Approaching e-shops

[qportx]

Hello,


We have an adult enhancement product and we have started quite recently.
My question is, we are trying to approach the online adult shops,
we have fairly professional email & subject headline, ive been calling to everybody to get any competent email(whereas at the end I will obtain one you can find on the website :D)
and our offer is not even profitable for us, we just want to place it to as many places as possible.
I know those sites are getting a lot of attention but I dont see why none would not reply to us especially when the offer is really good.
Am i doing something wrong or missing something?

Thanks

[Freelancier]

E-mail is cheap, easy, and ignorable. You need to adjust your sales model.

Start with the shops in your area. Call them, set an appointment with the store manager or whoever is responsible for purchasing. Cut a deal to get placement in a few stores at no margin, get feedback, use that to improve your product, and by then you'll know who the big distributors are (because the store manager will tell you when you're ready to know that) and the price point that has the product flying off the shelves. Then go to the distributors with that data and cut a profitable deal.

That's the basics... I'm not familiar with your exact market or the dynamics of it, but that's pretty much the way you get going in retail when you don't have enough money to make an impact and buy shelf space right out of the gate.

Also, get online presence with your own site, use press releases, anything that will get you online sales without having to have a physical store to push your product.

[Harold Mansfield]

Everything he said and especially this



Also, get online presence with your own site, use press releases, anything that will get you online sales without having to have a physical store to push your product.
Exactly! What are you doing for your OWN online presence? What's YOUR website look like? Are you selling your own product online? Do you have a fan base on social media? Nice mailing list? Good reviews?

You aren't going to get ANYONE online to take you seriously unless you show them that it's already working and you're doing it. At the very least, look the part. Like you're taking your own product seriously and have invested some actual money in it's marketing. Most people aren't going to do it for you. They want a product that is ready to go. Reviewed. Branded. And that already has some kind of following, even if it's small.

[Freelancier]

Do you have a fan base on social media?Do adult "enhancement" products have a fan base on social media?? :cool:

[Harold Mansfield]

Do adult "enhancement" products have a fan base on social media?? :cool:
Heck Yeah. Think Trojan, Doc Johnson, Adam and Eve, Strip Clubs, Strippers, Adult film stars and models... They all have social media profiles and they all have fans.

Not sure what kind of product this is. It may be tricky, but I've seen products that you would think are pretty private do marketing that gets people engaged.

Even Cottonelle has 26k Twitter followers. Charmin has 50k. They do it with humor, contests, and give aways.
And of course running nationwide TV commercials for the better part of the last century also helps.

[qportx]

wait guys.
we have an website with outstanding converion rate.
we have presence on all social medias and also sell on ebay.
we have our product fees listed all over the internet and use click campaigns.
We are making sales already, we just lack traffic and for the reason that we are purely online based we want to approach online eshops, so the question is how to
get to a relevant person to discuss the business with.

[Harold Mansfield]

wait guys.
we have an website with outstanding converion rate.
we have presence on all social medias and also sell on ebay.
we have our product fees listed all over the internet and use click campaigns.
We are making sales already, we just lack traffic and for the reason that we are purely online based we want to approach online eshops, so the question is how to
get to a relevant person to discuss the business with.
That's pretty important information. Good for you.

So moving forward..I don't know the adult products industry or pharmaceuticals. But with other online retailers like say a Macy's...getting products in usually has a process that is pretty much like the old days. A sales meeting. Obviously everyone can't travel to every home office of every online retailer, so the process has to be a bit more streamlined.

I would investigate how others do it, like say Amazon or Zappos to get an idea of the process and then cater your approach. Seems to me if they are in the business of carrying other people's products that somewhere they have information on how to apply or submit products for consideration and what the rules and processes are.
That's probably why your emails are falling on deaf ears, you're talking to the wrong people, the wrong way.

Just spit balling here.

[Freelancier]

Places like eBay and Amazon already have a process to get you set up with your own e-shop within their respective platforms.

It might be the drugstore.com's of the world you're looking to approach. In which case, it's not going to be simple, but you need to dig through their Terms of Service pages, About Us pages, etc. to find a corporate phone number. Then you call and ask for the owner or the office of the President, depending on the size of the company. Then you worm your way to the right person and ask for 5 minutes of their time and get their process for adding products from independent suppliers. Be ready with numbers for drop-ship costs, inventory management, returns handling, that kind of thing. It's a sales cold call, so you'll have to be persistent and smart to get through to the right person and make a winning pitch.

[billbenson]

You can see if there are any decent adult forums left. They are pretty much a dyeing breed. If you can find one where the people are civil and explain your citation you may get help. In the adult world its pretty much run by the big boys and quite hard for the little or new guy to enter. You can also be more explicit about the product on those forums.