Working with smaller boutiques and giftshops can make the difference between success and failure for many beauty and accessory brands - making sure retailers succeed is crucial now more than ever.

Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

While Direct to Consumer selling has been a key business model for many well financed brands, most smaller start-ups rely largely on local retailers for at least half their sales. Any seasoned marketing will tell you that selling B2B is far less costly and time consuming than marketing directly to the public. While margins are smaller, brands can make up the difference by selling at scale much more efficiently than B2C alone.

Here Are Five Ways Brands Can Support Smaller Retailers:

1) Photos - Most brick and mortar shops that formerly had no shingle to swing in the digital wind are working hard to get web selling going. To that end they need good, well organized, hi res images of your products that they can access 24/7. Many of these retailers are short on cash, like all of us, and are putting together these online stores either on their own, or with the help of interns and freelance designers. Make sure they have access to images that are at least 2000 pixels wide and that are clean and professional. Offer both silhouetted images and lifestyle shots in horizontal and portrait formats.

2) Product Descriptions and Brand Backgrounders – I can’t tell you how many brands I’ve worked with that fling their products into the ether with little more than a one sentence description for a retailer to work with. Good, thorough descriptions and selling guides help drive local sales. Include a description that tells shoppers why they should buy your product, and include details like dimensions, size chart, ingredients, colors, fabric content, materials used, country where made, and any other detail that’s pertinent.

3) Don’t Compete with Retailers – There’s really nothing worse than being undersold by a brand you’ve been spent time, energy, and cash promoting. Don’t panic and offer deep discounts online that you don’t in-turn offer to stores that carry your brand. Remember everyone is watching right now and turnabout is fair play. If you undercut retailers now, they just may cut you out entirely when the economy resumes. Also, if you’re running short on stock, communicate this to your retail partners as you would at any time.

4) Feature Retailers on Social Media and Blogs – Support the efforts of local retailers by mentioning them in your feeds. You can also host web events with them via IG Live, Zoom, and TikTok Live.

5) Keep Your Store Locator Up to Date - Make sure your store locator is updated so that regional shoppers know what retailers to reach out to if they want to buy your products locally.

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