Gift Rep Sandy

Posts Tagged ‘product specialization’

Many sales reps take on any line they can find (something I did, when I first started, since I didn’t know any better).

A better choice is to stay focused somewhere near your product specialization, niche market, and what your geographic territory resonates with. Some lines just won’t sell in certain regions or to certain retail categories. If you are selling mostly cowboy jewelry and souvenirs, you will typically have a difficult time selling children’s personal care products to the same buyers.  Lots of lines will not fit in with your areas of concentration. If you decide to sell them anyway, you may appear more like a flea market, and gift buyers will wonder just what do you sell! You will lack what is called “top of the mind” awareness, when people are looking for products in your area of strength (IF you have one… make sure you do)!

A good mix of 15-20 lines, depending on the size of each line, is probably a good place to start.  Too many lines (e.g. 40 or 50) will be difficult to manage, and hard for you to do a good job with in the beginning. On the other side of the coin, too few lines (under 10) may be a discouragement to buyers who is looking for the value in time spent with you. When I got started, and proudly went through my handful of lines, the first question nearly every retailer asked was, “Is that all you have?”

Since buyers are such busy people, they like to work with sales rep having a good mix of products they can choose from.  I only represented six lines when I started. And yes, buyers often did not take me completely seriously with such a small offering. But we all start somewhere! And when I kept coming back with more lines, I was IN!  So start slowly, focus on quality lines, and defer the skepticism… you will get some at first. Just tell the truth.

“Theme” niche markets are very popular, and a good way to position yourself in the industry. Often this represents your area of product emphasis, rather than exclusivity. Gift stores are looking for that unique line that no other store carries.  While meeting this preference is difficult to accommodate across a large area, the idea is more feasible if you work in niche markets.  Examples of niche market specializations could be cowboy-themed products, or perhaps themes such as chocolate, huckleberry, “in-state”, gold jewelry, or woodcrafts.

If you do offer a specialization, make sure you communicate that fact, to take advantage from a reputation standpoint. Often, the narrower your niche, the more potential success you will experience – especially if you find a popular consumer market that is not addressed sufficiently in the marketplace.  Trying to be everything to everybody ensures that you will appeal at a high level to almost no one, although that is the more traditional model for reps. Remember that if you take the wide spectrum approach, each mini-niche you offer among your lines, is competing against a rep that might be SPECIALIZING in that niche area.

As you spend time with your lines and your customers, you will find under-represented specialty markets.  These are great opportunities to change and refine what product lines you are selling.  Not all the answers or directions come at once when you start, so allow yourself the option of changing with your themes, as you become more knowledgeable about the opportunities in your territory, and as markets change.

For now, let’s take a look at most of the significant gift product categories of products you might choose to offer (and you very probably will end up with several). This list is by no means exhaustive, but represents a large sampling of the opportunities available:

•    “General” gifts
•    Souvenirs
•    Gourmet foods
•    Confections
•    Home décor
•    Jewelry
•    Personal care (soap, massage oils, lip balms)
•    Books and/or CDs
•    Housewares
•    Toys/children’s products
•    Cards and stationary
•    Candles
•    Apparel
•    Regionally-made products
•    “Country” theme
•    Hand-crafted or artisan pieces
•    Herbal or natural products
•    Custom or private label
•    Special event (births, deaths, birthdays)
•    Holiday merchandise (Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Christmas)
•    Desk accessories

Nearly all reps try to get as many different types of product lines as they can, and offer a full menu of options for each gift store. Nothing wrong with that! Some reps choose to focus on a single specialization, such as candles, gourmet foods, greeting cards, or in-state products.

Specialization in a single category is sometimes advantageous because neighboring stores in the gift industry, particularly in towns under 50,000 population, do not like to carry the same lines. As soon as you sell one candle line to one store, competing stores in that community will prefer to avoid that line, since part of their competitive advantage is to offer their customers something different. If you only represent one line of candles, you are done selling candles in that town once you make your first sale, and must make your money in other categories. If you specialize in candles, perhaps offering 15 lines, you have a line for every shop in town. PLUS, you become known as the “candle” lady, or “hot sauce guy” or “specialty food rep,” which offers some advantages for word of mouth marketing.