Wedding Dresses Makers looking for retailers. Any advice?

[myweddingboutique]

Hi, we are 2 young ladies who run an online Bridal Boutique.
We have started few years ago and just do it part time, but we have done lots of research on the production side, we select and design the styles, we commission the productions to a factory in China whom we give specific production instructions. We work really well with them, they use only quality fabrics and materials and this is the reason why our prices are not as cheap as other online shops.
Up to now we have invested a bit of money in the product research and tests, web site and a bit of web marketing to sell directly to the brides in UK, Ireland and Italy, which have been really satisfied with the dresses.
However now we have realized that to grow the company we should sell our dresses to shops and are looking for Bridal Shops willing to buy wedding dress from us at very good conditions to get started but we struggle to get retailers interested. We could afford to get few samples but not a full collection and we are afraid they will not be enough for a fair. Any advice?

 

[rocksroses]

Hi, from experience you will not get shops to buy from a catalogue/images unless you're a reputable company having been around for years. Obviously its easy for you to say they're great quality having seen them, but you have to be careful for distance selling laws. Eg. If I bought samples from you without seeing them and expected them to be of 'great quality', if they arrived and didn't look as i'd expected, i'd be within my rights to return- laving you with unwanted stock. You must show the shops the dresses you wish to sell to them to avoid this. Also most designers ask for a minimum of six styles, I wouldn't be prepared to order this without having a good idea of the quality/fabrics/price points etc in front of me. It's just too big a risk.

 

[Alan]

I think you need ti think about brand. Currently your brand 'myweddingboutique' and online store looks direct competition to bricks and mortar wedding dress shops. This I think is an issue.

Wedding shops 'sell' designers, Mikealla, Opluence, Allure Bridal etc and 'My Wedding Boutique' doesn't cut the mustard. You need to create a brand and promote that brand and create demand, then the shops will follow.

 

[Socio South West]

Agree with Llocaly there - you need to tidy up the brand - and also the site to get it taken seriously by retailers.

After a brief glance at your site, it is really only a simple shopping cart, and needs developing if it is to be taken seriously as a bridal supplier.
I would respectfully point out - but without knowing your backgrounds - that there are a lot of spelling errors, the most glaring of which (on a menu heading, and in several items) is the word 'bridesmade'

It appears that a majority of the images have been supplied by the factory - the style of the bride and the style of photography is just not British or European.

This puts you in a Catch 22 - You need either better images, or samples (but preferably both) Without samples you are going to struggle to get retailers interested, so you may have to absorb this cost, or adjust your pricing to reflect this

 

[myweddingboutique]

Thanks for the precious advices. My partner and I have lots of thinking and planning to do. At this stage infact almost all the images are supplied by our factories, also currently we are selling directly to the brides through our shopping cart which we wish to keep but probably this is not good if we want to sell to retailers. We would love to find a shop keen in keeping some of our dresses for sale to start but as you pointed out is hard to gain retailers trust if you are an unknown brand selling online, probably the best way is to invest in keeping few samples and going to fairs. Next step will be tidying up the web site....