"You Gotta Be" is a song recorded by British pop and soul singer Des'ree
Des'ree says
You gotta be bold
You gotta be bad
You gotta be wiser
David Colman is a British Retailer who says........
"You gotta be sure you've got customers
You gotta be sure you have what they want to buy
You gotta be sure you have a breadth of suppliers that can keep feeding you new interesting things so you can keep it fresh
You gotta be sure the prices you are buying at give you margins so you can cover the cost.
David goes on to say.....
"We've found that going to trade fairs has really, really, really helped. You get a lot of retailers who say I haven't got the time to go to Birmingham for three or four days at a time or I can't afford to go but they have no idea what they are missing."
David works very closely with sales agents who work for three to five different companies. They are one man businesses so in order for them to be successful they need to hunt down the cream of the crop and be the retailer's eyes and ears.
"I might see a range that looks nice and my agent will say no it just doesn't work : they have to be truthful because their objective is the same as mine. They know they aren't going to get all their brands into our shop so whatever they recommend to us must sell. They let us know which brands are doing well in the likes of John Lewis and Paper Chase. They do the filtering for us, that way when they visit again the stock is all gone and I want to buy more of their stuff."
We'd love it if you'd share what else you know you gotta be here on Retailer Corner, after all you are the expert.