w/ Emily Grey of Flourish Market
"Faire really helps us connect and buy wholesale merchandise, and it's cheaper than trade shows."
Discover how 'FAIRE really helps us connect and buy wholesale merchandise,' as Emily Grey of Flourish Market explains the transformative effects of integrating Faire with Shopify, a B2B platform for retailers to buy products for their shops.
Emily offers key insights into pricing strategies and tackles common wholesale challenges. Learn how leveraging Faire can transform your retail business. Tune in for actionable advice on optimizing your e-commerce setup through Faire and Shopify.
Kurt Elster (00:17):
My friends. Well, all right, so not long ago I was at a conference and I kept hearing Fair Wholesale come up and described as like, oh, it's wholesale on easy mode. And it turned out that there is a wholesale marketplace that a lot of Shopify merchants are using and it sounds like using successfully. And I really was not familiar with it until sometime this year. And so I knew after when I go to a conference and you hear a certain tactic, strategy, service brand, a marketplace, whatever, that's new, you got to explore it if it keeps coming up. I don't want to have marketplace FOMO here and so I need someone to come and explain it to me. Certainly I'm not going to do that research myself. So we've got an expert who is going to break it down for us. We have Emily Gray from Flourish Market and I want to hear her story and her expertise on Fair. I'm your host, Kurt Elster, Tech Nasty, and this is the unofficial Shopify podcast. Emily, welcome. How you doing?
Emily Grey (01:26):
I am excited to be here. I hate FOMO as well, so I'm excited I can come in and help you out with that. And anyone listening,
Kurt Elster (01:34):
So all right, let's start with what is Flourish Market? That's the name of your business, what does it do?
Emily Grey (01:42):
Yeah, so I have a brick and mortar store in Raleigh, North Carolina as well as an e-commerce shop. We sell in Shopify. So we've been in business about nine years and we are like a clothing and gift shop, but what makes this unique is that all of the brands we buy from about 200 of them are all impact driven, meaning in some way they want to do good for the world.
Kurt Elster (02:04):
I like that. I enjoy, enjoy cause marketing. I think the internet giving us a way to go as niche as possible into just about anything has enabled that and has made that possible for us to go, oh, I can align my spending with brands that match my values, whatever they may be. And so you came from the investment banking world prior to then?
Emily Grey (02:34):
That's right. I originally went to college to be Britney Spear's backup dancer, didn't work out, got hurt and went to the career center and they were like, business or communications are our biggest major. So I went business and surprised to everyone when straight out of college I went to go work for a Swiss investment bank and a year in that took me to living in London and I ended up living and working all over the world for this very large bank, 55,000 people. And by the time I quit at the right bull age of 30, I had a third of life crisis, but I was a vice president of change management and communications and what that fancy title meant was in the face of economic headwinds and anything coming at us that was external to our control and sometimes things internal to the bank that stakeholders were doing, decisions they were making, I was charged with helping middle managers and senior managers really understand how they can move through those headwinds and still accomplish their goals.
(03:34):
And that's actually what I do today with my coaching clients. So I founded, I quit corporate story for another day, I bought an old uniform delivery truck off Craigslist and started driving that around town. That was the first year of the flourish market and second year we became a brick and mortar and we've expanded since we're just now I'm recording across the street from a big 3,500 square foot facility. We'll be opening in October. So excited about that. But along the way people saw me launch this and they started asking me for coaching and I did a lot of coaching, a lot of brands and other retail owners and did retreats and then CO hit and what you saw was Pop-up stopped, trade shows stopped and all the brands we bought from then all of my past coaching clients came to me and they were like, what do we do that also coincided with the time affair, which has helped a lot of people out. So I'm really excited to dig in to that more with you today.
Kurt Elster (04:32):
Okay, but what is maintenance on a laundry delivery vehicle?
Emily Grey (04:38):
Well, there's a reason I only stuck to that for one year, so shout out to anyone listening. DM me if you own a fashion truck because I get it maintenance that I didn't even read about at the time. This was almost 10 years ago, this is 2015. There wasn't a lot of fashion trucks out there. There were food trucks, but not a lot of fashion trucks. So I remember taking off for my first event, having everything kind of hung up and then getting to the event and everything was on the floor. I didn't realize I had some things kind of stabilized in place, but you have to really stabilize things with, I mean it is crazy when you drive and you have drawers and everything flings open. Yeah, but you blow a gasket, you have to drive up on risers to even it out. And I remember when it would rain, my tire would come off the razors and people would have to, 10 people have to help me lift it back on.
(05:29):
It was a whole thing. And I remember the day, the first day I was open at my brick and mortar after selling my fashion truck and the day the night I closed it and walked out the doors and the fact that I only had to turn the lights off and lock the door was unbelievable. I was like, wait, I don't have to secure every last small thing in here. So it was quite the adventure, but it was a really good way to go where customers are. And we're actually going to talk about that. For those of you who listening are brand owners,
Kurt Elster (05:56):
That was excellent.
Emily Grey (06:00):
It was terrible. One wording answer to your question about maintenance on a fashion truck, terrible. It's hard.
Kurt Elster (06:05):
So essentially treating like food truck but for fashion.
Emily Grey (06:08):
That's right. Yeah. A little mini boutique on wheels. I was driving around town about a week before I launched my city, outlawed retail trucks, just parking anywhere you wanted, which I get as a brick and mortar store owner. I wouldn't want someone to just park their fashion truck in front of me, my store for free rent, but I really had to pivot really quickly. And so I started by texting out friends and asking if they would host fashion truck in their yards and in their driveways and fight their friends over. That's really what's built our customer base.
Kurt Elster (06:39):
Alright, switching gears. Yeah, fair in wholesale. So for someone who doesn't know like myself, what is fair, what's it got to do with wholesale?
Emily Grey (06:50):
Yeah, so fair F-A-I-R-E, just for those of you who have not heard it, I'm sure Kurt will link it in the notes, but it's a B2B platform, so think of it like an Amazon or an Etsy where retailers go. So it is where we go, I'm a retailer to buy products for our shops, so fair really helps us connect and buy wholesale merchandise and I relate it to Amazon or Etsy because it's a trusted site, right? Well, I use Trust slightly. I know people have lots of feelings about Amazon and Etsy and all the places out there, but we go we it's like a one-stop shop and there are 700,000 retailers, actually probably more now. The last stat I saw from Fair was in October of last year, but over 700,000 retailers on fair and only about a hundred thousand brands. The numbers are good for brands to get on there for brands.
(07:49):
The great thing about Fair is that you can reach independent retailers across the us, Canada, Europe and Fair Promises independent retailers, but also big brands like Anthropology Target, although they're not buying on Fair, at least not yet. These big brands, if you've ever wanted to be in a big box store, they are watching small independent retailers because we're testing the things and so they are watching and scouting us as well. So it's really great as a brand to get exposure. It's cheaper than trade shows, right? And I mentioned when the pandemic came and people reaching out because trade shows closed down for a bit of time, popups like around cities went away for some time. And so all that was left people thought was e-Commerce direct to consumer, but Fair really helped and they marketed a lot to brands and retailers at that time to be this really great solution where you don't have to as a retailer necessarily go to a trade show to scout out a new brand. And we love it because retailers, we always want things other people don't have in their shops and so it really gives us a chance of a much wider audience At a trade show, I don't know how many people would be there, but outside of clothing, let's say product like gifts and things like that, nowhere close to a hundred thousand. So this really helps us seek out new things for our shop and it helps brands get major exposure.
Kurt Elster (09:16):
The reason we're talking about it here is it's the obvious opportunity if you already have an online store, if you're on Shopify, but Fair is supported in Shopify as a sales channel and there's even official Shopify help docs that are like, Hey Fair is an online B2B marketplace. You can connect with brands and retailers.
Emily Grey (09:37):
It's brilliant, it's so brilliant. They're buddies, Shopify and Fair. And so this was something fair piloted a couple of years ago and then the last year this plugin or this working together has worked beautifully. So I'll tell you from a retailer's perspective and a brand perspective why it's so beneficial. By the way, I've been on Shopify since the conception of our business, huge fan and so became a huge fan of Fair. When I saw this collaboration I was like, yes, this is beautiful by the way Shopify nor Fair Pay me to say any of this. I'm really coming at it from a perspective of what will help retailers, what will help brands. So for brands know that whatever you put on your product page on fair, when you get on there, it links for retailers. So when retailers check out your brand and we check out Hit Pay, this page pops up and it says that we can connect it to our POS.
(10:34):
So with literally one click of a button, everything loads in your product descriptions, your photos, your videos, the pricing, the units that we bought. And so that's incredible. For retailers, we used to have to manually add these things from your website and we were always bothering brands, Hey, we don't see a photo of this on your website. We ordered at a trade show. There was just so much back and forth. This has made it so efficient. But for brands, what's incredible is that Fair links to your website. So most of the people I coached to start wholesale or to scale their wholesale, they're also selling direct to consumer. And so what the Shopify plugin does with Fair is that if a retailer like me comes on and orders eight units of product X, the eight units are removed from your direct to consumer website. So you're not having to manually adjust things. So it's really helpful because you have your one Shopify system selling DTC Fair comes in and works really well and hopefully seamlessly with that platform. With anything, there's probably a few kinks, but Fair and Shopify been really on it and listening to our feedback and getting that up and running and my team loves it.
Kurt Elster (11:42):
So if I'm using this integration I'm selling into fair, it's going to sync orders and inventory information. If I'm selling from Fair on my Shopify store, we're going to be able to sync that product information management or that product info for the catalog and sync our orders.
Emily Grey (12:01):
Yes, it's a beautiful thing. And also another reason why retailers love being unfair beyond the syncing is that we actually many times are offered 60 days net terms, meaning we will order from you when you ship it Fair pays you, they pay you the $500 that we spent with you, but we do not have to pay fair for 60 days. So it's really great because a lot of brands, they're like, Hey, when I'm wholesaling, my retailers ask me for 30 days net terms or 60 days net terms and I need the money. So Fair came in and solved this issue. So pretty sweet.
Kurt Elster (12:36):
So what are some of the, I mean that's one challenge. It solves the information management, it solves sinking fulfillment, it solves what are some of the other challenge is if I'm a Shopify merchant starting with wholesale that I'm going to run into that may be fair, could solve.
Emily Grey (12:57):
Yeah. Well it's interesting that we talked about ease first because today pre pandemic, I would say that for brand looking to wholesale with retailers exposure was the biggest challenge that they would come up against. But now the biggest challenge brands are coming up against is exposure paired with ease so you can get exposure. I teach people how to pitch via email. I teach people how to pitch with pitch packages, but if you are not on fair, it's not that you won't get an order, it will just be so much harder to get an order from a retailer. So we see this exposure in ease coupled so tightly and so then people are like, oh, I hate that I haven't heard someone say the specific words, but the idea is like the frustration or the setback of fair is going to take a percentage of the order.
(13:46):
And the answer to that is yes and no. So if the retailer finds you, you will pay fair at the time of this recording, 15% of that order and the first time a retailer orders, you'll also pay them $10. They take that out of the cut. Then the $10, that's just a one time flat fee. Any other order after that 15%. However, if you find the brand or you've been wholesaling, you want to come on to fair if it was a previous brand or you find them and you pitch them directly. Fair takes guess what percentage, Kurt, let's let's play Kurt's guessing game, okay, what percentage do you think
Kurt Elster (14:19):
They take give? I'm going to go with seven and a half and I'm literally just guessing.
Emily Grey (14:23):
Beautiful. It is 0% because that's what I would've guessed too. Yep. They got to take something fair is betting on them helping you with exposure to new brands. So FAIR actually wants to be matchmaking use so they can get that 15%. So it helps with exposure, but what I teach people is how to pitch directly. That's why I always making the joke fears not pay me to say this because they're not making any money off of my advice from people, but it's great my clients are experiencing both. They're pitching but then fair is taking 15% and so you do have to work that into your margins. And so that's the next big thing I get feedback on is people think I don't have the margins for wholesale because let's say I make
Kurt Elster (15:06):
This, that's actually going to be my next question.
Emily Grey (15:08):
Oh really? Yes.
Kurt Elster (15:10):
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(16:43):
I think that if you're new to wholesale and you have to understand, alright, everyone has to make money here, the marketplace, the reseller and you the brand doing the wholesaling and it still has to make sense for the total business rather than just be shuffling dollars and products around. What's your advice on effective pricing for wholesale products?
Emily Grey (17:05):
The math has to math. Okay, and I'm going to break that down because everyone's like, duh. Of course it has to math, but I find myself working with my clients a lot on margins and understanding that because it's kind of like what comes first, the chicken or the egg. People know that if they can get thousands of units and orders that their price will go down for the things that they're putting in. Let's say their candle for an example. They get economies of scale, but how do you get to that point? And I never want to see people losing money to try to scale to that point. That's not how it's going to work. So for margins, just to break it down, if you've never wholesaled before, unless you're in food and Bev, set that aside for a second. You want to get 50% off the retail price.
(17:47):
Okay, so let's pretend this is a mug. This is actually my health drink. We'll get to food and Bev in a minute, but let's say you're selling a mug and you sell it for $20 at a popup or direct to consumers $20. And let's say it takes you, this is a bad example for a mug saying it takes you $5 to make it because that's not what handmade mugs, what the cost would be, but let's just say it's $5 cost. So you're like Emily, if I sell it direct to consumer, I profit $15 off of that mug. So you're telling me I have to take 50% off the retail price then that I'm only selling for 10, then I only make $5. And for a lot of brands I work with, it's not making $5, making one or $2. It's like very slim margins. Now I work with some clients where it's real good margins, but I'm speaking to people who think they may not yet be able to wholesale because they only have a margin of 50 cents or a dollar or two.
(18:36):
But what I say is with one order, with one yes, you actually profit more because a retailer's not ordering one thing, they're ordering many units of something. So we're ordering 10, 20 units from you at a time, 30 units, a hundred units. And so one of the things you'll find is that you want to play the long game with wholesale. So on the first order, yeah, run it of I have to pay $10, I would have to pay 15% off and you still want to make sure you are profiting. But what's great with wholesale is like if your products sell well, which normally they will else, a retailer wouldn't be buying those products, you get the second order, the third order, the fourth order, the fifth order, and over time that is how you scale and thus get better margins. But yeah, 50% is the starting point.
(19:26):
If you're in food and bev, that's more like 30% off we're used to having as a retailer, less margins on food and bev and just speaking to those of you who've been wholesaling for a long time, if you can offer 55% off that retail price, that would be amazing. Retailers are always looking at margins. The last thing I would say here is you've got to have your retail price be the same as it is on your website. The last thing you want to do is go on fair and something that sells for 20 on your website you say on fair it sells for 30, that's not going to work. So you got to stick with the same retail prices.
Kurt Elster (20:01):
All right, I got to establish MSRP and stick to it. No fun and games here. And for the wholesale side, really it's keystone pricing, whatever retail is, half of that is wholesale. And then in theory, ideally max, half of that is cost of goods sold. And so I got to understand my unit economics for this to work.
Emily Grey (20:22):
You're using all the fancy words, Kurt, I love it. Contribution
Kurt Elster (20:25):
Margin,
Emily Grey (20:27):
Yes. I tend to speak to those who are new to wholesale who maybe not don't know these terms. I definitely have clients at my mastermind level who doing six and seven figures where we can speak in these terms. But I hope it's helpful for those of you listening, I never want to count anyone out. I remember when I first started in retail, I came from this fancy corporate background when I could tell you all of the lingo within investment banking. However, I felt so lost when I would be in circles of people talking about retail and I would be the person at a retreat googling things in a back corner because I didn't know what people were talking about. And so I think one of my loves is being able to just speak directly of maybe to the newbies out there. So we'll double team this together. Kurt, I
Kurt Elster (21:09):
Appreciate that. A, I try to be conscious of it, but you're right, industry terminology, buzz words, any of that lingo. Ultimately whether you did intentionally or not, it exists to exclude people. And so when you could put things in plain, the easily understood language and bonus points if you could be concise, which you are. I
Emily Grey (21:35):
Have never been told that, Kurt.
Kurt Elster (21:39):
Yeah, sometimes you do these interviews and you ask somebody a question and then eight minutes later I'm like, what was the question again? I don't even know what I asked. No. So I appreciate all of that. Okay, so certainly it cannot be as easy as list it on a fair marketplace and they will come. What do I have to do, especially to starting out, what do I got to do to stand out to make sure my products get purchased?
Emily Grey (22:08):
The one question we ask ourselves when your product comes up or you email pitch us or you send us a pitch package or we see you on fair, come up on our homepage or in our search, we ask the question, will this sell? Will this sell? I talked to so many people who are like, I don't have an Instagram following that's that big, or I don't have this or I don't have any other retailers who buy from me yet. We don't care about any of that context. We are looking at your product and we are asking ourselves, will this sell? Now pre pandemic, we would've asked, oh, does it have a good brand story or Oh, would it merchandise well with other things? But we are so risk averse now because we have to still have all these memories of getting stuck with all these products during the pandemic and everything's still shifting in the economy.
(22:55):
What people are interested in, we're like, okay, we did this for so long, what are people doing with their lives? We're closely paying attention to that, so will this sell? But beyond that, as far as standing out, you want good packaging and good images because unless you're sending me a pitch package and I'm holding it in my hand, I really need to see a really good image and see the packaging because with retailers, if it's going to be on our shelf, it's got to look good. And so that's what I work with a lot with my clients on is like, okay, how can we bring this up? How can we elevate this? And it doesn't always mean if especially you're just starting out, go to YouTube University, learn how to use portrait mode on your iPhone. Get a $2 piece of white poster board, sit it near sunlight.
(23:43):
I actually have a course where that's one of the bonus trainings is how to do that. It is not like you have to spend all this money on a photographer Now as you scale, yes, absolutely, let's do that. But we buy from people who have iPhone images and sometimes even I was a photographer as a side hustle in corporate, had many journeys in my life. I know photography and sometimes I can still be fooled. So good imagery. And then you want to show your product packaging. So this is where I see a lot of people cheap out is they'll save the 5 cents or the 20 cents on the earring card or the bag that's holding their shower steamers or whatever it is, and if it's blurry or not crisp or really just not up to snuff, although that will work at popups, that doesn't work on a retailer's shelf.
(24:34):
So it is about spending and making room in your margins for the extra 15 cent for the earring card to make it more thick. Again, these things are sitting on our shelves, people are picking them up a lot, and so it needs to hold up. It's about having just really, really good packaging and images that will help you stand out. And always give a reminder here when you're writing your product descriptions, do not write to the retailer. So a lot of brands all see that your customers will love these because again, we have the Shopify integration. That product description is going to be going to our websites. So
Kurt Elster (25:10):
Oh, I've seen
Emily Grey (25:11):
This. Be mindful there. You've seen this. Yes. So mindful there
Kurt Elster (25:14):
On shopping a local business and on their online store. And the product description for whatever I was looking at was great way to increase average order value, cross sell. The description of the product was pitching it to the retailer as like, what a wonderful complimentary product. This will boost your profit margin. They had just blindly put it in and never noticed.
Emily Grey (25:40):
So set us up for success because we don't always see these things. We're running a million miles an hour, so it will reflect really well on your brand. Two other thoughts here quickly. Number one, I cannot say enough that you need to include your product packaging in your image. So let's say you sell earrings, don't just show the earring. We want to see the card, it comes on what it is on the front and back. This doesn't mean you have to photograph every single earring skew that you sell on the product packaging, but have one photo of it at the bottom with whatever earring on it, it doesn't matter. And just say last image shown for product packaging reference. That is really important. The second thing here is because everything went online and most retailers went online in 2020, we live in this FI world where it's physical brick and mortar, but we're also digital. That's where the term digital comes from. And so we need websites, we need to drive foot traffic in. We're sharing on social media the images you give to us. So when you can have great images, that's translating to our websites as well, which people are buying from us from afar, but also that's driving input traffic for our store.
Kurt Elster (26:55):
So you touched on the role and the dynamic between online stores and brick and mortar stores and you've got this great corporate background, don't usually this early, ask for predictions on how things are going to evolve, but what are your thoughts on the future of retail and how it's going to evolve here?
Emily Grey (27:16):
Yeah. Well if you ask a lot of people, I think consumers who just hear the news story is that brick and mortar is dying. So actually if anyone is interested in my full list of predictions, if you go to wholesaling to boutiques.com, Kirk can put that in the show notes, but I have a whole free podcast series. It's like nine and a half hours predictions, exactly start to finish, how to start wholesaling, get on fair, all of that. How to pitch retailers, pitch packages. It is very comprehensive. People are like, this is a course in itself. It is free. It gives you the opportunity to take me on a test spin as your coach before maybe buying my course or signing up for a mastermind. I'm straight out of the gate, I tell you that because I know people are used to signing up for things and they're wise, it's free.
(27:59):
So it gives you a test spin. But I tell you my six top predictions for the year, the changes we've seen, I'll mention a few of them here because I'm an economics nerd. I listen to economics podcasts for funsies. I do want to tell you a receipt that I have. I have lots of receipts. So Forester Firm, a predictions firm I love, they forecasted that 74% of retail sales will happen in brick and mortar stores this year, 74%. Now of course that's groceries and that's your everyday items. And it's not split out into gifts for teens that people would buy in a retail store, but that's a big piece of the pie and I want to be a part of it. Also, people are like, Macy's is closing down 150 stores this year. I heard that. You know what? But they're opening more bloom. And I see this huge shift prediction slash shift that we're already seeing into scaling intimacy.
(28:58):
So yes, I believe a big part of brick and mortar is dying. You've seen a lot of malls just really struggles with one here. My gosh, it's like a ghost town. Everyone's like a mass exodus, but it's brands we're seeing closed down, we're not able to scale that intimacy. Customers want to be known, right? And so they also want experiences experiential, for lack of better word experiences when they come to the store. They want that fial intimacy as well of, Hey, I ordered online or I've ordered with you before. My sizes, my style. And so with Macy's closing on their big box stores, they're throwing more money behind their brand, smaller stores, smaller footprints that we're seeing a lot of that in retail. And it doesn't mean it's dying. It's meaning consumers are demanding something different. Walmart actually announced a couple of weeks ago that I think they're opening 150 additional stores by 2029. And I watched the interview with their, I think it was the CEO of why you're building up your e-commerce, so why are you doing store? He's like, oh, because people want to order online, come for pickup, and then get a few additional things in store. And we really want to be there for them in communities so people can come in and get the help that they need.
Kurt Elster (30:12):
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Emily Grey (31:49):
So if we were doing this interview back in 2021, I would say so important, and I think there was just a lot going on in the world in our nation at that point. And I think those of us who've been in the impact driven space for some time, and my friends were activists, were like, how long will this last? And so I was surprised slash not surprised when I saw Forrester firm, I love them, I mentioned them earlier, but their headline for 2020 fours Economic retail Forecast was practicality over purpose, practicality over purpose. And they actually noted that many big firms were pulling DEI efforts and doing cost savings around that. I have had several friends who have lost their jobs within the DEI space, but they didn't say that purpose done. And they just said practicality over purpose. So what I would recommend to brands is consumers.
(32:48):
We've had a lot of messaging all around us of the economy's going to crash and people have been saying that for four years and it hasn't knock on wood yet. And then there's all this talk about inflation. So subconsciously what that's done in the consumer's mind is told us we have to be price conscious. This has to be a really good buy for us and we're even seeing it with our customers on a micro level right here in our shop. And so reviews are more important than ever. If you sell a handbag, for example, show photos of the inside people really thinking through that practicality and that they really need something. So impulse purchases are down overall and all the stats are showing that people are taking longer to make their purchasing decisions. So one tip I can give you, if you're running a campaign instead of a 24 hour flash sale, you might need 72 hours.
(33:42):
And if you're focusing on certain products direct to consumer, you may really want to focus on the ones with really good reviews and be texting out or asking some of your favorite customers to write reviews because again, we are taking more time and looking at practicality of the actual purpose. You're also seeing that with retailers as well. So one of the things in my podcast workshop I tell people to do is lower your opening minimum order, lower that order, get your foot in the door, make sure you're still profitable. But we want to test things, we want to see if they're practical for us. So instead of making it $500, do like $150 depending on the price point of your product, but if it's around $30 retail price point, that would be a good starting point. So we can get a few things in a test, but purpose is still important.
(34:26):
And you have to keep in mind when a Forrester firm and any of the research firms are doing this research, it is a sweeping generalization. So for me, we have always had people who care about shopping in alignment with their values shop with us for nine years. So 20 20, 20 21 wasn't really anything new. So I would say definitely have your brand values on your packaging on your website when you get onto fair. Fair has brand values that you can select from a dropdown menu. And when retailers see we see woman owned API owned LGBTQ plus owned socially conscious, we'll see environmental impact. And so they have all these for you to choose from. So while it won't be the first question we ask ourselves, many times it used to be, it will be the follow-up thing that might push us over the edge to buy from you.
(35:21):
And I say stand on your values. We're also seeing this shift in the industry where people can smell the bs, especially the people you probably want to be buying from you because they're very aligned with your values. And so they're starting to sniff out the who maybe did this for the checkbox who maybe are laying out their DEI people now and they're really finding the people they vibe with. So I encourage my clients, put yourself out there, your face, your family, what are you doing in your free time? How can you show your values on display, on social media or through email or your product descriptions so that the right people can find you?
Kurt Elster (35:59):
Okay. Alright, if I'm just starting out with fair, what's the first step I should take?
Emily Grey (36:03):
Yeah, so I'll recommend two things here. One's very self-serving, but it'll definitely serve you. But I'll start with go to fair.com, FAIR e.com and read how they work. They have a beautiful page that's updated regularly with how they're working for brands and take a look at it, really read through how it works, how it could work for you. They have a lot of good testimonials. Just so you know, my clients, it's incredible the successes they've had on here. I actually my podcast workshop give examples, but just a little teaser. My client, Caroline, from a brand called Pearson Hyde, she sells jewelry. She got an ad from my free workshop, took it in December of last year or December of 2023, January of 2024, she got onto fair. And without paying any money for ads or anything like that, she had over 300 accounts by the end of the year.
(36:57):
So really incredible results. And that's in the top 1% of results. I will say that, but so many I just heard from a client her sales have grown 60% year to date on fair. So my second suggestion to you is to go to wholesaling to boutiques.com. You can read all about what's in my podcast episodes there, but it is nine episodes start to finish of my clear steps on how to get onto fair. By the way, I would have a retailer recommend you, if not me, another retailer buddy, because that will fast track your application and hopefully help you to get in fair does not accept everybody for good reason. But a lot of times when they reject you, they don't tell me why they reject you. But really I explain everything in my podcast episodes. I really love helping brands out. I want to see more representation on store shelves. And so many times the people with the best products and the best stories are the best kept secrets. And I like to say, I've got your back on that.
Kurt Elster (37:57):
I love that. I like that sentiment a lot. So while I still have you, this is your chance, what's the biggest misconception about wholesale? Let's correct that.
Emily Grey (38:07):
Yeah, I think it goes back to imposter syndrome and what I just said. I think the people with the best products, best ideas, best packaging, coolest products are afraid to put themselves out there. They think that pitching a retailer is like will kill them, not the retail, but will kill them. And it's hard to put ourselves out there. And so I find that me telling people, you're not bothering us, we need you to succeed. We fail as retailers. We go under, go out of business when we no longer have cool products, new and interesting products to put in front of our customers. So hear this when I say this, we are searching for you and we cannot find you. So if you have something you think will sell to us, pitch us, but pitch well, I tell you all about how to do that. My podcast workshops. So podcast misconception is that you'll be bothering us, but we actually need you to succeed. Our economy needs you to succeed is a really cool ecosystem.
Kurt Elster (39:02):
One piece of advice you wish you knew when you started a product business.
Emily Grey (39:09):
So my business scaled pretty quickly as a retailer with my fashion truck. I was getting around town Kerr, I was booking these parties. And so my advice is specific for those of you past the six figure revenue mark, when you hit a hundred K in sales within a year or more, even those of you, the seven figure revenue mark, stop throwing spaghetti at the wall. Stop with the shiny object syndrome. Stop with everyone telling you you got to be on Instagram and then Pinterest and have an email list in all of this. You really need to look at what's working specifically for you and do more of that. So I do this with my mastermind clients who you have to be at that level to be in my mastermind. But if anyone wants a book recommendation, who's a fellow nerd, buy the book good to great.
(39:54):
If you don't want to read the whole book, there is an excerpt called the Flywheel. The flywheel, one word flywheel. And that is what I build for my clients. I build them a flywheel. So you can take a stab at building your own, but what I see is people stagnate their growth when they're looking around and trying different things when in reality it's about digging in, bringing more of you for more of your ideas. And that's when I work with folks in my mastermind. I just let 'em master my retreat last week in Charlottesville for my folks, it is when they've listened to other people's advice or they've done products that maybe one or two retailers suggested that felt off to them, that has stagnated their growth. When in reality if you bring more of you forward, trust your ideas and really do more of what's working for you, that is what's going to catapult you to the growth that you want to see.
Kurt Elster (40:42):
The excellent advice. And finally, what's next for Emily Gray in the flourish market?
Emily Grey (40:49):
Two things. Well, I hinted at it earlier. We're building a big ace place across the way here. We're in a temporary space with our store right now, but I'm just so stoked about it. And with that, we're building on a coworking space for female entrepreneurs. Oh, cool. So yeah, we're really excited. So we moved to this new development in town, just more space. I actually spent in the morning picking out furniture for our lounge area. So if you think your products would sell well for us, please pitch us because we are expanding. Our inventory will be almost doubling our inventory, clothing and gifts. It's really, really exciting. So where
Kurt Elster (41:26):
Should we go to do that?
Emily Grey (41:28):
Wholesaling to boutiques.com. I'll teach you exactly how to pitch people in the right way. Always know my buying team always knows. So basically we get emails all day every day, one of the biggest retailers in the socially conscious space, but people doing it all wrong. And I really want to help you stand out in the right way. And I tell you how to do it in my free workshop. So that's a big thing we're working on right now that will open October 1st Wild. So we got a lot of things moving and grieving for that. But I also recently announced I'm writing a book. So I am so passionate about women, specifically entrepreneurs, finding that magic that's in inside of them, unlearning everything we've been taught and how we have to do business and stepping forward in a way that feels really aligned for us, really excited for us.
(42:12):
I've had the high privilege of being able to do that in my business and pulling that out in my clients. So I'm excited that is, will be two years away. The book writing process is so long, but I've just embarked on that and presented to agents and got several bites. So that's exciting. And I think it's been a while since I put myself in the seat of doing something that's so uncomfortable and new for me. So it reminded me of what my clients go through, my coaching clients when I'm just like, yeah, put your retailer, do this, do this. And so it helped me refe that imposter syndrome that I haven't felt in a while and still take steps forward. So that's next.
Kurt Elster (42:51):
I love that you admitted that. I always know like, man, if I'm not making myself uncomfortable periodically, then I've probably, I'm not trying hard enough and it's time to push a little bit. Got to get out of that comfort zone
Emily Grey (43:05):
A little bit. Yep. I talked to my clients about tolerable steps. Just tolerable steps. Yep. There you go. One day at a time.
Kurt Elster (43:11):
I'm feeling inspired and this has been helpful. And make sure, check out the show notes. We got lots of links in there. Emily Gray, thank you so much. This has been fantastic.
Emily Grey (43:22):
And thank you Kurt, for all that you do for product-based business owners. There's not enough voices out there helping us, tons for service, much less for product-based. So thank you.
Kurt Elster (43:33):
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