Discuss the process of getting your t-shirt line into brick and mortar stores and selling offline. Topics include industry tradeshows, events, line sheets, sales reps and other retailing tips and advice.
i'm just starting my own T-shirt business, and I would like to know what prices distributors expect per T-shirt when they buy between 100 and 200 T-shirts, which would be sold in retail stores for $18,99.
I really have no clue what prices they expect from me
i'm just starting my own T-shirt business, and I would like to know what prices distributors expect per T-shirt when they buy between 100 and 200 T-shirts, which would be sold in retail stores for $18,99.
I really have no clue what prices they expect from me
i hope you guys and girls can help me,
thanks,
Sander
Welcome to the forums, Fades!
Just for clarification, a lot of times distributors aren't necessarily retail stores. Some retail stores own the distributing portion, but some don't. So you don't have to go through a distributor to get your clothes in retail stores.
Typically, retailers would like to make double what they buy your product for. It's not necessarily what they expect to pay, but what they expect to profit. See the difference? Also, the number that they buy (100, 200, 500) doesn't really factor in how much they pay or how much you charge them. Wholesale price is wholesale price. So you have to keep this in mind when you are thinking of a retail price yourself. Let's say you want to put your shirt in some local stores and you have a retail price of $18.99, as you say. The store would pay no more than half of that price ($9.50) to you, so that they could make back their $9.50, plus another $9.50 on top of that.
You have to figure in your costs of producing the shirt and determine if you can make a sufficient profit. Can you buy the shirt, get it embellished (screen printed, heat pressed, relabeled if you wish, etc.) and still only be able to charge $9.50 and make enough money. Of course you could charge the retailer more, but that will of course drive up the cost of the retail price to the customer. So you have to weigh all of those things.
Hope I've been of some help! There's alot more that goes into it, but hopefully you get the general idea.
If you’re selling to a wholesaler, you’re going to have to figure in their profit too, so you’re looking at probably around 50% of the $9.50 or $4.75 per shirt.
Question is, can you be profitable at that? Obviously it’s easier to sell to one Wholesaler than 100 retailers, but chances are you’re probably going to want to put in some sweat equity and sell to the 100 retailers for an additional $4.75 per shirt.
__________________
Ravel on,
CoolHandLuke - TeeRAVEL
The apparel industry, along with some other industries, uses what are called sales reps. I guess they are kind of like distributors, but they work for you. There are independent sales reps that sell lots of brands, and there are exclusive ones that sell one particular brand.
Sales reps take clothes from manufacturers and for a commission fee, sell these clothes to retail outlets. They normally have a territory that is assigned to them by the manufacturer if they are exlusive, or they just stick to a certain territory if they are independent. They travel from store to store with samples, trying to get the stores to buy the products that they represent. For their trouble, they get a commission from the sales that they generate. This is usually a percentage of what they have been able to sell. The commission percentage is very negotiable, but is usually somewhere around 15%. If you had a good sales rep that you wanted to be exclusive to your products, you would probably want to pay them more than if they were independent and selling for other companies.
So again, it's not really a set "price" or the number of items sold, but a percentage of what they sell. So to use your example again, if a sales rep sold 100 of your shirts to a retailer at $9.50 a shirt, this retailer now owes you $950. Then you have to turn around and pay your sales rep 15% of this $950, which is $142.50. How and when you pay them is determined by what you were able to negotiate a contract for when you hired them. They are independent contractors. If you like you can make them an employee, and then they would be exclusive.
So to answer your question, it's not what they would charge, but rather what you agree to pay them, and the nature of your relationship that determines what they make.
Now getting a sales rep is another matter altogether. Most reps are very reluctant to take on new lines. This is because they have built up relationships with stores and don't want to mess that up by trying to get them to buy something that isn't going to sell well in the store. But on the other hand, if there is something that they think will sell, they can get a retailer to purchase it and place it in there store BECAUSE of the relationship they have with them. Normally, reps (and retailers) would like to see that there has been some success with the product being able to sell elsewhere before they go out on a limb and try to sell it.
Remember, it is very difficult to get stores to buy your product if it us unproven. So you need to figure out if it will be easier trying to get a seasoned sales rep to take on your product, or trying to get a store to take your product and knock on all those doors yourself, cutting out the middle man.
Last edited by Comin'OutSwingin; February 10th, 2006 at 07:15 AM.
Hey Comin'OutSwinging, thanks for that detailed answer! There's my new thing learned for today!
Sure, no problem. Glad I can help!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodney
How do you go about finding/contacting these sales reps?
This all depends on how much money you want to spend or if you are willing to do some grunt work and keep your money in your pocket.
First, the money route:
There are services online that allow you to search for sales reps for your given industry. One of them is called RepHunter. Sales reps register with them to be put in their database of reps. RepHunter says they have a network of over 7,000 sales reps in their database covering various industries. They have a couple of different pricing plans, but this service is pretty expensive and I would only recommend it for someone VERY serious about getting a rep, not just doing some inquiring. They have plans that start at $299 for the first month, and $100/month thereafter and you can cancel at anytime. You can also get a 12 month subscription for $1000. Again very expensive for something you can find out with a little work. There is a site called Infomat that has listings of sales reps that you can buy also. Which leads me to the other method...
So, next, the grunt work route:
There have been some inquiring about tradeshows recently in other threads. This is a great way to find sales reps! As I said earlier, many reps represent more than one line of clothing, so they will take all of their lines to a trade show to generate some sales. Infomat sells directories of sales reps, but there is enough info on their site that you can piece together enough to find what you need.
They have listings for all kinds of tradeshows. If you go to their site, click on "calender" on the left. There will be a listing of different categories alphabetized. If you look down at the bottom you will find, what else..."t-shirts!". This will lead you to all sorts of trade shows that include t-shirts. This is where the work comes in. You have to click on each show and go to their individual sites. Try to find the exhibitor lists. Some sites list the individual sales reps within the exhibitor list. The real key is finding an exhibitor list or directory and then finding the reps that are showing those lines listed. The person listed that you find will more than likely be an indepenent rep, and not necessarily and exclusive agent of the company that they are listed under. If it doesn't say, you can just call them and ask.
Hopefully, I've been clear. If not, just ask and I'll try to clear it up as best I can.
Here are the links, if that's okay...The infomat link will take you directly to the trade show listings!
Hopefully, I've been clear. If not, just ask and I'll try to clear it up as best I can.
Man, that was a CRAZY informative post! That's one for the archives for sure. I've got to find a way to highlight these great threads for easy finding.
Thanks again!
there seems to a be a theme for offline success going on here: tradeshows
I pay my rep back east 15%. He does about 6 trade shows a year. What they also expect are lots of samples and because they do shows they also like help in paying for those. depending on the number of lines they carry they divide it up. However my rep will not show my tee shirts but he does my bags. Why, you ask, yes you did I just heard you.. Because these shows have an abundance of tee shirt products and he calls it over kill and the prices are ridiculously low and hard to compete.
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selling t-shirt to distributors 
There's alot more that goes into it, but hopefully you get the general idea. 
