If you are new to selling products in the US market, or are simply exploring this as an option for your brand, we have all of the information you need right here! Verde Fulfillment USA has helped over 50 brands get started selling products in the US market. Some brands were new start-ups, while others were successful brands overseas and wanted to enter the US market. Whatever your needs are, Verde has the experience to help you all along the way with over 30 years experience doing just that.

STEP ONE: You need to know what it takes to import your products into the US. Verde takes care of the international logistics for many of our clients already, but please read this article first: Best Practices For Importing Products Into The USA

STEP TWO: Once you know what it takes to import your products into the US, there are specific things you need to do to legally sell your products into the US marketing. This article is all about setting you and your brand up for success prior to entering into the US market: How To Sell Products In The USA

STEP THREE: Once you have read the first two articles, you should have a solid understanding of what it takes to import and sell your products in the USA. Now you need to know how to Build Your Brand For The US Market!

1. What sales channel will you sell your products into? Direct through your website, wholesale to retail stores, on Amazon or Walmart, or any and all combinations of this? Here is some detailed information that can help you sort through this:

   • Direct through your website: This allows you to connect directly with consumers through online advertising and social media, while also maintaining a full profit margin. If your brand is a new start-up, this will take some time to build a consumer base to sell to, so have patience and play the ‘long game’ for a successful launch. If you start out with super high sales goals that you have to hit just to stay in business, then maybe think again about your overall strategy. Rome was not built in a day, and neither was any successful brand. Your website sales should also be done through a reputable shopping cart to ensure the online transactions are quick and successfully completed. Verde has over 78 integrations with shopping carts to ensure all transactions give your consumers the best possible experience.

   • Wholesale to retail stores: This strategy is a great way to get representation in brick and mortar retail stores where there are a high volume of consumers coming through. But choosing the wrong retail partners can also be detrimental to your brand. A retail store that does not do a good job of representing your brand or who isn’t really sold on how good your products really are, will most likely end up selling your products off-price at a discount just to get some of their investment back. They most-likely won’t order again, becoming that detrimental ‘one and done’ type store. To be successful in this area, choose the right partners, that do not discount, that are located in places that represent your brand the best. Also keep in mind that when you sell at wholesale to retail stores, you are losing margin. Be sure your pricing strategy has this accounted for. There are still brands that use independent sales reps to sell their products to retail stores and then take a % commission on each sale. If you are thinking of doing this, remember that just like choosing the right retail partners, choosing the right sales reps is equally if not more important for your brand. Choosing the wrong sales reps or sales company can ruin a brand before it even launches. Verde has over 20 years experience working with sales reps and can help guide you in this area.

   • Selling on Amazon or Walmart: I will be very honest with you about this strategy for sales for your brand…simply putting your products on Amazon.com or Walmart.com does not equal success. We have seen many brands claim to have the best products in the world or the best strategy to win the buy button on Amazon or Walmart. What they failed to realize is the huge amount of work it takes to get your brand and products recognized to even begin to compete on Amazon or Walmart. Yes, I said ‘compete’ on these online sales platforms. Unless you have the most unique product that the world has never seen before, or you are a globally recognized brand already, you are going to have an uphill battle on your hands. However, don’t let that sway you away from getting things started. There are companies that specialize in helping you with your Amazon and Walmart sales from the start, and yes, we do know who the best ones are. There are a lot of fancy claims by companies, but at the end of the day, sales numbers don’t lie. And the best part of this whole thing: Verde already integrates with both Amazon and Walmart so you can sell on their sites and Verde drop-ships your products directly to the consumers that ordered. Seriously easy!

2. What is your pricing strategy? As I mentioned earlier, if you choose to sell wholesale to retail stores, you need to make sure you have enough margin built into the product pricing. The ‘landed cost’ of your products should include the manufacturing cost of goods, the cost of logistics for each individual product from factory to your fulfillment center, storage costs for each individual product for the amount of time you expect it to be in your fulfillment center before shipping on an order, marketing costs, which may include free shipping if you offer that as a standard strategy. Your landed cost plus a mark-up in margin needs to be big enough that you can sell your products at wholesale without causing any irreparable harm to your margins. Failure to account for all of this can be detrimental to your brands success. Each niche industry has different landed cost to wholesale cost percentages as standard, so remember when benchmarking your pricing strategy that you are comparing within your specific industry. Here at Verde, we have worked with many brands over the years to help them take a detailed view into their pricing strategy to ensure it will set them up for long-term success.

3. Barcoding your SKU’s: Making sure that your factory adds barcodes to your product labels is the normal business practice, but be sure this is part of your details in the manufacturing process. Part of what Verde does with new clients during the on-boarding process is to go through every level of detail with them to ensure once their products come into our facilities, they are correct and ready to go out on shipments. Barcodes are mostly the UPC or EAN number put into a barcode-specific font along with the product details. This is printed onto a sticker and adhered to a swing label or outside of the product depending on what the product is. A detailed part of receiving your inventory into a fulfillment center is ensuring the correct barcode labels are on the correct products. At Verde, we can confidently say that over 65% of our clients products come into our facilities with something wrong from their manufacturers. It can be a wrong labeled master carton with different products inside, or the wrong barcode label on the product altogether, to incorrect quantities on a packing slip compared to the actual physical product. Either way, we find these issues and fix them for our clients every day. That’s just part of what our partnerships with our clients are all about.

4. Product Returns Management: Now you know how to import your products and sell them into the US market, as well as which sales channel you will sell through and your pricing strategy. But none of that even matters if you do not have a Product Returns Management Policy in place. Product returns happen…a lot! Your Product Returns Policy will need to document exactly how and when product returns are approved, credited, replaced, warrantied or quarantined. Failure to have a solid plan in place has destroyed brands that thought their products were so great no one would dare return them. It’s a new e-commerce world out there and consumers are returning between 18-47% of their products on a regular basis. Each of these product returns cost you money and lost margin. Verde’s sister company specializes in exactly this area, and is called The Returns Lab. I encourage you to visit this website to learn more about how you and your brand can address this part of your business with a successful policy to ensure your customers are always happy.

There are so many things to consider when building a brand, so be sure to have the right team in place to help you enter in the US market. Whether it’s your brand messaging, shopping cart, order fulfillment or product returns, know that Verde can help you be successful along every part of your journey.