The Christmas season is behind us, and it seemed a good time for me to blabber on about sales and discounts. At least sales & discounts and how they pertain to Dunitz & Company. I'm sorry, this is a bit of a ramble.
I jumped ship from a corporate job to starting my own wholesale (import) business in 1989. A trip to Guatemala put me in touch with many artisans, some of which I still work with today! I had no idea what I was doing. I lived hand-to-mouth and started exhibiting at wholesale trade shows. In the 1990s the best way to secure new wholesale customers was to exhibit at trade shows. When I first started, there were a few big ones, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Soon the pie was split up, and show producers put up shows in San Francisco, Atlanta and Dallas. From there many more were added Kansas City, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Myrtle Beach, Gatlinburg, High Point and on and on and on. Gift Shows. Apparel Shows. Jewelry Shows. I was a trade show warrior, exhibiting at 16 shows every year. I'm tired just thinking about it.
There were lots of brick & mortar boutiques, and with nicely designed products and reasonable prices a business could be built. Both wholesalers and retailers could make a living.
And then the world-wide web happened. Larger companies and then smaller ones were designing and putting up websites. I remember I designed our first wholesale website myself. I can't remember the company I used that had templates that I adapted for Dunitz & Company's needs. Honestly, it looked pretty good. My guess is that was early in the 2000s.
Jeff Bezos was the first, launching Amazon for book selling in 1995. It was in the early 2000s, that just about every other retailer was building websites to sell online. And following suit, were wholesalers, many who decided that they too were going to retail online. (In hindsight, those wholesaler certainly got a jump on what the world has become.)
As internet activity grew, the same question was asked of me in my trade show booths over and over. "Do you sell online? If you do, we won't buy from you." Who had time to retail online? Not me. I reassured my customers I did not sell online.
I remember discussing this with many of my Fair Trade Federation colleagues, several who even had significant wholesale businesses. Several told me they would never retail online. They intended to continue with their wholesale businesses and protect their retailers. (Just about all of these companies, today, retail online.)
As more and more consumers were buying online, brick & mortar stores started closing. Wholesale business was drying up. A majority of wholesalers launched retail websites in the hopes of keeping their heads above water. Retail store buyers could no longer say "we won't buy from you, if you retail online." There'd be no products for them to buy. Just saying.
In 2016, I launched two new websites that work together. One is password protected and for Dunitz & Company's wholesale customers. The other, is a retail site.
Truth be told, I sell little on my retail website. What I've learned is being successful selling online is a completely different business. And the algorithm and parameters change 24/7. You MUST advertise. Google. Facebook. Pinterest. Instagram. TikTok. Each requires different types of photos or videos. Organic reach is a thing of the past. Sellers hope to sell volume at reduced margins because those ad$ add up. (Quite some time ago, pre-Covid, I took a $course in Facebook advertising and spent some dough. It was a gift to the teacher of that course and Facebook. I was not successful with this endeavor. It taught me to focus on the lane I was already in. I'm certain all I learned back then is obsolete. )
Jump ahead to 2025. I was asked this week how my "retail" Black Friday Cyber Monday sales had gone. I know that most of my wholesale and retailers colleagues are down this year. The thing is I almost never run sales or provide discounts. Why? I'm still protecting my retail store customers. They are the mainstay of my receipts, and I don't want it to appear as I am competing with them. I don't pay for ads. This means, honestly, our retail website is not typically found.
I know some vendors mark up their products so they can "discount" and offer special sales. I've never done this. I always want to charge fair prices. Dunitz also chooses to retail our designs at prices that are not below what our wholesale customers offer. Our retail prices are fair, but not at the expense of our retail partners. Have I mentioned we have a store locator where we direct customers to brick & mortar stores that sell our fair trade designs? We update our store locator monthly.
And while we're on the topic of discounting, I supposed I should say something more about discounting our wholesale prices.
I almost never offer discounts in my wholesale business unless I'm closing something out. I have the same principles I use for retail pricing. I do my best to offer our designs at a fair price. I do not build in fat so I can run "sales." (You might not know about our close-out group on Facebook? If you don't, please register. There you will find some significantly discounted older and beautiful designs.)
The only place I offer a wholesale discounts is during FAIRE markets. (A whole other conversation.) This B2B website has gotten very big and powerful. If smaller vendors don't offer discounts during market weeks, their catalogs will not be shown. This is why I offer 5% discount during FAIRE market which FAIRE matches. FAIRE has trained retailers to expect discounts during their planned market weeks and retailers schedule their purchases for these dates. I rationalize the discount as a "trade show fee." The other discount FAIRE has basically required their vendors to offer is free shipping for their direct customers. Direct customers are those retail store customers that used to buy from vendors before FAIRE existed. These retailers chose to buy from their suppliers through FAIRE initially, because FAIRE was paying shipping fees (traditionally not paid by vendors) and providing Net 60 terms. FAIRE has since developed a program they call "insiders" where retailers purchasing wholesale through their site pay a monthly fee to "get" free shipping. After this program was created, FAIRE said they would no longer pay for shipping on direct customers. FAIRE had trained retailers to now expect free shipping and in this instance, they would no longer pay for shipping. Thankfully we sell jewelry which isn't heavy. I believe you can't take benefits away from people. Dunitz is now absorbing shipping fees for their direct customers on FAIRE. This essentially is a discount.
I probably could write a book about all of this and more. For now, my rant about discounts is done. I'm sure you feel as if you've read enough. What I can tell you, is whether you purchase wholesale or at retail from us, you make a huge difference. Because of you, Dunitz continues to support our artisan community in Guatemala. -ND
