Website Closers® presents a B2B wholesale designer and importer that has become a favorite of many Fortune 500 companies, working directly with enterprise-level businesses looking for an expert team to design and develop their products. This company is based in New York and has spent 10 years cultivating a client base among prominent retailers looking for someone to create new and specialized products. A key to this company’s success has been their ability to get products out much faster than large importers. That’s given this company a terrific reputation within the industry and enabled them to enjoy a loyal customer base that provides them with strong repeat business.
This brand has attracted sales from major brand name retail stores, and their products are easy to find in those retail shops. This company was founded in 2011 by a husband-and-wife team who brought to it more than a decade of experience in the product design field. Their goal was to create a one-stop shop where retail customers could get the kind of intricately designed products they were looking for, and to also be a place where those same retailers could throw new product ideas at based on customer feedback. With an expertise in designing specialized items, this brand’s profitability rose quickly as they developed a reputation for a fast and reliable delivery of new products in the catalog.
Once a requested item has been designed, the product is created by their manufacturing partners in China, and the products are then drop shipped directly to the client. All products remain proprietary and are sold under the company’s brand. Over the past decade, the brand has attracted major clients, including T.J. Maxx, Burlington Coat Factory, Ross, Dress For Less, CVS Pharmacy, HomeGoods, Marshalls and other off-price retailers who purchase large volumes of branded goods for their format based on discount pricing. They work directly with buyers across a wide variety of product segments.
This company works directly with their customers to review trends in key home product categories. Their expertise allows them to focus on creating items for upcoming promotions, and to approve new product designs as it relates to the retailers’ pricing. Those products are then sourced and shipped to the customer’s distribution center, providing the fastest and most efficient turnaround times. That’s helped develop a strong customer loyalty for this brand, since they’ve fully demonstrated the ability to get their clients’ products into their stores at a much faster rate than if the customer worked on it in-house. Not surprisingly, their churn rate is very low and the majority of their customers have been with them for years, giving them a valuable recurring revenue stream as those customers continue to reorder new items. The company now enjoys high profit margins. Since their overhead is low and their dropship fulfilment model is so effective, the brand has been demonstrating 22% profit margins over the past few years.
Operating out of a 7,500 square foot office space and showroom, customers can either visit their showroom or set up a Zoom meeting to discuss a product development strategy. At that point, their team can provide a detailed review of trends in that product category. Relying on their longtime clientele, repeat business, and plenty of referrals, the company has not done any marketing in the past. As a B2B business, they have not needed a website, either. That gives this company enormous scale options moving forward.
While their business model has been as a B2B wholesaler, the company could establish an eCommerce presence by listing its products on top eCommerce sites such as Amazon, Walmart and Etsy. Profits would no doubt soar if the brand diversified its business’ sales channels. There is massive potential in listing on Amazon, which has platforms not just in the U.S. but overseas as well. They could either sell products as a 3rd party retailer, or via Vendor Central, direct to Amazon (similar to their current wholesale model).
Establishing its own website would enable the brand to use digital marketing techniques to expand the customer base. That would include an SEO program on the website that uses keywords to gain strong search engine rankings, while a blog about their products would boost organic traffic. The fact that this company has excelled so well, all without a digital presence tells us that there is a massive amount of low hanging fruit available to a new owner.
A social media marketing campaign would be highly effective for the kinds of products this brand designs. Sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are ideal for that. Interestingly, the company’s products are already on these platforms from customers and vendors postings. There are other important scale opportunities within this lucrative industry as well … the company operates with a vast product category that allows them to ride categories that are exceptionally hot, then change as market conditions and consumer demands do the same. The brand could add more unique products and categories, including new home décor products. That would give their clients more options for what products could be created.
The company also can hire more workers to take on a larger number of clients. New employees would allow them to put a stronger focus on major clients such as T.J. Maxx and to meet rising customer demand. Right now, only the two owners manage the relationships and sales and have chosen to focus on a select group of clients. A larger staff would enable this business to quickly expand products and drive future sales. While this business operates out of an office in Melville, N.Y., it is an easy one to relocate. The company could be operated anywhere.
For a buyer, this is a highly successful business with a committed customer base that just happens to be among top Fortune 500 companies offering them plenty of repeat business. That’s an enviable position to be in.
A buyer now has the opportunity to build on this company’s success by using the most advanced digital marketing plans and some proven eCommerce sites to let a much larger customer base discover how much this brand has to offer.
