If you’re looking to get your goods and services into the marketplace in the most efficient manner possible, chances are you’re looking for a distributor. Distributors will buy your products and then sell them to the local economy at a reasonable markup. The advantage for you is that you do not need to handle all the logistics of sending your orders or even handle your own inventory. Simply ship your goods to the distributor and receive the money for them. On the surface, this seems easy. However, a bad distributor can be a nightmare for a company. Finding a good distributor is easy though by looking at a few possible tips.

Firstly, you want to get a distributor with experience in selling and handling your goods. There are a couple of primary reasons for this. Distributors that have lots of experience in your field will likely be able to pay you a better price for your goods than distributors that don’t. For example, you may have the Mona Lisa with your goods, but unless your distributor sees that and knows its true value, you won’t have a fair price quoted. Experience also generally means fewer hassles and a smoother ability to sell your products.

Secondly, ensure that your distributor has a lot of local know how, so to speak. Remember that their job is to get your products into the local economy, so if they don’t really know that economy well, they are going to have a hard time accomplishing that. You also want to look for a distributor that has a complete supply chain – you want to ensure that your goods will be handled well from the factory to the marketplace. Not having a complete supply chain can cause logistical nightmares that are very challenging to solve. By complete supply chain, that means that you must ensure that they have the means of securing your goods (this is very important to protect against theft), transport them from your warehouse to theirs, and handle international freight issues if need be.

In conclusion, picking the right distributor is relatively easy if you know where to look. Ultimately, you need one with experience, a good idea of the local economy, and that understands the whole supply chain. Although all are equally important, it is arguably most important to have one with experience. The simple reason for this is that experience can solve many of the problems that can arise (for example, experience in international shipping can mean far fewer mistakes in that area than a distributor without experience shipping outside of your home country). Experience also means that the company has a good or bad reputation and you can often find that out by searching the internet for that company. Read reviews – if they generally seem to be positive, then you may wish to choose that distributor. However, if you find a lot of negative commenting happening, you would likely wish to avoid that distributor for your business. Picking the right distributor is easy with these steps!

Blog by Joseph Marando – Impulse Products