Turnaround Times: How Fast Are You Shipping?
Lesson 12 from: A Beginner's Guide to Wholesale SalesKatie Hunt
Turnaround Times: How Fast Are You Shipping?
Lesson 12 from: A Beginner's Guide to Wholesale SalesKatie Hunt
Lessons
Introduction to Wholesale
08:50 2Wholesale vs. Retail - How are they Different?
06:31 3Create SKUs That Meet Industry Standards
06:36 4Size Matters - How Large Should Your Line Be?
08:44 5New Product Releases Drive Sales
13:27 6Can You Have 100 Pieces Ready By Next Week?
15:21 7How to Calculate Your Product Cost
03:45 8How to Find Your Wholesale Pricing Sweet Spot
04:05Lesson Info
Turnaround Times: How Fast Are You Shipping?
So let's talk about turnaround times um this is also known as your lead time and it describes when a retailer can expect the product to ship to them so from the time of placing the order when can they expect to receive it now one thing about wholesale orders that I haven't touched on yet is that you when they placed the order they're going to determine when they want to ship to them so they may say that they want to escape and that's when you get it to them as soon as you can which is to your typical normal turnaround time they may say that they want it on july first and so you'll hold that order and prep it you know in june for july for ship date so then they know that whatever ship date they request in their order that your turnaround times will kind of um play into that I mean if somebody order something for a few months out you're gonna have that ready to ship on june first because you've had lots of lead time but if it's more of an ass appear and as ready order you you want to get...
that done in your time frame so again you want to be conservative and give yourself enough of a buffer here but you don't want to take too long either it's not uncommon for a smaller manufacturer toe have anywhere from a one two three week turnaround time obviously faster is always better larger manufacturers as I mentioned earlier have much shorter time lines because they keep a larger inventory and they're able to they have the infrastructure to turn things around in a few days if you need tio so again, I just really encourage you to be conservative in this number when you set this don't over promise it's better to under promise and over deliver in this case. So for those of you that are already shipping things, what is your wholesale turnaround time? Carrie, do you wanna? I don't know if my head because I know it's longer than I ever actually take and that's just sort of to provide a little buffer for myself, but yeah, ok, so we say seven to ten business days, which is kind of a long time in our next catalog it'll go down because we generally ship within two to three business days that I guess gives this buffer if we suddenly find out inventory is gone because we got multiple orders and day well and that's where having the extra buffer really comes in handy because if you find yourself short on inventory, you have the time to reproduce it, but I never want anyone like we talked about earlier inventory is key when you're selling wholesale, you don't want to be kind of creating these products as orders air coming in it's just inefficient and it creates a lot of stress and it's just not a good process tohave so that's great congrats on shrinking that down that's that's also meet yeah kadiatou question yes I was wondering is it going? Is it too complicated for retailers if you have like a cap like my typical turnaround time is this up to this many pieces but oh like lettuce airing it but it's also kind of like a question of how do you estimate your inventory and and how much you should keep on hand without like well, I will say that having your like knowing your m o q and knowing what those pieces will be will help with your inventory because then you can say, oh well if I've got you know if I haven't ml q of three and I've got twenty one pieces and inventor I've got enough for seven orders essentially you know or whatever I'm just making that example of but it does help you kind of plan ahead for how much to order um did you want to chime in on that note? I just have noticed, you know, when retailers air placing an order and they're getting six um of any certain skew they sort of expect they're going to get the order but I have noticed, you know, with some monthly subscription boxes I've you know sold two or larger stores when there purchasing fifty of one card they tend to ask you know do you have the inventory in the house and can you ship so this might just be unique to our industry but it seems like when they're they know they're placing a big order and they know that that might take more time that's just what I have experienced yeah I don't think I'd hear it in my catalog or your terms and conditions I would just kind of make set your turnaround times to be something you could handle even if it was a larger order but also you're gonna have an idea of how many pieces we're talking about based on your minimum order and again I think if you start hearing things that just makes a little more complicated and and why you know unless it about unless the benefits you in some way that we haven't thought of mostly just like a seaway yeah sort of e o like the way in other ways and I don't swear by the under promise over deliver methodology is key right? Cool yes beg forgiveness yes go ahead he amanda's sign out had a question about turnaround time should we have turnaround times for each item or as a store? I have some items that I could turn around much more quickly than others. How about turnaround times for product categories that's a good question I would I would think that if they're certain thing looking at it from a seaway perspective, I would say if there were certain things you knew took longer I would probably advertise that those things took longer rather than but rather than advertising the things that were shorter lead time however that being said what we're talking about with laura I think it was earlier you know if you have stuff ready to roll if you you know if you can ship into you know these air fast ship items like that's a fun that's a fine thing to put in your catalog I might put it more in the product description then have like a different turn on time for each product type because again simple is key but you know a benefit that that's a huge benefit if she's able to turn sir you're here she is able to turn certain things around quickly but I would I would deter you from you know, every product category having its own turnaround times I think it just complicate things and I think you could put it in your catalog in a different way that still shows value to the buyer like talking about how this is a quick ship item or something and one more question from lemony about mark up ok, most of my items they're fifty percent off retail price my retailers but some items I outsource cannot be offered a fifty percent should not offer them at retailers at all or is okay to offer these at a lower markup and that question got a lot of votes from the dio people understand hearing about it you don't control what the retailer sells the item for so you can't really tell them you have to mark it up less than keystone so I think you'd be getting into a tricky situation where you start dictating what the retail price needs to be if you're selling wholesale and your margins aren't there and you can't um you know you can't make your retail and wholesale pricing correlate the way we talked about with that example of jenna and the necklace is then I would say remove that item from your line your whole set line you can continue to sell it you're retail channels but I would recommend again selling it wholesale just simply because they think you get into some you'd have some retailers that would either push back if he started asking them for different pricing or you know your margins would be off so I think it's this is something I didn't learn for a while there I knew it but I didn't put it into action everything in your line doesn't have to be sold through the wholesale channel if it doesn't make sense for you financially don't do it if it doesn't make sense in the correlation between wholesale and retail pricing don't do it you know it might be, and a b if you try to include that in your wholesale line and doesn't make financial sense, it could end up hurting your business. Overall, it could cause you more stress, you know, it's, just I don't know, but that wasn't something I really thought about it beginning. I thought, if I'm going to wholesale, everything in my line needs to be sold. We'll sail and that's, not always the case.
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Ratings and Reviews
Katy Casey
AMAZING, amazing course and fabulous instructor. Katie knows so much and does a fantastic job sharing specific, actionable insight in this course and the entire bundle. I can already tell that it's a resource I'll reference again and again as I grow my product line and I'm so happy I invested the time in it.
Laura Bridges
Katie is a very straight-forward and encouraging teacher. I was fortunate to be in the studio audience for this group of classes and have learned so much! I have had some help from friends in the industry on setting up wholesaling, however I was missing a set structure and strategy to get it off the ground professionally and timely. She makes the steps very clear, with ideas and references on how to do it or outsource what you need done. Katie ads her own experience to all of these steps, which is so helpful to hear. If you want clear, specific, strategic steps to take next to develop your own successful wholesale business, these are the classes! Katie is awesome! Thank you!!
Danielle Jones
I've taken 14 pages of notes with great guidelines and best practices for pricing, SKUS, releases and more. I'm feeling much more confident knowing the standards after taking this course. Katie is amazing!