5 ways to attract even more retailers on Faire

Once you have a great product to sell, becoming a top-selling brand is largely a matter of capturing retailers’ attention and convincing them to give your products a try. This is what leads to profitable, long-lasting relationships between retailers and brands in the Faire community. Fortunately, there are tools and resources available on Faire and specific strategies brands can use to help make this happen. Earlier this year we published a piece on how to increase your visibility on Faire and set up your shop for success. For brands looking to go a step further, we’ve gathered five more tips to help you maximize the resources Faire has to offer and reach that next level of growth and success.

1. Master the basics

Ensuring your catalog is up to date is perhaps the most important step you can take to get your shop page in shape. This means listing all new products as soon as they’re released with current pricing, high-resolution photos, and detailed descriptions. If you can use video to bring your products to life and illustrate how to merchandise them, include those too.  

We also recommend uploading your entire wholesale catalog to Faire. Having a full catalog also means more visits to your shop page, and the extra variety can make it easier for retailers to reach the order minimum, driving more sales for you. Make sure to update your product catalog before participating in any Faire Markets. 

You’ll also want to check off three to-dos:

1. If you’re not currently launching any new products, consider creating a seasonal collection that groups together existing products based on bestsellers, upcoming holidays, specific customer groups, and more. 
2. Review your product tags so your items show up in retailer searches, and add value tags like Handmade, Eco-friendly, and Not on Amazon so retailers can shop with their values. 
3. Highlight key features of individual products, and help make them more discoverable, with attribute tags. These might include the fit of an apparel product, scent of a perfume, or shelf life of food items.

2. Become a Top Shop

Now that you’ve got the basics covered, you can start improving the quality of your page and qualify to become a Top Shop. Becoming a Top Shop means that you’ll have a badge on your page that signals that you’re a top-rated brand on Faire. 

Earning the Top Shop badge can help your products stand out to retailers in search results. Additionally, when retailers are deciding among brands, seeing the Top Shop badge can reassure them and make them feel more confident placing an order—especially with a brand they haven’t purchased from before.

There are four times you can qualify throughout the year: March 31, June 30, September 30, and December 31 (the last day of each quarter). To meet the criteria, you’ll need to upload your entire catalog with accurate and consistent pricing, receive at least five orders, achieve a high customer service rating and merchandising score, and avoid things like late shipments and missing items. Find out more about Top Shop criteria in our Help Center. 

3. Offer an incentive

Incentives like special promotions and offers will help you acquire new customers and reward your most loyal customers. 

• Promo codes can help increase sales, build brand loyalty, and elevate retailers’ perception of your customer service. 
• Shop-wide promotions offered to all customers, new customers, returning customers, or customers in specific locations can encourage retailers to make larger purchases or try new products. 
• Product-specific promotions are a great way to highlight seasonal products, clear out old inventory, or bring attention to products you’re having trouble selling. There are also collection-specific promotions, which are great for promoting new products, seasonal products, bestsellers, and more. 

Retailers also shop Faire Markets for the best deals and discounts of the season—and we match all discounts up to 5%—so it makes sense to participate in our online trade shows by offering a promotion. 

One other option to consider is a Free Shipping Promotion, where you cover the full shipping cost for retailers. This is especially useful for acquiring new customers that might have otherwise been hesitant to try out your brand. 

4. Up your email game

Email marketing is an essential part of any successful customer relationship management (CRM) strategy, especially when it comes to converting visitors to customers on Faire. Faire offers free CRM tools designed to help you secure first orders, build trust in new buyers, and strengthen relationships with the retailers stocking your products. Faire’s CRM tools can also enable strong subscriber segmentation so you can personalize different messages for leads, new customers, and other groups. 

You might consider creating segmented contact lists for groups of customers who’ve never placed an order, customers who have products in their cart but haven’t checked out, or customers with unused Faire Direct Credit. From there you can also:

• Send one-off announcements to segmented customers groups
• Automate reminders to different groups of customers
• View data about leads, new customers, and longstanding buyers
• Add existing contacts and invite them to join through Faire Direct
• Send personalized messages directly to specific customers via Faire Messenger

Learn how to make the most of these tools with this article on CRM best practices.

5. Build a strong reputation with good reviews

The more improvements you make to your CRM practices, the more likely retailers are to write positive reviews, which in turn can help you qualify as a Top Shop and improve your credibility to attract more new customers. 

You can even use Faire’s CRM tools to gently encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews. Retailers that have placed an order with you can submit and edit reviews for up to 90 days after that order has been delivered.

Reviews may include 1 to 5 star rating of the overall order experience, a summary of the retailer’s experience, images of the reviewed products, and any additional comments they’d like to make. Retailers can also leave a private note for brands. You can learn more about how to build a positive reputation through reviews here. 

With these tools and tips in mind, it’s time to get noticed and make new contacts through your Faire brand portal!