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When and How to Get Paid

When and how do I get paid where's the money so again retailers will pay for your wholesale order when you ship that order out and again retailers will pay when they placed the order so when you're selling wholesale it's in my opinion recommended that you accept credit cards it puts you in the driver's seat it makes you proactive so that when they place that order you can capture their credit card information and then you can proactively charge that card when everything's ready to ship on whatever ship date they asked for, you know there are extra fees associate id with accepting credit cards but in my opinion that's the cost of doing business and that's just the cost that for the luxury so to speak, of being able to run these cards without waiting for them to pay you so some other methods if you don't accept credit cards some people do except check some people dio send out paypal or other types of quikbook invoices or something like that now the thing about that is you have to wait fo...

r that money to come in you have to wait for the check to arrive you need to wait for them to actually go online and pay the invoice so you there is sometimes a delay in her shipping because you haven't received that payment so having the credit card on file on dh charging that when the order's ready when you're starting out that's easiest in my opinion way to do it now, there's some caveats to this. If you start working with sales reps, they are going to be offering terms to a lot of your account, and we'll talk about that when we talk about sales reps during our hiring, a sales rep course, but, you know, and that's, where people will be paying by check and that's after you ship the product. But in a typical wholesale world where you're not offering sales terms in that respect payment terms, you know, you charge that card, you ship the order. Everyone's, good to go. Yes, there was a question about that in terms of credit cards. Rhonda warren says that last year's nss, we had a fair amount of retailers that did not want to give out their credit card information because of fraud activity. So we said, we call for the information when the order is ready to ship, but then we spent a lot of time on repeat phone calls to get the information. This year, I was planning on telling them we would send an online invoice a few days before the order was due to ship. Does that sound like a good idea? That is a common problem around trade shows, because when they did have their cards running, like there's a lot of fraud around the shows because they're giving their credit cards out to a lot of people, and then sometimes that information could get the wrong hands or it is your responsibility, by the way to maintain like that credit card information and keep it safe. So do you look into the ways to do that? If you are at a show, make sure taking all of your orders home every single day with you never leave those things behind one you don't want to lose order, but to you don't want that credit card information to be available. I would typically say no to sending the invoice just because I like to be the one in control of the payments, but if you're not able to get them on the phone to get the credit cards and the invoice and try that way, really, you just want to get the payment information any which way you can. I know more and more people are saying, call me for the credit card information I usually like to call at least a month in advance it's because at that point they should know if their credit cards, good or not on dh say you know we have let's say hypothetically, is june fifteenth and the order set to go july fifteenth or that's when they requested the ship date you know just call june fifteen say hey we've got this order ready to go next month I just wanted to get your credit card information now it does take time to follow up it does take a lot of time tio get that information so the more you can get when they placed the order the better off you'll be now a couple of things happen tio with show orders or even with orders that come directly to you sometimes the cards just don't go through and sometimes they're declined not because of lack of funds but sometimes you have the wrong what I'm finding most common is the zip code that's tied to the credit card is not the store address or it's you know the billing address for the credit card is a different address in the store so on the order form that's in your bonus materials it talks about billing zip code toso always make sure that when you collect that credit card information that you're getting the billings that because that's probably the number one thing that the number one reason cards air declined other than you know fraud or something like that um answer that question I think so okay do you have another one? Yes it's going to be wanted to know and there's been some votes on this question as well many stores in the fashion apparel and accessories industry will send a check after they received their order thirty to thirty to ninety days well what do you thoughts on this any suggestions on on on how to handle it? Um yeah so those air said those repayment terms is there you know that well it's probably not thirty or sixty but they're just paying late on it if they're that late if that's it I would be surprised if that's the industry standard I typically don't offer payment terms unless it's for a re order and I've developed a relationship with that store and I have a sense of like they pay on time and I'm able to get a hold of them and we've kind of built this relationship the secondary when I offered terms is when I'm working through my reps in my ribs have vouched for the store and know who tow dole out terms to um that's a tough one because especially in the jewelry I mean your your production costs are higher that's shelling out a lot of money for the order before you're receiving payment I would try in that case I would try to get a credit card information for the first order to establish that report with them and let them know that you'd be open to discussing payment terms for secondary or you know, for the past three orders on dsi what they say about that so you're being flexible there and that you're saying I'm open to this but for the first order legless still, you're in the dating phase let's still get to know each other here like all strip you the products you paid me on time. So that's what I'd recommend simon and say it's also ok to have a credit application if you I haven't extended terms before so it's totally normal to say you can apply for terms we need credit references or have them felt some information with banking information, established vendors and that's another way to vet people, especially if you have a large order with a story that doesn't pre pay that's a really good way to consider it too that's a great point, I think you've released kind of just some of the other end of that, so when you get to the point where the store is sixty or ninety days right past dio any tips for politely following up sand on and what is staying on on them look like in my opinion is, well, is it a direct order? You're talking about her threw up either or direct a direct order? Dr dot all right, we'll go through eso director I would you know, I would call I would get on the phone, I've found that e mails are less successful in that because they can easily ignore an email, whereas if I'm calling, I mean it takes more effort to call, but if I'm calling you know, they can only dodge you for so long, or the other thing is to let's say, you're holding the order is all packed and ready to go, and you've tried for I mean, I've had stuff sitting there for, like, a month and hadn't been able to get the credit card information all call and say, if I don't have payment by x date, you know, given another week or so, then we're canceling the order, and so that gives them, and oddly enough, I got payment on that pretty darn quickly, but my point is just, you know, kind of lighting a fire under them in a way by, you know, kind of not threatening them, but just kind of setting some boundaries around it, right? You don't, you're you'll be out cost of putting that product back on the shelf, you know, like, re that order sitting there, not going out, it means it's not being sold to somebody else. So yeah, see autumn with phone calls, I mean e mails work tio maybe then try sending an invoice a secondary option and see if they just pay it. You know, if you can't get that credit card information. You know, online invoices aren't a bad thing I don't mean to say that you shouldn't do them you know, they do serve a purpose in a lot of different ways and if if a retailer is accustomed to getting them that way and prefers payment that way and you're ok with it, do it I just like the credit card having that on file give you a little more control over collecting that payment so but in terms of following up I would call see if that makes the difference sending online envoy see if that works on dh then at some point you got to say, you know, if we don't have payment by this day we're gonna have to cancel so some payment processing, square straight quickbooks there's a lot it's and lots of different payment options out there this is where you also need to do your homework and look at what the cost is for different ones because these air wholesale orders you are going to be running them virtually so you became them in rather than swiping them and there's usually a different rate for swiped um, cards versus keating cards so, you know, check their tio so yeah, but you do need to have access to some way too two swiped his card virtually um okay should tweet this out your must have wholesale tools what does that? What does that include? You want to have a catalog or line sheet order form and a working web site? I know that sounds silly in today's day and age, but a working web site that also includes your wholesale information. So it has a section on your site dedicated to your wholesale stuff. And this if you if you don't want it out to be public, you could make this, you know, something that requires a password, or it could be a contact form that says, contact us if you're interested in wholesale, we'll give you a log in or something like that, but the's air kind of the bare essentials that you need so what's the purpose of these sales tools, though, you know, why do we need them? It makes it easier for the buyers to buy. I feel like a broken record a little bit today because they keep saying make it as easy as possible, but really, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to place an order. It makes you look polished and professional, and it makes you look on top of your game. So it really does set you apart from the competition if you have these things in line and ready to go there's a retailer here well in southern california that came up to me at the national stationary show last year and told me that she could tell right off the bat who have been through my courses because they made it easy for her to buy. And they were professional. And, like she, they had the answers to all of our questions before she even asked them. So it really does set you apart when you've got these things figured out ahead of time. So and then to these seals tells a really critical when you start working with sales reps again, it's, kind of more just having those ducks in a row and being ready. So, um, I wanted to kind of what did we learn? Thiss was like a lot of information over the course of the audio of questions, signs had a question about way, just talked about sales tools here, she says. Is it worth sending free samples? Tio retailers to sell to test out? Your product for purpose of sale? Is it worth sending free samples to people to sell or to test out your product? This is really my answer to this depends on what you're selling teo for something like a greeting card where it's the low cost to send samples, I think it's a really great marketing tool, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that you send them to them to test their market by putting them on the shelves. If you're sending any samples, they should really be to show the retailer what your product is, how it's made and what it looks and feels like the quality really like the purpose of sending them samples to show them the quality and how it's packaged and all of that, you know, for luxury goods. It's not feasible to always in sample. So that's, where great product photography comes into play on some other things that we'll talk about later, but yeah, I think if you do start to sell severe send samples, it needs to be for more of a marketing purpose, and I also think that it depends on what type of product do you offer? I wouldn't send, you know, on expensive jewelry piece or, you know, apparel or something like that, um, but that's, just my take on it.