5.
Re: Lessons Learned-Advice Dec 4, 2007 8:37 PM
My advice is to "think small."
You say you are trying to get "a steady discounted supply of consumer electronics that consumers actually want to purchase." Unfortunately for you (but good for us who are Christmas shopping), the big box stores are trying to do that, too. The top 71 retailers in the nation EACH sold more than $100 million dollars in consumer electronics last year. WalMart sold more than $14 BILLION in consumer electronics. Web-based retailers sell a consumer electronics item on-line about every one-fourth of a second. (Source: Forbes) The main reason you are having such a problem is that as a small retailer, you simply can't buy, receive, warehouse, sell, and ship enough product for manufacturers or wholesalers to bother with you.
So what can you do? Think small.
Your opportunity lies in consumer electronics items that the big box stores are ignoring, but that a smaller base of consumers would absolutely want if they only knew about them. Sharper Image started with one product - a jogger's watch - and became a million dollar company in two years. Each year, hundreds of developers of new consumer electronics products descend on trade shows, place ads in trade journals, spend hours pitching to corporate buyers at big box stores -- only to be rejected. (Sometimes they even submit posts to forums like this asking why nobody seems to want their wonderful new products.) It usually isn't because their products stink, it's because they lack the mass market appeal to compete for limited catalog, truck, warehouse, and shelf space. This is where a savvy small business owner comes in.
Identify a specific consumer niche to serve, and then seek out wholesale deals on high quality, inventive products that will sell to that niche. Not only will you find reliable sources for products, your unit profit margins on those products will be much, much, much higher than they would be on deeply discounted mass market items. When Sharper Image started, their niche or initial focus was customers who valued physical fitness -- and there's no mystery about where to find those folks or how to market to them. Lands End did the same thing, only it was recreational sailors. For L.L. Bean it was fisherman. In facts, tons of big businesses like those actually began with one guy thinking small.
Think small. Hope this helps. Best wishes.
