Auto Atlanta has contacted us, About our products Options

[morph]

Auto Atlanta has contacted us about some of our products. They have ordered some and are going to do an evaluation on them. If we get a contract with Auto Atlanta we may not be able to sell to the public anymore do to the volume that they are talking about ordering.

[Eric_Shea]

Morph,

Disclaimer: I have my vendor prefferences but I'm not discussing those here. When I say "they" I mean a contracting vendor "in general". This is not a shot against AA or any others.

As a previous National Sales Manager for a Fortune 500 Company, I would strongly recommend against putting all your eggs in one basket. If they want you to sign an exclusive... don't. If your products are as good as everybody says, they'll buy them regardless.

I constantly had a national chain store attempting to get us to pull from their competitors, offering larger orders etc. Don't be fooled, once they have you, they have you. Sign the contract, get the money up front and increase your staff if need be to handle all the orders. That's a position most companies strive to be in. It's a fine balance, backorders can help drive sales (implied demand), backorders that take too long can annoy customers and lose sales. Be as accurate and as honest as possible with both vendors and direct/end consumers regarding your lead time. If they're expecting a month and it takes two... well, you know the drill. (hope the guys in Eaton Rapids are reading this... I didn't mention your company by name.) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

I agree with other posts as well... send samples to all vendors. Serve a well rounded segment of the community. Sell here (and other places) at your retail prices so your other vendors can't complain about you going direct to the market. This also allows you to maintain a level of self-sufficiency in case they want to demand concessions beyond your abilities. Allow them to discount slightly however, set a MAP (minimum advertised price) and make all vendors adhear to it. If they don't, cut them off. They can only devalue your products by getting into wars with their competitors and discounting your goods into oblivion. They'll be happier in the end. They can all sell at a pre-set price and they'll make a decent margin selling "your" products.

Hope that helps the decision making process...