Selling to Christian Retailers

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The Christian retail market is large, with over $4.5 billion in sales. Books and Bibles make up 41% of the market but that still leaves a large percentage for gifts, greeting cards, children products, music, videos and other items of interest. This is an ideal market for inventors and new product developers to approach because retailers are innovative, always looking for new products and because the market has a lower number of suppliers compared to other markets like kitchen stores and gift shops.

The industry has three launch points for your business: Christian Retailing, The Association for Christian Retail, and the International Christian Retail Show. Christian Retailing, (www.christianretailing.com), is widely read in the industry, has a large new product section and also has a special new product called the Inspirational Gift Mart (www.christianretailing.com/index.php/about-us) which is published four times per year.  The Inspirational Gift Mart is given away both at Christian trade shows but also gift shows around the country, capitalizing on the fact that many gift shops also include an inspirational or children’s section.

The Christian Retail Association, (www.cbaonline), is hard-working site designed to help Christian Retailers succeed. It also publishes a magazine, Christian Retailers and Resources (www.cbaonline.org/nm/RRsubscription.htm), which has  many stories of interest as well as a new products section. The Christian Retail Association also has a resource section that lists many of the suppliers in the industry: www.cbawebsearch.com. The site allows you to find competitors and also complementary products that might work well marketing together with your product.

The Christian Retail Association also has a list of over 100 distributors that serve the market (https://onestopinventionshop.net). You can choose to sell direct to retailers, or to retailers through distributors. You can also chose to sell direct to both channels through your own sales efforts or through independent sales reps.  The upcoming section on finding the right contacts explains how to find sales reps for your product.

The International Christian Shows is held in June/July of every year, and the next show is being held July 15-18th 2012 in Orlando Florida (www.christianretailshow.com). This show has about 410 exhibitors, 2400 attendees and is a viable place to meet customers, possible sales reps for your products, or marketing partners.

What Are Your Goals

You really have two goals, and this applies if you have a product to sell or it you are just getting ready to enter the market in the next six to 12 months: 1) find people in the industry to help you package your product right, have the right features and price your product so it will sell and 2) find people that will help you sell your product and get a jump start at major potential customers. You will increase your sales anywhere from three to ten times if you find some truly savvy industry people to help you.

Three of the best candidates for help are: 1) other Christian retail oriented companies that are in your area since local people are often ready to help you, 2) companies that have recently started, these companies’ owners and marketing people are often ready to help another new person in the industry and new companies might open to suggestions that you combine for a joint marketing effort to cut costs at trade shows and also to present a more appealing package of products to reps and distributors and 3) sales reps that are already in the industry. Reps usually are sales people for companies whose sales don’t generate income for the rep so they branch out on their own to carry four or five lines. These reps usually have a lot of market experience and can be a tremendous asset in selling our product.

Finding the Right Contacts

1. Attend the trade shows as a visitor before you are ready to start selling. Most booths aren’t very busy in the morning and late in the day and you can walk around and talk to people in the booths that appear to be from smaller companies. Some of the booths will be new companies where the principals will often be willing to give you advice on how to sell your product. Often the booths will be manned by independent sales reps who represent many companies. You can get their card and arrange to meet with sometime during or after the show to see if they will be willing to represent you. Finally check the show directory and be sure to visit the booths of any company in your geographic area. These companies often will help someone in their own area get started in the market.
2. Send for all the new product literature from the trade magazines. The information you receive will often be from an independent sales rep that is in your local area. You can also look up the company information once you get the information to see if the company is a small company where the company founder is involved in the business. You don’t want to solicit help from companies that are direct competitors, they probably won’t help you. But my experience is that at least 30 to 50% of people from non-competitors will offer you advice. Sales reps can be particularly helpful if you offer them a share of the business or make an offer that they can be your master rep (take a 1 or 2% on all sales in return for setting up a sales rep network).
3. Talk to the retailers in your area about who are the best independent reps that call on them. Talk to those reps and see if they will give you advice on setting up your sales and marketing plan and also if they will be willing to help you set up a program.

NOTE:  If you are having trouble finding reps One Stop Invention Shop does offer a list of reps for Christian stores on its web site for $24.95. (https://onestopinventionshop.net/books/sales-reps/)

Creating a Marketing Introduction Plan

If you have followed the steps outlined above you will have a large list of actions, but not an organized plan. You want to pull together an action plan of what you are planning to do before getting started. Include in your plan the following but be sure to add to the list any other actions you are planning on doing.

1. Determine pricing, packaging, discounts to retailers and distributors and commission structure to sales reps if applicable.
2. Determine distribution method, i.e. reps to stores or distributors, direct sales to stores only or another sales process.
3. Plan on acquiring sales people, either your own employees or independent sales reps.
4. Plan for shows you will attend.
5. Determine associations you will become involved with.
6. Create a PR campaign.
7. Consider possible joint marketing agreements with others
8. Target key accounts.
9. Target geographic market.
10. Set sales goals by quarter.

Once you have the plan you then you need to start executing it to get your product into market.

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