Wholesale Accounts
A few entries ago I talked about how I began this business by selling to different wholesale accounts, such as interior designers and remodeling contractors in the various markets around me. Well, I am now going to talk about how this approach has worked for me over the past six months. The major advantage of working with wholesale accounts is that they find the customer for you. You can skip the mass marketing campaign and focus on a relatively few people and businesses. This is also something of a drawback! You have no control over what the job includes, it is entirely in the hands of the wholesale contact.
Interior Designers and Decorators
Advantages
Interior designers are the bread and butter of my work. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, their customers are my exact demographic. They work with people who can appreciate the differences between mass produced and hand-crafted furniture, have disposable incomes, and are looking for new pieces of furniture for their homes.
Another advantage is that the interior designer works with the client to decide what the end product should look like. What style it will be, what the wood species and paint or stain color will be, and a lot of other details. So, by the time I show up, many of the details, that can take up such enormous amounts of time, have already been addressed and finalized. I love designing pieces from scratch but working with a customer is time-consuming so it is sometimes nice to skip this step.
Drawbacks
One of the main drawbacks I have to face is that many of them choose to use dozens of other manufacturers that mass produce furniture before they even think of using the custom route. They have many more resources at their fingertips than the average consumer so once I’m in front of a designer there is still a lot of work to do to convince them to go with my product and my business instead of ordering out of a catalog.
Therefore you have to work at making the process of designing and delivering a custom built piece as easy on them as is possible. If you make it enjoyable for them to come to you, they may come to you when they would have previously gone to a catalog. If you make it difficult for them, they may just choose to skip the custom route altogether, and stick solely to catalogs. The benefit of working with a custom builder must outweigh the inconvenience; of course this is true with any customer.
Many interior designers strive to mark up the piece of furniture you sell to them as much as 100%. This can make it difficult to compete with all but the very high end furniture manufacturers. Figure out what you need to charge to make a living and charge it. That is all you can do.
Contractors
Advantages
One advantage to working with contractors is that usually the job is large, like a built-in entertainment center or bookcase, so the income associated with these projects tends to be large as well. Since the contractor tends to only be in the picture as long as the house is under construction, there is an opportunity to build a long-term relationship with the homeowner during the initial project and sell more furniture directly to them in the future.
Drawbacks
Contractors are notorious for not having their act together. They call you a month before the construction is scheduled to be completed and ask if you can get the project done on time. They fail to call you back. Fail to send you money. Some can be a nightmare to work for, but others are professional. Part of my job is to figure out which ones are worth the hassle and drop the others.
Overall, wholesale accounts have been a great way for me to get my name out into the marketplace and sell furniture without having to spend a truckload on a direct mail campaign.