The Commerce Club Podcast

S208: How To Add Wholesale To Your Shopify Business

• Sophie Biggerstaff • Season 2 • Episode 8

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In this episode of the Commerce Club podcast, I am joined by Rebecca Lazarou, founder of Laz the Plant Scientist.

Rebecca is a medicinal plant scientist, herbal expert, holistic therapist, and educator here to help you heal, she stocks herbal teas and remedies on her online store https://laztheplantscientist.com/.

Rebecca came to me in 2021 to work on the pricing for her products as she wanted to make sure she priced them appropriately to be able to sell wholesale in the future, and now we are back for a full circle moment to discuss her brand new wholesale strategy to add an additional revenue stream into her existing e-commerce business.

If you are looking to introduce a wholesale channel to your business this episode talks you through some key steps to take before you begin.

I have a course that goes into this in much more detail and provides all the templates mentioned in today's episodes which you can find out more about here: https://thecommerceclub.co/p/how-to-get-your-product-stocked-in-retailers

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Incase you just stumbled across this episode and we haven’t met before let’s get formally introduced here: www.itssophiebiggerstaff.com

If you’re an e-commerce business owner looking for support I host my online courses designed for you here: www.thecommerceclub.co

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Sophie (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to the Commerce Club podcast. Today I am joined by the lovely Rebecca, who is the founder of Laz the Plant Scientist. And she is going to do a little session with me where we are going to be deep driving into her business and some problems that she is currently facing within her business and how she wants to grow her business. So I'm going to hand it over to Rebecca quickly to give her little intro. Do want to tell us a little bit about yourself and a bit about your business?

Rebecca Lazarou (00:24)
Sure, hello, my name's Rebecca. So I'm a medicinal plant scientist. I'm currently doing my PhD at Kew Gardens and UCL School of Pharmacy on medicinal plants and basically protecting all this knowledge before it goes extinct. And my business is what funds that. So I make high quality, sustainably sourced medicines for everything from burnout, to anxiety, to depression, to...

hair loss, to hay fever, to immunity. And I really love making these formulations. They've changed lives and I know that, but it can be a nightmare running the thing whilst also doing a PhD. And I'm sort of at the point now where, no, it is nice to run, but it's like I'm maxed out work-wise. I'm maintaining it, but not growing it. And I just, need a team to be able to support me.

Sophie (00:58)
you

Rebecca Lazarou (01:14)
and also more diverse revenue streams because basically the only place I'm making money now is Instagram and newsletters and I barely even send newsletters to be honest so yeah I'm thinking wholesale would be a good place for me to step into but I don't know what I'm doing yet.

Sophie (01:31)
That's okay, that's why we're here to talk about that and look at all of your options at the moment. So tell us a little bit about how did you get into what you're in today?

Rebecca Lazarou (01:40)
It was a bit of a mad story, sort of, yeah, so basically when I was 16, I had a dream about a name and usually you forget your dreams, don't you? But it was the next day and I couldn't shake this dream and I couldn't shake this name. So I Googled this, Googled it and it came up with a guy in India who'd set up camps helping thousands of people merging biotechnology and herbal medicines. He was an Indian guy.

and I got flooded with light that this is what you're supposed to do. So I followed the path and it was a couple weeks before picking my A levels. I originally wanted to be a music journalist but I chose A levels to do Biomedicine Human Biology at uni instead. I then did a Masters in Medicinal Natural Products and Phenyl Chemistry. I then set up my business and was a

researcher in everything from psychoactive plants from around the world to ancient Greek medicines and I've been in education for it since as well because I'm really big on spreading the word about these important medicines and yeah no like fast forward I'm doing my PhD I'm on a quest to protect this knowledge before it goes extinct and also just bridge the gaps between science

and traditional wisdom and doctors and home herbalism and all of it. So yeah, it's quite the quest, but I'm here.

Sophie (02:58)
That's amazing. It is quite the quest, but I think it's a great one to be on. And actually this world of wellness, wellbeing is kind of becoming more more prevalent anyway in this current time, right? So I feel like it's the perfect time to educate people on this. And it's something that I think more people need to know about because it is, like you say, that knowledge is about, not about becoming extinct, but it could become extinct if we aren't talking about it.

So I think it's really interesting the way that you just described, like you had almost like a calling in your dream to say this is something that you should explore and you didn't know that name before. I feel like that just says everything about like trusting your gut and trusting your intuition about like following a path of like something that you never know what the outcome is going to be. If you start getting like little snippets of information come through in your dreams or if you start seeing the same thing over and over again, that's the

prime example of somebody exploring that and looking at like, what could this be? And now you found like a real passion in something that you're doing, you've built a business from it. So at what point did you did you go from like, this is you love this, this industry, and you're like learning loads about it. At what point did you decide to like, venture into the business side of it? Okay.

Rebecca Lazarou (04:15)
When I was 16, I knew, yeah, yeah, I'm very, I know that in order to do this, like the system isn't set up in a way that's supportive of these things and that I had to be independent and business is the way to create what we want to see. That's why I've self-funded my PhD because well, the only way to get funding is to approach.

basically pharmaceutical companies who want to use the research for bioprospecting and this isn't like it needs to be done on its own. So yeah, I knew from then because I've also there's a lot of things I just have the urge to create and so that's why I chose to do business. Yeah.

Sophie (04:55)
Good for you. That's such a young age to go into something like this and like absorb so much knowledge at the same time as trying to set up a business side of it. So I think that that's really impressive and you should be really proud of it.

Rebecca Lazarou (05:05)
Thank you. I do want to caveat and say I didn't start the business at 16. It's just I knew from then that that was what I was supposed to be doing. The business started when I was like 23 or 24.

Sophie (05:10)
Yeah.

but still quite a young age to be starting something from scratch, right? And learning as you go, before we jumped on the recording, we were saying like, you've been learning as you're going along, like you're still learning about like the business, you're still learning about the actual products that you're selling, you're still learning about all of the plant medicine, et cetera. So it's like, you've still got like that massive element of learning at the same time as actually creating and running a business. And like you say, you're at that stage now, because we spoke, we actually did a session.

What was it about four years ago? I think it was like 2020 or 2021, wasn't it? When Rebecca was just starting, like pricing some of her products. And we did a session to make sure that all of her margins were set up. So at some point down the line, she could sell wholesale. And finally, we're out of like, we've gone full circle, which is so nice to be having this conversation with you that we literally have gone full circle from doing the pricing to actually now where you're ready to kind of venture into that world. So talk to me for a little bit about like, where's the business right now? What, where are you selling?

Rebecca Lazarou (05:46)
Yeah, it's in lockdown. Yeah.

Yeah

Sophie (06:14)
and where do you kind of want it to be and what's the kind of gap that's missing at the moment.

Rebecca Lazarou (06:21)
So, okay, we've got 17 different products. None of them were done based on any market research. They were stuff that I made for myself and they worked really well and I thought well others might want this as well. The only thing that I launched because of popularity is the mushrooms because there's a lot of people selling really bad products out there and I just thought let me get these out there. So I've got a small Instagram audience of 8,000 people and relatively small and that's all grown organic and

That's basically where most of my business comes from. I have a newsletter list of about 1,800 people as well, which I don't use enough. But I've just changed my operations to only be open a couple times a month to do drops instead. So I'll be using my newsletter list a lot more. Where I'm at now is it's me. My mom works for me a couple of days a week. Sister helps here and there. But what I would like is to have someone on full time.

I would like to have a fulfillment center and I would like support with marketing, someone at least two, three days a week. And then ideally what I'd want is to have different market stores set up at different places with people running them to be doing festivals. And for me to have the spaciousness to just educate and tell everyone all this important stuff that I'm learning, and to hold experiential events and stuff like that. And just basically with a mic.

on a stage somewhere telling people all about it that's what I want to be doing and writing.

Sophie (07:50)
Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like you've already started to build like a really solid personal brand. again, you told me before we started recording that people are really obsessed with like the work that you do. And like it's obviously resonates with it's quite a niche, quite a small niche that probably resonates with but that niche that it does resonate with is probably like die hard. I'm obsessed with this. This is something that I really want to learn more about. And I feel like you've really been able to position yourself in the market that you're in.

as a bit of a leader in that field. Like I actually went on to Instagram this morning, I noticed one of my friends that I've never spoken to her about you. I don't know how she found you, but one of my friends that lives on the other side of the world is following you on Instagram, which I found really, really interesting. So I feel like that's like a credit to you that you felt like this really good personal brand. And I know that's a bit of a focus for you at the moment to continue showing up and like building your brand around like this, this information that you love learning about. So

Talk me a little bit about how you're doing that at the moment.

Rebecca Lazarou (08:48)
Thank you. also, yeah, I think also just an important thing to know is that I actively don't just want to be in the wellness space. I want herbalism to be normalized again. Like our ancestors, two, three generations ago, they'd know, use a bit of nettle for this, a bit of elderflower for this. It wasn't that deep. So what I want to do is help transition this to just be a normal part of our life again. And I think where my, where my thing is quite niche.

It actually touches a lot of worlds from, you know, the sustainable food movement and food systems and agriculture and organic and allotments to really sciencey parts to the psychedelics and cannabis world. There's so many people growing, like there's so many different niches that it touches and I actively want to step it away from just being a wellness thingy. Although that I could like...

clean up there easy. That's where naturally be habituated wherever but I actually wanted to spread more into normal life food that sort of stuff.

Sophie (09:44)
Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's great though, because that's a really key unique selling point because I think a lot of other brands that maybe do sell the mushrooms, do sell the lion's mane, anything that's associated with Ashwagandha, for example, like any of those that do sell those kind of like what we probably classify as supplements are marketing themselves as like a wellness brand. So I feel like you've got a really unique selling point there where it's like, you know, I'm just going back to what we used to do, basically.

before we get carried away and start marketing it as something that it actually isn't, you're literally just taking it back a step and saying, actually, we're used to use some of these key things. It's just that society has conditioned us that that's not the normal medicine that we should be using. But actually, if you go over to Asia, for example, or even Latin America, they are very much still using things like this, particularly in the Asian market. It's this whole holistic...

herbalism medicine style is very much used still in practice like on a daily basis there. I think it's just in this kind of Western world that we've built. It's just become like not the norm because we're so used to going to the doctors and then us being prescribed some kind of medicine to cure like whatever it is that we're struggling with like joint pain, anxiety, depression. We rely on that like clinical science back.

Rebecca Lazarou (11:02)
See

Sophie (11:22)
medicine and actually there's a whole other world out there that we used to use before any of this even existed so I think it's great that you're spreading that awareness that we can just go back to how it was kind of thing.

Rebecca Lazarou (11:27)
Yes.

Yeah, thank you. I'm glad it resonates. I mean, even across Europe, across the Balkans, Romania, Greece, all of these places, it's still normal to use herbs, you know, and yeah.

Sophie (11:43)
Yeah. Nice. Super interesting. I love it. I'm very interested to learn more about it. Like I've already I've been working with a supplements brand. So I do know a bit but I'm definitely know by no means an expert in that world. But I know a lot about like the different ingredients that you can use. And I'm really interested to learn more from like your content and what you've got to sell. So tell me a little bit about you obviously currently selling direct to consumer through like social media, you've got your website.

Rebecca Lazarou (12:04)
Thank you.

Sophie (12:12)
Where else are you selling at the moment, if anywhere? And you mentioned your goal, you kind of want to get into wholesale. Where's your kind of dream retailer, do you think, to be stopped?

Rebecca Lazarou (12:21)
Can I just comment on what you said before about being really keen to learn? That is what every single person says to me. When can I learn more? Where can I learn more? So I feel like that's what I really need to dip into. like more experiential events and stuff like that, but the background operations I need to be.

running it in a way that's making money so I've got the time to go out and do those things and so the reason I want to sell wholesale is just to have like another point of income because right now it's literally just on Instagram and my website that's it. These are the only places I'm selling.

Sophie (12:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, you made a good point there. It's like about, you you want to be able to do the educational piece and teach and kind of share your wisdom with the world. But unless you've got like that operational piece, the foundations of your business really slick and smooth and that's operating in a really good way. You're not going to have the mental or physical capacity to actually go out and do all of that stuff. But at the same time, you...

still you still want to kind of like tap into into those things like the educational piece because that can attract people into your business but ultimately if that's not set up and like you're running it in a way that's like sustainable for you you can attract all of these people in but you're probably not going to be able to convert them or like secure them as customers because you don't have the capacity to do it and things aren't streamlined enough so i think it's a great way that you're doing it you're doing it in a very logical order to be able to say right i know my business needs xyz before i can go and

Rebecca Lazarou (13:26)
Thanks.

Yeah.

Sophie (13:51)
show up in this way, in which case that's gonna allow you to have more time sharpening that way in a much more effective way and you're gonna touch and reach much more people.

Rebecca Lazarou (14:00)
Great, I'm glad that you said that because sometimes I feel like I don't know what I'm

Sophie (14:04)
You definitely do, you've got your business to this point already so you definitely know something right so I think that that's you don't be hard on yourself like give yourself a lot of credit that you've got it to this position and you know where you want it to go as well I think a lot of people get to a few years into their business and they start feeling a bit lost and they're like okay what next what am I meant to do now so I think it's great that you've kind of got it here.

Rebecca Lazarou (14:23)
Yeah, thank you. I actually, sorry, I've just got to this in.

I actually, this is a key point. Recently, I had to really step back and think about how big I want this business to be because I know that it could be enormous. And I actually don't, I actually don't want a massive beast that takes tens and tens of people to run. I want something that's got like a tasty profit. That's nice to run and run smoothly and four day work week for me and my team and just run smooth and it's just not.

I don't want this enormous thing. So yeah, I thought also would be a nice way to just help bring in more of that as well.

Sophie (15:14)
Yeah, I agree. think it's great that you know that because I think some people get carried away and they're like, I've got this amazing business, I could do this and they get kind of lost in the financial potential of their business or like the potential that they could have as like the founder of the business. But actually, you you know what your purpose is, you know what your mission is, you know what you want to achieve and you've got a really clear goal for that. And you're just trying to figure out the best way to kind of achieve it.

And I do think wholesale is really great for your products. I think that they could be really good in specific types of stores. Like we said before, I got on the call, I don't think they're going to be like a huge revenue driver because I think sometimes people assume that, you know, if I'm selling things wholesale and it's going out to all of these stores, like wholesale is going to be like the thing that makes their revenue like go crazy. That's not normally the case. Like unless you are targeting really big retailers that are going to be buying your products in volume.

let's say you're to go and sell it to, I don't know, like the ASOS or the Zelandos or like whatever in the world, they're going to be buying extra units because they know the demand of their product. But if you're just selling it to kind of like more independent boutiques, they're not going to be ordering in huge volumes or that frequently. So I think wholesale, just to kind of start this conversation around wholesale.

Wholesale can be used for two purposes. One can be revenue driving, but like I said, it's not going to be like your number one revenue driver. Probably there are caveats to that, but specifically talking in your case, I feel like it's probably not going to be as big as your direct to consumer business or as big as that could potentially be if you, if you grow it in a different way. And then two is also brand awareness. So I think it's what it is really good for you, particularly where you are wanting to kind of show up as that.

kind of educator leader in that world and show people what's possible and where the knowledge that you have. I feel like if you can put your brand name out there, that's only just introducing more people within a specific niche style of retailers, what is possible for that customer? Because I think like, for example, if you went and got yourself stocked in like farm shops, for example, with people that are already interested in the same kind of

world that you're in, I feel like that's just opened you up to a brand new audience. So there's two reasons why you do wholesale. One would be brand awareness and the other one would be revenue driving. So I know for you, you want to use it as a revenue driver, right? But you're not kind of necessarily looking for like huge numbers because you don't want that like massive, massive growth, but you do want it to kind of support you in your business and be able to allow you to reinvest in the business growth. So what kind of

Where can you kind of see your brand being positioned from like that whole swell perspective? Like what kind of stores would you like to go into?

Rebecca Lazarou (18:10)
So I was thinking like local health food shops and like sort of organic places, health cafs. I was also thinking some cafs who aren't necessarily just health, but they could stop my teas and then have herbal shots in there, whatever. Yoga studios. Anything sort of, okay, obviously I can't sell at community gardens because they're community gardens, but that sort of vibe. Restaurants which are, you know, like locally sourced organic seasonal food.

those sorts of places.

Sophie (18:43)
Yeah, and that makes perfect sense. This type of products that you've got. Do you want to share a little bit more about your products actually, because we didn't really talk about this. Do want to talk a little bit about what it is you're actually selling?

Rebecca Lazarou (18:51)
Yeah sure, so I've got a range of teas. There's an open heart tea which was originally for grief but now it's just for opening your heart it's really good if you're being creative or whatever. Regulating regenerate tea which is for nourishing our nervous system because so many of us are under chronic stress.

Flow and Glow Tea for the lymphatic system to support the immune system to help clear us out. We've got our angiographis, which is the strongest, in my opinion, immune boost implant around. It's what the Thai government were giving their people during COVID because it's such a strong antiviral. We've got a range of medicinal mushrooms, lion's mane, reishi, chargot, and cordyceps. We've got the Medo remedy, which is for hay fever, but actually people have been taking it for general histamine.

inflammation, like long COVID and stuff. And then we've got the hair oil, which is a bestseller because my hair fell out because of stress and now it's back because of the hair oil. And then we've got the mental health line, which is the peace remedy, which is for anxiety, the reconnection remedy, which is for depression and low mood, and the resilience remedy, which is for burnout.

They come in two sizes, so you've got the big bottles where you have a full dose of a tablespoon a day. That gives your tissues enough medicine to be able to recalibrate and aid the body in healing itself. Or you've got these little...

I haven't got one here, but these little 50 mil ones where you just put a few pipettes under the tongue, hold it for 30 seconds and you get instant symptom relief and they're good for when you're out and about. You don't get the deep systems recalibration, but you do get symptom relief and I take them out partying now to be honest with you, especially the reconnection remedy. It's from on the dance floor, a of uplifting. So yeah, and then like ways that we, you can take them, you can.

for example with calfs I was thinking they can have the teas but then you can also have a herbal shot in instead of like a hazelnut syrup you can have your pea syrup because the the remedies the liquid ones, peace, reconnection, meadow remedy and resilience they're all sweet syrups not syrups they're glycerols but they're very herbal and delicious and so that's why I was thinking it would be good to cross over with food space.

Sophie (21:03)
Yeah.

Absolutely. I think that's a really good idea for you. think, like I say, when it comes to actually selling wholesale, there's probably not a huge amount of revenue in it just mainly because of like the type of stores that you're going to be targeting. So you're probably going to be targeting more kind of like independent stores, which are going to order once or maybe twice maximum, probably three times a year based on like their kind of turnover. But if you're targeting the food and like kind of the cafes, for example, and they're actually going to be serving your product, I think that

that's a completely different ballgame and you could actually drive a massive amount of revenue on that because it's almost like you're going into obviously it's not completely fast moving consumer goods but like it is that you're kind of moving into product that is being utilized every single day so you're going to be naturally ordering more of it so I think that that could be a really good opportunity for you and what steps have you taken so far to kind of like go into this

side of the business introducing your wholesale channel? Have you done anything yet? Other than the pricing that we did a few years ago, have you done anything yet to kind of venture into that space?

Rebecca Lazarou (22:10)
Yeah, so I've done the pricing for the new products as well and you know, the MOQs and stuff like that. My strategy was literally just going to be go through my Instagram followers and see places, people who already follow me that could resell. And then every time I go out and see a place which is aligned, I take a photo, I'm literally going to put a suit on and go, don't knock him.

Sophie (22:33)
Yeah, I think that's a really good approach. feel like you could definitely I think the first step for me would be we had a again, had a quick chat before we jumped on the recording about your ideal customer. And I feel like that for me would be like your starting point is to get really, really clear on exactly who do you want to be buying these products. And so I know you've got like a vague generalized idea of what that is, but like really tap into who they are, where do they live? Where do they shop?

What social media platforms they use and what problems are your products solving for them? How are they using your products in their everyday lives? And the list could kind of go on for like that questions. I'll actually give you like my template for this as when we get off the call, but you tapping into your ideal customer is really going to help you pitch to the right retailers because what you don't want to do with wholesale is pitch to or get your product stocked in somewhere where it's not going to sell because then actually it can be really detrimental for your brand.

So you wanna be really clear on who your customer is before you go and pitch to any other retailers because it's all well and good. Like people want to sell your products but they have to be in alignment with your brand mission, your brand values. They have to have your ideal customer coming in through their door because if they don't, it's not gonna sell and then that could have repercussions on you later on down the line where they might be like, well, your product's not selling, can you give us a discount or your product's not selling, can you take it back? So getting really clear on like who that person is.

is going to be really key for you to then identify what type of retailers you want to go into or what type of cafes you want to go into or basically any one you partner with that is then going to basically be somebody that then is representing your brand because ultimately you're going to be putting that product in the hands of somebody else. It's no longer you that's selling that product. It's the third party, in which case you'll really want to make sure that you can trust that person to be able to sell it and like...

that they are not obviously they're never going to be as knowledgeable as you and there's much passion about your business as you but that they have the right type of people coming in through their doors that is going to be interested in that product and I think particularly for your business that is definitely the right approach to go is like make sure that the people that you are selling your product are like fully in alignment with what your mission is so has that changed anything about kind of what you what you were thinking or

Rebecca Lazarou (24:56)
Yeah, think, okay, so three questions. It has, I was thinking before, like I have to be really hot on education because these, like I say this with humility, my products are a cut above the rest. Like honestly, the formulation process and sourcing has been impactful. And I think that I need to go really strong on education for the shops that are selling. I was going to make videos for each of the products, talking about the ingredients, talking about the science behind them, talking about the contraindications.

what pharmaceuticals you can't have with it, all of it, make that really strong and then I was also going to offer in the correct venues pop-ups where I can come and give a talk and get the local community inspired and get the shopkeepers inspired so that they can be a voice for it basically and now I'm thinking maybe I should have like a product pamphlet booklet because there are 17 different products it's a lot of shelf space I'm thinking maybe I should

make something really beautiful for customers to read, like a little book.

Sophie (26:00)
Yeah, definitely. Like if you're gonna be physically in a store, let's say for example, I don't know, you're going to Dalesford Farm, for example, your products are on like a little sign in Dalesford Farm. Definitely most retailers, if you have got a physical representation of your product in that store, they will want something for their customers, whether that's like a bit of signage that like talks about your brand, not in a huge amount of detail, it needs to be quite short and snappy because the attention span of somebody in a shop is quite short.

because they are browsing so much, it's taken a lot in, but something that like explains like a little card or something physically in the store popped up behind your products that talks a little bit about your brand. And then at the same time, potentially you have, depending on where you're selling it, like you do potentially have like little cards or something that talks a little bit about the products or it comes with the product. So like in the packaging of the product, potentially it's within that. So your packaging is gonna have to be

that educational piece for the customers in like a physical retail location because you're not going to be physically there to talk about the product. You could potentially have a QR code on the packaging of your product that then takes them through to your Instagram or a video on your website that talks directly about the product itself so that you can then be there doing a little video explanation for example. So I think if you're going to be selling

Outside of your own channels where you are obviously in control of the educational piece It is going to be really important like how you package up your products and how you signage that in stores To educate people on the same in the same way that you would through your own sales channels and also educating the teams however If you're going into depending on where you're going into if you're just going into like an independent pop-up boutique Where it's like you've got like a couple of people working for you

you've obviously got more opportunity to educate those staff. If you're going into a store where there's like a turnover of staff every single day, that's gonna be a lot more challenging. So I feel like the education doesn't necessarily need to come in from like a staff perspective. It obviously does at a top level and then that needs to be trickled down internally, but that's not necessarily your responsibility. Your responsibility is ensuring that your customer is educated.

based on what they're buying. like finding a way to educate the customer without you even needing to have the staff educate because their job is actually to sell your product. So obviously they need an element of education for sure, but their job is actually to sell it to the customer. Your job is then to make sure that your product packaging or however you do it in the end tells your customer exactly how and why they should be using it.

Rebecca Lazarou (28:44)
Yeah, I mean the products do have a QR code on, but maybe I need something like a little sign that's a bit more, this is who Laz is, blah, blah, blah. The other thing I was gonna ask is, is it okay for me to ask for payment upfront?

Sophie (28:58)
So it depends, like there's different options with wholesale, like most, if it's an independent retailer, they may be more inclined to pay upfront. But if you were to go into a larger retailer, most of the wholesale payment terms up to about 30 days, like net 30, net 60. But I would always suggest asking for a deposit. So maybe you negotiate and say, right, you get 50 % deposit, 50 % after.

30 days, for example. But for your size of business, I'd always definitely recommend a deposit. But if you were to go into like the larger retailers, it's unlikely that they would pay the deposit. However, if you're going into independence, it's more likely, which is purely because when you go into like a larger retailer, they have payment systems, payment processes, payment teams, and they ain't budgeting for anybody.

Rebecca Lazarou (29:51)
Yeah, yeah.

Sophie (29:51)
So that's why it's more challenging. But if you are going down the route of more independence, then yeah, absolutely. think you can try and negotiate your payment terms a little bit more to your advantage.

Rebecca Lazarou (30:02)
Yeah, I've really just wanted to be like payment upfront on no sale and be quite hard on it. And I don't know if that's wrong, but like it's what I actually need.

Sophie (30:11)
Yeah, I think you can try it for sure, but I think there has to be little bit of wiggle room. If you actually want Wholesale to work as like a viable business channel for you and you want to kind of expand into Wholesale, you're going to probably have different terms for different retailers, to be honest with you. Like I've never worked for a brand where their terms are exactly the same, unless they are like the Burberrys of the world where they can kind of dictate the terms. If you are wanting your products to be stopped into that.

retailer, one thing you have to remember is like what's in it for them, right? Like they are taking a risk a little bit if they're buying your products for the first time, they don't know how it's going to sell. Now, obviously, they have probably products that may be similar, and they may have tested the water with that seen success, and then they're going to want to buy into your products as well. But you're probably going to need to be a little bit flexible with that. And the best solution for that would be to ask the deposit and then have the second payment a little bit later on.

Rebecca Lazarou (31:06)
Okay, thank you. That's good advice. yeah, the other question I was gonna ask is, understand it's important to get to know my customers, but where would I actually find that information?

Sophie (31:09)
You're welcome.

So you've obviously been trading, how long have you been trading now? You've got like what, two, three years? Yeah. So you've already got all of that information. I think this is what quite a lot of people don't realise is that you've got data in your business to tell you exactly what people like to buy. And then you've also got all of your Instagram analytics that tell you a little bit of more of a demographic, but also it doesn't need to come from the data. You can also decide who do you want to target, right? Like, because you probably already know a little bit about your customers based on.

Rebecca Lazarou (31:21)
I've been like two, three years.

Sophie (31:47)
who's been buying from you, who interacts with your content on social media, who, and then you can use the actual analytics in your back office to identify a little bit more about them and like go into the demographics there. Maybe you're using Google Analytics, that also gives you a bit more of a breakdown, but at the same time, you should know who you wanna be targeting with this external to all of that data because ultimately,

you need to understand exactly who you want to target to be able to create the great content that feeds them to be able to put it in the right retailers that's going to attract them and be able to sell to them more organically, basically. So if you can get really clear on that, I also think this would be really beneficial for your direct consumer business through your Instagram and through your website, because you're going to be able to create content that isn't just necessarily the things that you think people want to know, you're going to be able to know that is exactly what they want to know and target it.

tweak the way that you put it out to be able to really target a specific type of person. that, I'll send you something at the end, which will give you kind of like some questions that might help you build like a bit more of a solid, ideal target customer profile. But that is definitely something that if you were to go into a slightly larger retailer, they would want to know who you believe is your ideal target customer. Because ultimately, every brand should

daily have like an ideal avatar of their ideal customer. So how they behave, how they shop, how they feel, what are they feeling at the time of them purchasing your products. Now, obviously that's not going to always be the case when somebody is buying a product because somebody might just come across it and love it and purchase it. But if you can really speak to that person in everything that you do, that is then going to be able to attract way more people to your business because

everything that you're doing, everything you're putting out is for that person. So it will attract them naturally. So I would definitely suggest like going through that as an exercise before you go down the route of like, particularly if you're going to pitch to people, because part of your pitch should essentially be, this is who it's for, this is who it's serving, this is why you need my product, because you are attracting that same type of customer, for example. So I would

really suggest like starting there before you go down the route of pitching to people because it will be a question that comes up.

Rebecca Lazarou (34:15)
Okay, great, thank you, that's really helpful. Sounds like having a copywriter would also be helpful. I've always been reluctant to sort of let the writing part go because so much of it is scientific information which I've translated and blah blah blah blah blah. But I'm sure that getting some help on writing my salesy stuff is doable if I write like archives of all the plants and stuff. That probably is...

Sophie (34:40)
Yeah, I think it depends. The main information that somebody, if you're going to be pitching to, let's say for example, you go away today and you go through your Instagram followers and you can start to see who might be wanting to sell your products, right? And you're starting to see people that are already interested in your brand. That's great, first of all, because they have already shown some kind of level of interest in what you're doing because they are following you on social media. You can then go through there, identify those people, and then you can...

what you'll then need to do is create some kind of pitch. So first of all, it would like be a little elevator pitch, which is literally like, hey, this is what I do. This is who it's for. This is our unique selling point. And this is why you need us. So the main thing is when you are approaching anybody that wants to sell your product is what's in it for them. Like why should they sell your product? Because ultimately, yeah, they might make a little bit of money off of your product. But at the end of the day, they need a reason for, to want to stop you.

retailers don't just stock brands for no reason. a buyer, for example, as a buyer for 13 years in the retail industry, if I had a certain pot of money to spend, let's say I've got two grand to spend for my next month's buy, I wanna know why I'm spending that 2,000 pounds on your products, for example.

And what is that return going to look like? Not just financially, but are you going to bring in your audience into my store? Are you going to attract in a new type of demographic? Are you filling a gap that I don't already have filled? So you're kind of going to have to really think about like, what is the reason for you being there? Like what is in it for that retailer? It's not just a one sided agreement. Anything, anytime that you do anything where it involves like a third party sale, you really need to look at it like a partnership. And that's

where that like you'll see the most success because if you are looking at it like a partnership, it's not just transactional. Yes, obviously you want a different, another revenue stream for your business of course, but if you can try and build that relationship, there's going to be way more opportunity down the line for you to sell more units, for you to maybe do pop-ups in these stores that you are, that you're working with and really look at it like a partnership and look at it, what's in it from both angles. So once you've identified like that customer profile,

The next step would be to put that little pitch together and identify the specific retailers that you want to approach that fit within, that have the audience of your ideal target customer. And then from there, you can kind of look at different ways to sell to them from like, yeah, through like presentations, copywriting of like look books, line, line sheets, that kind of thing. So normally when you are selling into a retailer, you would have like a line sheet or

If you if it was I mean you can do a lookbook It'd probably be called something different for like your specific type of products But essentially it would be like all of the products the pricing for wholesale the margins that they're probably gonna make Information about the product and it basically is like your sales guide if you like so you're then gonna send it over to the Person that maybe wants to buy it and then that is what should be selling your product and then you would also do a pitch Probably at the same time, but in some cases it might just be enough to send that document. So yeah

not necessarily saying you need a copywriter but trying to make sure that that presents in a way that is really relatable to the person that's reading it is going to give you a lot more opportunity to actually sell into them.

Rebecca Lazarou (38:05)
Okay that's so helpful thank you so much I definitely wasn't thinking about doing that before. I was just going to put some stuff on LinkedIn as well and then be like we're selling wholesale.

Sophie (38:15)
For sure. think, I think if you can lay some foundations, like say when it comes to wholesale, let's just go through like the key things that you need. So first step, do the customer profile. That's for your business and for the wholesale. Second step, have yourself like a couple of paragraphs, elevator pitch, which just talks about who you are, what you do, why somebody needs your product and try and obviously make that into a really catchy, quick short snappy, get someone's attention really fast because somebody doesn't have.

hours and hours to like put all the attention on you unless they know what's in it for them, right? So everybody is a little bit selfish in this world. So I'm only going to be looking at your email if I know what's in it for me. So you need to have a really catchy like heading of like, why would they want to buy something from you? And then a really quick overview of what you're going to do. You then probably also have some kind of like brand pitch or brand presentation. This could like kind of also give all of that product information in there as well.

again just goes over like who you are, what you stand for in a little bit more detail, what makes you different from your competition, a bit about your products and the pricing structure that you'd be selling in the wholesale and then how they can place an order with you and how they get in touch with you. You could also do a little bit more of your educational piece in there if you wanted to to combine that all into one place and then you would probably also just want like a little order form that could be set up so a bit like how we created you a pricing file when we first worked together.

you maybe take that add on a couple of columns where people could put in their quantities in there of what they wanted to order. And then you've got that to send to whoever it is that's going to be shipping out the products. And then you've also got it as a reference to say, right, this person ordered this from me. And then also, you'd also probably want like a payments, payments term, template, contract. So it's like, this is what I'm going to be selling it for. This is the term and the duration that I'm going to be selling it for.

this is the price that I'm buying it at and then we've agreed this amount of units. So make sure that you've got everything like solidified and official in writing as well. So you kind of want those things as a baseline before you probably, I mean, you can do it whilst you're pitching to people for sure. But they're ultimately the main things I think you're going to need as you start having these conversations with people.

Rebecca Lazarou (40:33)
Okay, interesting. There's a lot more to think about than I obviously thought. But it's good to be prepared.

Sophie (40:40)
It is a process, like you're setting up a whole new business channel. You can do it like wishy washy and like kind of like put the word out there, but ultimately if you are taking this seriously as channel, that would be my suggestions. And that is what most retailers work with. It just sets you up. Like you said at the beginning, you kind of want to set like solid foundations for your business to be able to grow, right? So by putting these things in now.

that's going to allow you to have that wholesale process, wholesale sales process set up and ready for you to go as and when you want to kind of implement it.

Rebecca Lazarou (41:17)
we got time for one more question? So yeah as I mentioned I'd like to do local health shops but to be honest they're probably only going to do orders of two, three hundred pounds two or three times a year which isn't enough to sustain me. I also don't want to go in the big Holland and Barrett's. Have you got any ideas for places which are a few thousand in order but not yeah basically the middle space?

Sophie (41:18)
Absolutely, go for it.

I think you need to look at like, I would really look at farm shops. think farm shops could be really good for you because usually they maybe have like a couple of different locations. Like what you want to look for is not necessarily stores that have only got like one location because yeah, they're only going to be buying like a handful of units that are going to trickle in throughout the year. If you can find like an independent kind of chain of like farm or health shops that maybe got like five or six branches across the

the country, for example, that would be probably what's going to work really well for you. And also online retailers. Now off the top of my head, I can't think of like exactly who would be good for you. But looking at online retailers, because their volumes are going to be a little bit higher than they would if you're kind of going into these independents. And then also going down the route of exactly what you just mentioned at the beginning, those cafes, because that's consumable.

like they are using it every single day, assuming somebody's ordering it. So there's way more chance that probably they're going to be buying higher quantities than these independent stores. I would suggest like, if you're going to go down the route of independence, because of the time and the energy that you're going to put in, like building these relationships and selling to these people, I would suggest that you kind of do those independent retailers.

more from the perspective of like you want to get your brand name out there you want more people to come over to you with the idea that they're going to come and buy from you directly rather than from the wholesalers because what you can use wholesale for is maybe only limit the amount of products you put into wholesale and have some exclusives on your website for example and then when you actually sell in the retailer

maybe you've got a little car and be like, more, more selection on our website. You come over to your website, you've got extra products, you've then gained a new customer directly to you. They're probably gonna start following your social media. They're gonna be educating themselves on what it is that you're doing, using more of your products, buying into other things, and they're gonna come back directly to you. So that's how I would probably use wholesale in your business is like, get your name out there, still make a little bit of revenue through wholesale from these independent stores.

but at the same time with the goal that they're going to come back and be a loyal customer of your brand, specifically from you.

Rebecca Lazarou (44:01)
Right, okay, understood. Thank you. Yeah, that's a great idea.

Sophie (44:05)
You're welcome. Was there anything else you wanted to kind of go over today or has that kind of helped give you a bit more of an understanding on wholesale and where you need to go with it, what you need to start with?

Rebecca Lazarou (44:14)
No, it's really helpful. think I just need to focus now and get the tasks done. I don't know if it's insane to launch it before Christmas, but we'll give it a go.

Sophie (44:23)
when would your goal be to kind of start getting orders coming in for?

Rebecca Lazarou (44:28)
November.

Sophie (44:29)
Yeah, okay. So just to give you some realistic timelines of retailers. Now again, this is different for like different sizes of retailers. But if you're planning to sell for Christmas, like if you wanted your products in for Christmas, most people, if you're going to go into like traditional retail world, it would have started in like February, for example, selling it. And so it can take like six to eight months because Christmas stock kind of goes in about now, for example. So they will be buying

six to eight months ahead of time for like this time period because of the timings. But because you're targeting more independent boutiques and retailers, there's more opportunity for that to be a lot shorter lead times. But yeah, it's just about building those relationships. And like I would maybe test it, like try and find somebody that this year, for example, for this Christmas that you want to kind of get it in for, try and find somebody that you know is...

easy to kind of maybe someone used to you mentioned a few people have already reached out to you about this maybe if there's anybody once you've done that cut task target customer profile if they really fit your target customer profile and they are this ideal retailer for your product maybe start there because if they've already shown that interest they might already want to bring it in but i wouldn't be surprised if if you reach them out now it wouldn't go until next year just from experience

Rebecca Lazarou (45:49)
All right, thank you, that's good to know.

Sophie (45:52)
You're welcome. Okay, amazing. Well, if that's everything, thank you so much for joining me. I've really enjoyed this conversation. I hope that you found it helpful and you take something away from it. So just before we end, what's your action step then? What's the first thing that you're to take away from this session to implement, just to give you some accountability and something to actually look at and where, out of all the things we've spoken about today, what do you think is one achievable thing for you to get done and start working on straight away?

Rebecca Lazarou (46:00)
Yeah.

I think there's a couple of things I need to write out my customer profiles 100%. And then I need to get the practical documents, the order forms, the sales and all those things. And then I think it's gonna be a matter of like just getting out there and trying it and seeing what's working and not.

Yeah, because I think I do have an idea of my customer. I just need it all written down and I need to really prep a dialogue of this is why it's helpful for you. That's a really important thing. So yeah, I think those are three things.

Sophie (46:48)
Yeah.

And I think to be honest, that dialogue of like, particularly if this is why it's helpful for the customer, the direct customer is gonna really come from that ideal target customer profiling that you're gonna do. And then the secondary piece is like, why, what is your, you've already kind of spoken about it today, like, you know, like not many people are doing what you're doing. You already have like a unique selling point. It's just about how you position that to the person that you want to sell to from like a third party retail perspective. So.

Rebecca Lazarou (47:02)
Yeah.

Sophie (47:17)
I think getting really clear on your unique selling point for the retailers also is going to be really helpful for you.

Rebecca Lazarou (47:24)
Okay, wonderful. Thank you.

Sophie (47:26)
You're welcome. Amazing. Well, thanks so much for joining me. I actually do have a course on wholesale selling. So I will send you the link to that in case it's of interest. And I'll also put in the link in the show notes as well. And it talks you through basically all of the things that we've kind of spoken about today in a bit more detail and also provides all of the templates for the things that you might need when it comes to selling wholesale.

But I hope this has inspired other people to get involved in wholesale selling as well. I think it's a really great way to grow your business, but not necessarily always from a revenue perspective, mainly from like a brand perspective. But yeah, before we close, have you got anything else you kind of want to add or is there anything else you want to say?

Rebecca Lazarou (47:47)
That's great.

No, just thank you. That was a really valuable hour or 45 minutes that we spent. Really good. Thank you.

Sophie (48:08)
You're welcome. Well, thanks so much and I will see you next time.

Rebecca Lazarou (48:12)
See