Test Market! Test Market! Test Market! 1)Do you place your inventory orders in bulk, sight unseen?
2)Do you buy a couple units of product and test them on eBay first?
If the answer is #1, that’s an easy one to fix!
Unfortunately, many eBay sellers do the first – they pick a product to sell, call the distributor, place an order for a Lot of 50 units and list them on eBay.
They skip the testing.
Unfortunately, it is only after the inventory money is spent and the products are listed that they find out that the stainless steel shiny version of the product they ordered is “out” with the consumers and the wood grain earthy version they order is sizzling hot!
Now they are stuck with 25 units that won’t sell and they are sold out of the 25 hot sellers that flew out the door.
This could all be avoided by test marketing! Did you know that even the biggest name buyers in the biggest name stores ALWAYS do test marketing?
I was talking to an established merchandise buyer for one of the top name stores here in Seattle. We were talking about test marketing. Her comment was “My inventory budget is too small NOT to test market. I can’t afford to make mistakes. Test marketing minimizes that.”
Her “small” annual inventory budget? 1.2 million dollars. You can’t afford NOT to test market your products before you spend your inventory capital on bulk purchases.
You can use
Stores Promotion Boxes very effectively to spotlight new products as you bring them into your store.
Don’t stash a new product away in a category. Showcase it with a Stores Promotion Box and give it some exposure. This gives you the best chance of gauging customer response.
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