trade buying – Page 2 – SABIVO Design's Blog

Thursday, June 18, 2015Friday, September 29, 2017

Do You Sell Your Product At The Right Price – Part 2

In my previous post I wrote about setting up the right wholesale price in the ‘bottom-up’ approach. If you have missed reading it you can catch up here.

In this blog post I will guide you through the ‘top-down’ approach, which in a way is a cross checking your calculations and probably makes you face the real retail world.

Let’s assume your cards would sell in the gift shops at the retail price of £2.99. In my last blog post we arrived at the calculation of £1.50 wholesale price of your cards, which you propose to the retailer, so he/she can sell them at £2.99. It now means that you will have to sell an awful a lot of cards to make a viable business.

Additionally, it also means that if you register for VAT you have to ‘lower’ your wholesale price to £1.25 in order to be competitive. If you ask why ‘lower’, it is because if you increase your original £1.50 wholesale price by 20% (at current VAT), it will become £1.80 (£1.50*1.20=£1.80) and the cards retail price is no longer £2.99 but is £4.32 (£1.80*2.4=£4.32), which the retailer will possibly round up to £4.49, in order to sell. This also means that now your cards are in a different price bracket and the competitors you are competing with are completely different. Additionally, as a rule of thumb, the higher the price (trade or retail), the slower the sales rate although your margins would be higher.

Despite the fact that you could never dictate the RRP to a retailer (generally, once they have paid for the goods it is their property and they can do whatever they like with them) it is advisable to know where your product sits in the market place. So, if you were generally happy with your £1.50 wholesale price, it means that those £0.25 have to be absorbed somewhere or you have to sell more product at the market place.

You can safely apply the usual mark up of 2.4 to check your prices but make sure you know it for your industry or the specific stores you are trying to sell to as it can vary a lot. For example, at some expensive places like London or for some department stores it can be 3.2. The mark up can also go up to X5 for some trendy fashion labels, which are trend setters, so make sure you understand everything in advance.

Hope this post was useful to cross-check your trade prices.

In the next blog post I will look at some wonderful PR opportunities for card and gift shops.

Friday, February 13, 2015Friday, February 13, 2015

Have You Seen Our Hot New Ranges For Spring 2015?

We have just come back from Spring Fair and here are the three new ranges we launched at the show as well as the ‘wild card’ range we added literally in the last minute. All ranges were launched exclusively at the trade show, so here is more about them.

First up is ‘Garden’. The range has 12 designs to cover the celebrated birthday milestones, including 65, 75 and 85 birthdays. We have used soft pastel palette with graphic accents. Every card is hand-finished with pastel cup flowers, cotton polka dot bows and hand-glittered with golden spots. The range was really popular with garden centres and independent shops and we are very pleased with the reaction.

We also had a nod on the craft trend. ‘Gift Wrap’ is fresh modern range inspired by gift wrapping and fusing contemporary illustration with crafts. There are 6 female and 6 male open birthday designs. Our cards are printed in the UK and hand-finished with jewels and a craft/twine bow. This range was popular with quirky independent boutiques.

Our final planned range is ‘Mon Chérie’. It is French inspired range with 40 designs across everyday and milestone Birthdays and special occasions like Engagement, Wedding, Anniversary and Babies. Our cards are printed in the UK and hand-finished with polka dot cotton bows, pastel cup flower jewels and hand-glittered spots.

This is our first large range, which we launched without any preliminary test of the ground so to speak. We had such an excellent reaction from department stores and independents with elegant and feminine gift and product offerings that we are really pleased the gamble has paid off. The cards may soon fly far away as well but we shall keep you posted.

Last but not least is ‘XO’ range. This fresh, modern range is inspired by current social and design trends. It fuses simple typography of handwritten messages with ornaments and drawings, which are really hot at the moment. It has contemporary feel where graphic captions are enhanced by pop of neon red colour. There are 12 designs, from birthday to occasions and as usual the cards are printed in the UK.

Personally, this is my favourite range and I called it my ‘wild card’ as I happen to come up with it just 2 weeks before the show. The reaction on this range was amazing and I can’t wait to share where it is going. It has been so successful that as soon as we manage to ship all orders I am back on the drawing board as there is a queue for further designs. The only problem with this range is that neon does not photograph well. My homework now is to find a way to show it better in the catalogue and if any of you lovely readers know a trick or to about neons, please share. I shall be most obliged for your help!

So, this is the range showcase we had at the current trade show and the reaction we got on them. I am very excited about their future. Don’t forget that all our ranges are available directly from us and you can view the entire collection on the trade side of the SABIVO Design website.

Happy browsing and ordering!

Best wishes,

Friday, January 23, 2015Friday, September 29, 2017

Trade Show Season Is Open – Where Will You Go?

Trade show season is now pen and with so many tightly squeezed in two months there is so much to think about, whether you are an artist or a retailer. So, I decided to do a little round up of the most important ones in the UK and some abroad.

Everybody from the supplier side of retail knows that Christmas is the golden time for retailers (sometimes accounting up to 20% of their business) and January and February is the Christmas time for suppliers. In the greeting card and gift industry the Spring Season is when everybody shows up their sleeves their most exciting everyday designs, i.e. the products they are going to sell throughout the year. In order the suppliers to meet the retailers, ‘trade only’ shows come into place. They would normally be attended by buyers from department stores, multiples, mail-order, online, tourist attractions and independent retail outlets.

First up is Giving and Living, down in Exeter where 500 companies display their products to around 7000 trade buyers. The show has strong coastal and tourist feel and this year it runs 11-14 January 2015.

Next one is Top Drawer, which sees over 800 leaders in UK and international design, who are all pre-selected for only the best suppliers, the ones combining great design with commercial acumen. As it is located in London, it attracts strong following of trendy, design-led retailers and upmarket galleries and luxury multiples. This year it runs 11-13 January 2015. You have now guessed right that as an exhibitor or visitor, unless you have several employees, you can’t possibly exhibit at both shows mentioned above.

We launched our publishing business at Top Drawer in 2013 and it is said that you never forget the first of everything. It is certainly true, we had an absolutely amazing show! This was our stand when we just finished setting it up.

Wales is also running its own Welsh Trade Gift Fair (Llandudno) from 18-21 January 2015 but at time of writing there are ~40 exhibitors, so my best guess is that it is suitable for the welsh market only and not a massive one.

The Scottish Gift Trade Fair is in Glasgow and this year it runs 18-20 January 2015 and is heavily influenced by all things Scottish, as you can imagine. Over 500 companies exhibit thousands of products across 3 areas, so if you love to design and make puffins, tartans, shortbread etc. around 5000 trade buyers will hopefully see them.

Undoubtedly the biggest trade show in the UK is Spring Fair, at the NEC in Birmingham and it’ll be in a couple of days running 01-05 February 2015 (the image at the top of the post is our first exhibition at Spring Fair in 2014). It is massive as 3000 exhibitors would be there and the show normally attracts 70,000 retailers (from the UK and abroad), so if you have missed the other shows, this one is definitely not to be missed. The show is famous for having anybody and everybody as there is no pre-selection criteria, which makes it very easy to enter the exhibition arena. We will be returning again and if you are reading this post and planning a visit, we would love you to pencil stand 4J05. Until then, this is our show profile and we hope you like what you see.

If you would like to venture across the pond good ones are NYNow in New York, Mason & Objet in Paris and Paperworld in Frankfurt.

Hope this post was helpful for your planning and in the next one I will round up the new ranges we are showing at Spring Fair.

Best wishes,