholesale business.
Once you have their contact number or email address, you can call them personally, or you can email these prospective wholesale buyers to introduce your company, give a link to your online store, and send attachments such as brochures, catalogs, and newsletters. Also, let them know about the benefits of buying wholesale such as offering discounts and special offers.
If you’re thinking about the best way to approach buyers, store owner Giselle Gyalzen said in an interview with Aeolidia, “Look through their site to see if they have submission guidelines. For us, we have an online submission form that we ask you to fill out. If they don’t have one, email or snail mail is best. Or both. Also, tell them why you think it’s a great fit!”
2. Get traditional
Promote your products in the traditional way via snail mail, brochures, catalogs, product samples, and face-to-face meetings. Get to know the store and its terms and conditions to know whether it will be beneficial to your business. During the meeting, show the product catalog while discussing why your products will fit the store and sell.
BabyChick Designs owner Debbie Weinstein said in an interview with Etsy,
“Call the stores. If you happen to get the owner or buyer on the phone, ask them right then if you can make an appointment to come show them your products in person. Keep your introductions short and sweet on the phone. Furthermore, she said, “Visit the stores. Email the stores your new collections, specials.”
Consider the cost and Return on Investment (ROI) with this traditional method so that the ROI will be higher. Plus, Small Business also cited another way to promote your business is to join trade associations where you can meet prospective wholesale buyers, and/or join exhibits where you can showcase your products.
In Launch Grow Joy, Katy Kassian of Buffalo Gals Bakery said,
“My best tip for how to sell to retail stores is Direct Contact. It is much easier to sell my baked goods when I can speak to the buyer directly and tell them why my Biscotti is so unique, and give them a sample on the spot… And if I don’t make a sale, the person I am speaking with is usually very willing to refer me to another person or company who may be.
3. Contact your Existing Customers
You can leverage existing customers by letting them know the benefits of buying wholesale. Prior to that, you can sort out which customers would potentially be wholesale buyers, and contact them.
They say that the cost of getting new customers is much higher compared to selling to existing customers. The logic is that these existing customers have availed of products; thus, they have a certain level of confidence or trust in your company.
4. Run Wholesale Promotions
To entice customers, offer discounts or limited-time offers of your products if they buy in bulk. Post these limited-time offers and big discounts on your products on all your social media pages. You may opt to put a Facebook advertisement and target these ads to a specific audience.
You can use our free marketing automation plugin Just-In-Time Sales Offers which lets wholesale customers know about your limited-time offers or discounts. It detects what is in their shopping cart and pops out a discount or offer if they buy it in bulk or avail of a bundle.
This plug-in lets you target specific wholesale customers so that they will not miss out on this special deal. It is user-friendly; plus, it does the upselling automatically for you!
Want to have more tips on running wholesale promotions in your online store? Then read the post of Josh Kohlbach on how to improve the wholesalers’ shopping experience here. You will be amazed to learn amazing plug-ins such as WooCommerce Wholesale Order Form that lets customers place wholesale orders which you can easily install on your site.
5. Think social and create remarkable marketing campaigns
Before even promoting your wholesale business, you need to create a remarkable marketing campaign that will get people to talk about your products. You can also look at what your direct competitor is successfully doing, and learn from them.
Social media is still one of the best online marketing channels nowadays. You can advertise on Facebook and other platforms to let a specific targeted audience know about your company and products.
If you want to get in front of a lot of prospective buyers, be consistent in your social media marketing campaigns. You can do this by updating your Facebook pages, Twitter, and Instagram accounts on a daily or weekly basis. Don’t be too robotic and business-like in the social media sphere; be social.
Exude a friendly and trust-worthy vibe on social media, and develop good relationships with your followers by sharing helpful advice and information. Don’t sound too pushy; sometimes, a funny picture, video, or GIF will drive more shares and likes. The goal of promoting in social media is to get more visitors, and eventually, more customers for your online store.
6. Get prominent industry bloggers to feature your products
For those starting out, getting traffic for your online store and name recognition in the market is an absolute must. After carefully picking out prominent industry bloggers of your niche, you need to get in touch with them if they would be open to featuring your products and online store.
Introduce yourself first and what you do, and ask them whether they can review your products. Once they approve, send them product samples for review. Although, you cannot dictate whether the product review would be positive or not. If you believe that your product will help customers, then don’t be afraid to get your product reviewed.
Being featured in prominent and well-respected blogs in your niche will help boost your prominence and site traffic. Plus, these niche blogs are being followed by your target customers; so, having your company and products up there will surely increase visitors and traffic to your store.
7. Employ a Sales Representative
You may also opt to have a skilled and capable sales representative in charge of advertising and promotions. Make sure that the sales representative will increase profits for your business; he/she will best represent your company to wholesale buyers.
Business owner Debbie Weinstein said,
“You can hire a sale rep for your product line that will travel to stores and try to sell your products. You can either pay them a salary to represent only your company or try to find one that represents several product lines and pay them a percentage of the sale, like 15%. This usually involves an annual fee, plus a percentage of each sale, so make sure you review the fine print on the contract if you go this route.”
Conclusion
If you’re looking to sell more products on your website, then reaching out to online buyers is a must. But getting them to buy from you isn’t as easy as just asking. You need to make sure that your offers are right, and that the prices you’re asking are fair.
If you don’t know where to look for wholesalers in WooCommerce, then this article may help. It explains some of the easiest ways to find wholesale buyers in WooCommerce, so you can reach out to potential suppliers and sell directly from your store.
Have more tips on how to advertise your online business? Let us know in the comments section below!
