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Shipping & Payment

Payment methods that's the next thing that's gonna happen in your terms? Eso a vocabulary where you're going to hear a lot is terms and what terms mean, are you here something like net fifteen net thirty net forty five that's sixty what it means is you send the product and they have whatever that net number is days to pay so net thirty is pretty standard. You send it, they have thirty days to pay. You do not offer terms toe first time accounts no and gets not thirty in the beginning with maybe a few tiny exceptions, most museum stores that's how they're set up that's how they're billing department works if I get a first time museum store, I do grantham now thirty if you're selling to a large store, you're gonna have to give them net thirty or maybe net sixty or ninety I would negotiate anything about net thirty just to be clear, you really don't want that nightie. That is not good. Um, but you might see that you might see that come up in your contract that ninety, but for first time or...

ders, we're going to get a payment upfront. So pretty standard is that credit card either when they placed the order or you charge it at the time of shipment. So a lot of stores it's very clear that kelly anne giselle they want to just place the order give you the credit card have it be done and so that's totally fine as well. For those of you who are dealing with buyers who are a little younger and more tech savvy you could also let them pay by paypal my buyers do not do that fight certainly other buyers probably are happy too that you can provide that option as well you know, in terms of credit card acceptance you know you could take it again to a trade show like a square reader but because most people want you to wait I wouldn't use that and I wouldn't recommend you using something like square to then process these payments because of the credit cards not there they charge you that higher fee I use paypal virtual terminal for mine because they're set up but for you know, not having the card present they give you the better rates for that um so figuring out what you're gonna let people dio again make this work for you if you have you no materials, you have to order things like that and you want to make them pay at least thirty days before the order make them pay that's okay? Because you don't want to get burned right? We don't order our materials er and then have the order not come through you also need to figure out how you're gonna handle late payments and cancelled orders so what you gonna do once you grant net thirty what if they don't pay when you gonna dio you call you first of all you're gonna call him up and tell them that you want your money right not even question hey it's thirty days I'm gonna call you but how are you gonna handle that so and a lot of that's gonna very fortunately it's rare you know I've been in this business for a number of years now and it's super rare which is fantastic right? People are good sometimes they wiggle the thirty a little bit depends on what day they write the checks but generally they're pretty good but what you have to decide is you know you're sending them an invoice you're asking for money at what point are going to turn to a collections agency because that's really what's gonna happen you're gonna send an invoice if they don't pay you're going to send a second invoice probably sent a final notice and then unfortunately you're not to call the collections agency if it's a small order you're gonna have to figure out what it's gonna be you know isn't worth all that headache collection agency is gonna take a percentage but if there's some money there better to give a percentage to the collection collections agency than not get that money the other one is canceled orders so this is where you know you do want tohave some policies in place because you don't want to order materials and that haven't order cancelled you don't want a plan on some income and then having order get canceled yeah go ahead what is it possible to say that you don't accept canceled orders like you like theirs okay all right on and then also on the on the late on the late payment if you have somebody that had like late payment is it bad to just be like I don't know if this is gonna work out absolutely so if you have someone who does not pay you consistently terminate that account and actually you can't see it on this slide but the bottom of my terms say we reserve the right to terminate any wholesale account at our discretion final like if you're not paying if I wantto if I think that you're not moving enough inventory and I want to work with the store down the street that's my discretion I can terminate the account so yeah so this is actually one of the big reasons that I started you know being a little bit clearer about my policies and putting them on the back of my order form because I had a friend who if she hadn't done this it would have gotten super burned so she went to a trade show she encountered kind of ah a chain with a number of stores they wrote three orders three or four orders that were kind of face it over time I believe totaling somewhere in the vicinity of like twenty grand she sent and so she was like, great, I'm gonna have twenty grand coming in by the new digital camera you know plan for that stuff, that kind of thing and the first orders I think she said it was ok so they had broken he's up into smaller orders first one cent second one they called her and said where they wanted to push it back first, but basically then they called and said, we want to cancel all the other orders and she was like, that's great, I have a fifty percent cancellation fee you owe me that money and they said no, we don't we do this all the time for so she was like you do this all the time that's not right, but she was like, I don't care I have a fifty percent cancellation fee and you signed my order form what she also had and what I've also done. So what you've got here is I've got a fifty percent cancellation fee shipment dates that are pushed back more than sixty days will be treated as canceled orders so if they keep pushing it back counts as a cancelled order subject to fifty percent cancellation fee I also have unpaid fees will be submitted to a collections agency after ninety days. So there's, no question about that, but the amount due from that cancelled order and from any uncollected fees, we'll also include legal and agency fees. So this is what my friend had, so what she did is she she looks say she put on her big girl panties and she wouldn't call the lawyer, and so and the lawyer said, you guys signed this there was a lot of back and forth, but at the end of the day, I think what they ended up doing was taking at least most of it basically, she got her money where she would have had this, she would have twenty grand, she was counting on, it would've been gone. Now, the other thing that happened is that her lawyer did say, I think we can write this better. We're going to make this better for the next time around. So what I will say about all of these terms and conditions is I recommend you talk to a lawyer, find someone who could help you out, you know, make sure you're really wording in the right way that you're really covered, um but absolutely I also have been here late payments are subject to an eighteen percent annual finance charge. So if you're gonna pay me late that's in there and again, this is just stuff that protects you ninety nine percent of the time none of this matters, but we want it there for that one percent of the time so that you're protected and again, if you guys want to read these in super detail, they are yu guys get them and they are a bonus with purchase so you can actually see what my terms looked like our moments here on creative life, I don't know if this was audible to the audience, but every one of our ladies in the studio when they came up. I mean, this is just something people don't think about, you need to cover yourself, right? And quite frankly, until my friend told me the story, I didn't think about it my line sheets didn't used to have this on here are my order from stian you stab this now my line sheets have it my order forms because you just need to protect yourselves, it just gives you some recourse in case something happens. All right, so then you're also going to figure out how you're handling shipping. So how will you charge shipping fees the store pays for shipping? We'll just put that other right now she'd been gets billed to them, but you're gonna figure out how you charge that is it by dollar value is if I wait it might change my location I use a sliding scale based on dollar about wait doesn't vary too much in jewelry usually every order is a pound or two not such a big difference ceramics, soap, coffee a lot of the whole lot of this country that's going to change so you guys are probably going to think about a system by weight and to make it easier for buyers you might then turn around and translate that back to a dollar amount so I know that this dollar amount of coffee is so many pounds it's going to cost me this much to ship so if your order is within this dollar amount, this is your shipping rate because they're not going to know what your product ways, right? But you are going to want to be up front about that because especially if your products are heavier that is a consideration for a store we heard callie inches, I'll talk about that again it's mostly consideration ceramics, glass, soap, coffee, anything that's dense and heavy. You guys don't have to worry about it clothing it starts to be if you're shipping out a lot of product, I mean, you know you're not you're not big clothing mostly little uh, but still it could start to me used to be really clear about how much you're charging you also want to be clear about who your standard shipping carrier is through so they know how to expect it I really recommend if you're in the u s ups or fedex I used to ship all my wholesale orders through the postal service because that's how I would shit my retail orders right was pretty normal they're not always so good at delivering to biz this is and I had a lot of missing orders here store ups and fedex they come every day they're always dropping off packages eso pick one whatever works for you uh make that your standard carrier and then decide are you gonna let stores have the option to use their carrier if they want so if they so if you use ups and they say hey here's my fedex number are you going to do that? Probably you are unless it's a big pain in the butt for you give you don't have a fedex account set up using their fedex number might be a pain center in sight no sorry ups decide what works for you we already talked about that drop shipping piece but you definitely want that in your terms so in my terms I have somewhere when we find it we actually on this one somewhere it might be my line she I don't know um I have that drop shipping is an additional twenty five percent fee so that way, if they want me to send one thing to a store or to write to a customer yes, I can this is the price for that. All right, last part of your terms returns and exchanges. So how will you handle returns for damage, defective or incorrect merchandise? Yes, if anything comes into a store damage, you're absolutely going to want to take it back, but you're gonna want to put a timeline on that. So say seven to ten days from delivery because what you don't want is a store to get a box and not open it right away. And that happens believe it or not, just because something comes in doesn't mean a store opens it and puts it on the shelf right away. So you want something to come in, haven't be damaged? Have a store, not open it for thirty days or sixty two I don't know the box out lost whatever they open at the realizes damage and it gets the point. Maybe you can't file a claim with your shipper anymore, right? So we want to give them a deadline. If it's damaged, you have seven to ten days to let me know when writing I'm even email that it's gonna be returned in exchange uh then will you allow exchanges for unsold merchandise? For most of you that's probably a no you want to think about, you know, if your products get shopworn if they're handled, you're not letting people exchange unsold merchandise, you know, greeting cards, paper goods, any of that stuff. It's not coming back. I do let my store's exchange unsold merchandise because I know one that it's not it's gonna look the same. Has it did when I shipped it to him. But I also know that if they send it back to me and I send them something else, I'll be able to take that piece that they just got back and sent it to another store. I have enough turnover in my inventory that that works for me. If you're just starting out, it might not work for you. And so it's. Probably better to say it's not an option. And then you also want to figure out, and this is applicable to some categories and not others is how you handle repairs. So this is mostly fur are jewelers out there, but for anyone how you handle a repair for a manufacturer's defect. So something is out in the world, and it breaks or wears out in what seems like a short amount of time, something from, you know, the manufacturer making process. How are you gonna handle that, and then how you gonna handle it for customer damage, so if a store breaks if a customer breaks your necklace and bring it back to the store and says kennedy repaired and the store sends it back to you your charge them money for that right all right just do it not anymore if it breaks because something you know like the satyr seem just wasn't great or something then you should just fix it right but if it breaks because they threw it in their bag and then ran over it with a truck yeah I've never had that actually happened but uh then there's a should be a repair fee for that yeah yeah all right so we mentioned this protect yourself right super important talk to that lawyer we wanna protect ourselves but also to make sure that these really are good solid legal pieces so talk to that lawyer yes this is not come up in life I'm curious for myself when you're starting out your wanting to get your first sort of retail day deal and they offer you sailor returns would you accept that as an acceptable business practice when you mean like they take the goods but they don't sell them they're coming right back to you I would not take that for first time I really wouldn't just because it starts to feel almost like consignment except in a way it's tougher because you probably already spent that money and then suddenly you might have to give it back to them I wouldn't do that and most stores are going to ask you to do that it's really only like your big retailers were going to ask you for something like by back so all right, so where we gonna put those wholesale policies on our line sheets for sure always I go last page I know that there's some thoughts like maybe they should be first cause buyers want that information but fire's gonna make their first decision based on what your stuff looks like, right? So I looked I wasn't terms at the end on the back of our order form that's not the order form that has it on the back of our order form and if they are on a password protected or your online website site they need to be on there too, so if you're giving them a password protected page, they should appear there. If you've got an online shopping cart, there should be a but in that they can click that very clearly says here are wholesale terms and conditions and by ordering on this website you agree tar wholesale terms and conditions that's super important as well and again all of these you're going to decide what policies make the most sense for you and how you want to deal with it, but put those policies in I have a password protected video sale and I don't have the terms and conditions there, however, in the email that I sent the password, teo, say, in order to use this password, you have to agree to these is that I think that's good, but there's, nothing wrong with redundancy. Alright, stick it on there times more. Yeah, the more the merrier, doc. You sign he had sent an email and then have them sign the document or something you could. Typically, if you're just dealing with that online thing, you can have that sort of by using this it's going to be angry, okay?