Selling products to lighting shops, electricians

[Redarress]

Hi can any one give me a idea of what a electrical shop or lighting shop would expect to mark up the prices he bought stock for. We have just started manufacturing garden lights and are not sure on price structures. Our producs are high quality so are nearer the ligher cost end of the market £100 for the smaller products going up to £200 for the more expensive largers lights. How much would the retailer mark these up for ?

Thanks for any help
Sam

[manty]

Typically they work off a suplliers retail list

Work out a retail price based on the wholesaler(electrical group) paying Retail=52% and the independant shop paying Retail between -40 to -46%, they will then be able to give discounts to trade ect

[Chris_w666]

Plotloss is probably your man for this.

[Neil135]

Most stores will expect 50% of retail price and some would like 50% +20%. Most wholesalers and stores would not like you selling to end users or sparks direct. What sort of products are they i may be able to help as im in lighting.

Just looked at your website tough market mate

Edited by Neil135 on Sunday 12th April 21:41

[Redarress]

Thanks for your thoughts Chaps. Yes it is a tough market but we have owned the tooling that makes the lights for twenty or so years so setup costs were zero. The direct selling route is attractive because our margins are much better but the volume is lowish and advertising costs are highish. Selling to electrical/lighting shops etc if we get enough volume would be good but you have to deal with giving trade credit accounts and the possible bad debt that with the state of the retail market goes with it. I do think that there is a niche market for well designed quality products that are manufactured in the UK. We will,however,never be selling 10's of thousands of units per annum.

Any other thoughts ?

Thanks

Sam

[Mill Wheel]

ebay shop? Look for any competitors product as a guide, and price up for "buy it now".

A lot of ebay shops are there to sell cheap goods, while advertising more expensive ones via the shops own web site.

[Goochie]

Sam.

We sell lighting and electrical accessories through the wholesale trade, to small independants and the national chains like CEF etc. As already mentioned, the wholesalers wont' like you selling directly to "their" customers. However, they will be very quick to pass the buck if there is an issue with the product and they cant be bothered to work it out for themselves.

This can be really simple things like "what size hole do I need to cut" and rather than looking in the technical info we supply to all wholesalers, they just hand out the manufacturers phone number.

Many smaller wholesalers are members of the http://www.aiew.co.uk/ who help them get the same prices from suppliers as the national chains.

Your comment about a niche market for well made British products would be true if selling to Joe Public directly. However, wholesalers (despite what they say) only care about the price and the amount of grief they could potentially get from a "bad" product. If someone offers them a Chinese made product that is cheap and of good quality, you'll struggle to compete if being British is the product's best feature.

We recently dropped a product line because it was too expensive - despite being machined from solid stainless steel and being far superior to competitor's equivilents, the wholesalers couldnt' see through the pound signs. Ours was a "cheap" Chinese product too!

If you have a website or image/spec of your product it would be a little easier to directly answer your questions though.

Edited by Goochie on Sunday 12th April 23:40