Hi,

I currently interested in manufacturing wood products to sell to
companies such as Target, WalMart, and Costco. What I am looking for
is someone with experience in selling or manufacturing to these
venues, preferably in furniture goods or durable goods, to give me
insight into the process and what I can expect. I?m not very
knowledgeable in the topic so I don?t even know any specific questions
to ask.

In the end, if I understand the process of introducing my product to
them (and hopefully some insight) as well as know what I am getting
into, then I will be satisfied. If you have anything to add please
please feel free to do so as any information is very valuable to me.

I?m currently a college student and don?t have much money to put up,
so I just wanted to thank you for providing me with this information
at my quaint price. If the price is a problem for you let me know and
maybe we can work something out. Thanks.

I'd think you would do better to start by marketing your wood products
to much smaller retailers. Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco buy in such
huge quantities that even if you could catch their interest, you
wouldn't be equipped to produce the amount of merchandise that they
might require.

Here's a story on what it takes to be a supplier to Wal-Mart.

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

Let me first say that my products are designed to be low margin, high
quantity products, but I now understand the caution when saying
"high-quantity" in front of Wal-Mart. Thanks for the response, as I
said in my question I'm a college student with little experience in
these areas so this information is really helpful.

What I was banking on, is that when initially selling to any of the
large national retailers, that I would be able plug-in to a regional
or even local distribution network at first. Then prudently scale up
to supply more and more of their business network. Thus I could start
out smaller and then build up. Is this even an option?

Also I realize that scaling up will be a big issue. My plans call for
all the manufacturing to be outsourced to other various manufactures.
Thus it seems to me that in order to scale up I only need to have the
administrative capabilities to handle the flow and the capital to
purchase the parts. Does this sound flawed?


Thanks for the responses, hope to hear more



P.S: Are Target and Costco as domineering as Wal-Mart?

Among giants like Walmart and Target, regional stores have little to
no control over the products they are able to sell in their store. In
other words, even if they want to sell a particular product, there's
nothing they can do about; they sell what headquarters sends them.

Kriswrite

Also when presenting the product to the chains, do you make a personal
formal presentation, or are you just sending informational material to
headquaters?

Thanks

Shagoob --

You'll get nowhere without a personal presentation in any large
business.  You'll need to demonstrate your own financial viability. 
It sounds in your case that if you're serious you should hire a sales
representative with experience.

Re: Costco and others, might I suggest a Google Answers search.  There
are already some excellent resources here, including this analysis of
Costco:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=290394

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA