This is a question I received and here is my answer. In terms of retail legal requirements, here's what comes to mind: Do you need to or should you file any relevant trademark/wordmark/copyright filings with USPTO to protect your works? Check with an attorney about this. Retailer's won't care, but should you be trying to [...]
This is a question I received and here is my answer. I would think about differentiating your core product/service offering from everyone else. Don't be like everyone else. Identify who your customer is (or who you want your customer to be) and figure out what their needs/desires are and create your product offering to meet [...]
When I look at CPG opportunities, my goal is to know the following: 1. Is this product/idea differentiated in the marketplace and how easy is it for the competition to copy/replicate that differentiation? 2. Does the team know what they are doing to grow the opportunity? 3. What's the plan to get the opportunity to [...]
This is a question I received via a discussion thread and I am reposting my contributions to the thread here. As a rule of thumb, natural.organic is always a 50% margin. If selling through UNFI, Tree, etc. there might need to be another 15% added in for them, for a total margin of 65% to WFM, [...]
This is a Quora questions that I was asked to answer. My answer is below. In general, I think it is probably a big deal, since UO is a large and recognized apparel retailer. But I am not specifically an apparel expert, so that real answer is, "it depends". But here is how I would [...]
I was asked this question on CPG package design on Quora. My response is below. I think the biggest mistake is not grabbing consumer's attention. There are so many products on shelf that it's easy to get lost and not get any attention. This is especially the case if there is limited or no out-of-store marketing to [...]
What is considered a healthy gross profit margin (both as a retailer and a distributor)? I have just started a niche business of importing foreign goods at factory prices direct from the manufacturer and selling them at my retail shop at an average markup of Landing cost x 2 + local taxes or at a [...]
Take a look at the following back-of-the napkin P&L. This is from an actual early-stage business. The product retails for $40 and wholesale cost is $20, which is the gross revenue to the business. COGS is fairly hefty because the business is small and does not yet have the volume to bring down its [...]
This is a Quora question I was asked to answer. The full question is as follows: What do distributor contracts look like, and do they ever allow companies to sell products themselves? If so, how is the margin controlled so that the company doesn't undercut the distributor? We are looking to begin selling a consumer [...]
The importance of packaging for a CPG product is significant. Here's why: A study done by Proctor and Gamble 25 years ago indicated that consumers pushing a shopping cart down the aisle of a supermarket look at packaging for 1/6th of a second before they decide to stop and look. According to the Food Marketing [...]
