Sell to Ace Hardware & Become an Ace Hardware Vendor

Learn how to Sell to Ace Hardware

I hope that provided value for you. If you want to learn more on the exact steps, from start to finish on how to sell a product to Ace Hardware, please take a look at my Retail MBA training program. The link for that is listed below. It is the most comprehensive course available today in the subject “To sell to retailers.” Either way, please be on the lookout for the additional videos that I create on getting your products in the stores. I hope that helps. 

To further assist you, Here are the…

Top Ten Tips for Selling to Retailers such as Ace Hardware

1. Big retail such as Ace Hardware buyeres are searching for you! 

The majority of individuals are unaware of how crucial it is for a significant retailer to purchase novel and intriguing innovations. It has a significant role in their purchasing strategy. Ultimately, huge retailers have a significant amount of competition, and their customers are finicky, desiring the next best, newest, and coolest item in the store. The retail buyers are aware of this, as they are constantly seeking fresh things. This is the finest time ever to get your products inside a chain store. You merely need to grasp how to prepare your product in order to get the buyer to buy. 

Being a retail consultancy, we collaborate with brands across all product categories! See out our activities here: https://www.retailmba.com 

2. You don’t have to be a big company to sell to Ace Hardware and other major retailers 

In actuality, the majority of the businesses I have represented throughout the years have been modest start-ups. Buyers care more about discovering the proper product than they do about the size of your business. If you have a wonderful product that they believe will make revenue for their firm, trust me,they will care about that more than anything. 

They don’t care if you’re a large or little firm; they just want to ensure that you’re set up properly to send products to them (I discuss this in my Retail MBA Training and Coaching System, which can be found at https://www.retailmba.com). Yet, you do not need to be a large firm to sell to major stores. I am aware of this because I have represented companies that were just starting out, etc., and because I teach this to numerous students who are little and just starting out. 

3. Packaging is vital to your success with retailers such as Ace Hardware

If I can give you any advice on selling to major stores, it’s that you should always invest more time, money and effort on packing. The reason for this is that when you walk into a store, you don’t see your product, but rather the product in its packaging. Consumers will not purchase your product based solely on the product itself; packaging is crucial. So a person needs to make sure that whatever product that they have that their packaging is on point, because ultimately a consumer is going to pay attention to that because they know the packaging drives sales. And this is what purchasers care about. Therefore packaging is vitally essential to your success. 

4. You must complete the essential studies and research to assist you to win Ace Hardware business!

Most individuals are unaware of how much information they may obtain by simply strolling into a store and perusing the product aisles. The truth is that you can determine precisely what a buyer wants to acquire by seeing what they place on store shelves. A store shelf will inform you of the appropriate selling pricing, packaging design, and everything else. I mean, if you consider it from the standpoint of the buyer, they choose one of your competitors. Which indicates that they purchased your competitor’s products that are currently on the store’s shelves. This indicates that the customer likes the product as it is: the pricing, the packaging, and the way it is organized. And eventually, you can learn how to get your products into stores by just entering a store and conducting the necessary study and investigation. 

5. Avoid Vendor Departments at retailers such as Ace Hardware

This implies that you should avoid approaching the front desk of a chain store to inquire about how to get your products into their locations. Fundamentally you should avoid doing what everybody else does, which is filling out the forms that they supply you online. So if you call a major shop and you want to get your products to the stores, most people call the front desk, and the front desk leads them to a department, either a spot on their website or an 800 number or whatever. 

And they want that you complete out numerous forms and submit your stuff. I believe that is the worst approach to get your products into stores because you can’t differentiate yourself; you’re doing the same thing as everyone else, and you leave it up to fate and whoever is processing stuff online to choose whether or not your products should be sold in stores. What I teach is that professional retailers approach buyers directly, which is what they do. And I will tell you what to say to buyers in order to ultimately persuade them to purchase, but tip number five is to skip vendor departments and speak with customers directly. Not following protocol and not pursuing chasers? Calling the front desk and completing out forms will take 4:34. There are additional methods for getting your products into retailers. 

6. Identify the appropriate buyer’s name and contact information at retailers such as Ace Hardware

The majority of individuals are unaware that there are locations where you can obtain a buyer’s contact information and finally identify the customer accountable for your product type. RetailBuyerLists.com, for instance, sells buyer name lists. This is an example. In fact, I have a comprehensive tutorial on this in my program. And when you view their contact information, you can determine what the customer is accountable for purchasing. 

Hence, if you have a consumer or retail product, you can discover the exact customer who will purchase it. There are firms that sell content that you can utilize, and it is crucial to find the appropriate buyer for your product type. Again I cover of all of full in my program, but it’s vital to note. 

7. Be cordial with the assistant buyers at retailers such as Ace Hardware

What does this mean? The majority of individuals are unaware that buyers typically begin their careers as assistant buyers. In essence, they imply that assistant buyers will soon become buyers. So, all buyers begin as assistants before finally becoming buyers, and most people view assistant buyers as essentially secretaries; assistants, etc. But I think it’s a very, very horrible idea because assistant buyers will be buyers shortly and ultimately if you’re polite to those assistant buyers, you will ultimately be able to get your products into stores. 

You have no clue how many times I was able to get a product into a store by being courteous to the assistant buyer. I was unique in their eyes because I realized how valuable they may be in the long run, as I anticipated that they would become a buyer for that product kind. Thus, I am always polite to the assistant buyer, which is also something to consider. 

8. Tour vendor day if possible with Ace Hardware to help you win their business!

What is vendor day then? Vendor day is a day of the week, the month or the year where a buyer enables vendors – potential vendors, people who have products – to come to their corporate headquarters and basically pitch them. It’s one day where the buyer actually goes and enables maybe 10 suppliers in one day to go and effectively present their wares. You typically have 15 to 30 minutes to ‘wow’ the customer during your initial meeting. And so that is vendor day. This is a common occurrence for buyers, who are continuously searching for new things. 

Nonetheless, I believe it’s vital that you understand that vendor day is a fantastic method to get in front of a chain retail buyer. Now personally I have a whole lot of different means to get things into shops and it’s definitely not tied to vendor day because I prefer to have one on one meetings with buyers; I don’t like my competitors there on the same day as me. So I’m always going to attempt to get that buyer alone, but if there’s no other method of getting a product into a store, I will finally go through vendor day. 

And to offer you a fast advice on how to do that (have a meeting with that buyer for that vendor day), phone their assistant and say, “I would like to participate in your next vendor day.” So their assistant buyer can help you arrange a meeting with that buyer on vendor day. So this is something to explore, but again, there are so many other ways to get products into shops, and I normally use vendor day as my last resort, but it is a way to meet with a buyer. And again, you get 15 minutes and then it’s back to back – zip – and the buyer is meeting with vendors all day; if they like your product, they may purchase it, but it’s important to recognize that vendor day is structured this way. 

9. It’s a numbers game when selling to hardware stores such as Ace Hardware

I can’t even tell you how many students of mine who have called me after they started going after chain stores and they just don’t realize how many merchants they had to go after in order to get that one hit. And the thing about selling to retailers is that you only need one chain store to say yes to your product, stock it in their store, and allow it to be sold over a test period for your entire business to be transformed. One significant retail order – successful retail order – can impact your business completely. Hence, selling to chain shops is a numbers game; you must call many chain stores since you will receive many rejections. Nevertheless, the good news is that you only need one chain store buyer to purchase your product and for it to be successful for you to be successful. 

So just know that it’s a numbers game and that you should never give up and that you will ultimately, if you believe in your product, can get your product to the stores and I teach you exactly what to do to get products into stores, but just know that it’s absolutely a numbers game – meaning that you have to contact a lot of different chain stores and ultimately all you really need though is that one shot and people get that one shot and that’s where their lives change. This is why I think selling to chain stores is so amazing. 

10. Just don’t give up when Selling to Ace Hardware

I understand that the idea of selling your items to major shops may sound daunting, but I can assure you that it is not as difficult as it may appear; all it takes is time, work, and determination. If you truly feel that your product should be in stores, you will not give up and will eventually succeed in getting your product into stores. I’ve had students who have reached out to countless customers, which is quite disappointing and stressful. Yet, when they finally receive a positive response, their lives are transformed and the road was well worth it. So if I could give you any advise, it’s don’t give up. 

I hope these top ten tips for getting your items into chain shops help you get at least a feel for what it’s like to get your products into stores. Obviously, I cover the complete process of getting a product into shops, including how to sell buyers, in my Retail MBA program (https://www.retailmba.com), but I thought this was a great starting point to get you started.