No matter what products you sell, line sheets are a necessity when reaching out to current and potential buyers.
Brandboom has worked with thousands of wholesalers, and we can confidently tell you what mistakes you could be making - and how you can avoid them.
Mistake #1: Not telling the story of your brand, well.
Too often, wholesalers will remove their brand story from a line sheet altogether because they think it isn't necessary. People who don't have it are missing a lot of sales in general as it provides minimal context as to who you are and what you do, especially for new buyers.
For others, they think it's just another marketing material, such as a sales pitch, or that it should be the history of the brand. These are somewhat true and can be an essential part of your story.
However, for Brandboom, we mainly want to ask you this question: Why does your brand exist?
The answer here should be your story. Here are some things to consider when creating your brand story:
- It should be clear, simple and direct to the point with an introduction, climax (problem/impact) and resolution, not a long narrative essay about your brand
- Be authentic when crafting your story. Be transparent, consistent and true to your brand’s values
- Add your brand’s mission and vision and what your brand is currently doing to achieve this
- Define your target customers and add how your brand is filling the gap in the market
- Add some points on how your brand and/or products set you apart from your competitors.
People don't buy your products because it's cheap, high-quality, unique, etc. but because of your compelling brand story. Your story should create an emotional connection with your customers, which in your case are retailers. Remember, retailers don't just buy your products, but also a part of your story.
Mistake #2: Not Knowing Your Customers
If you are sending line sheets to different retailers, make sure to customize it. That doesn't mean creating a whole new line sheet for every retailer you send it to, but rather to showcase it in a way that your customer would possibly buy from it.
You can add your top-selling products, re-arrange/reposition your products according to what your customer would most likely buy, add some additional information to your line sheet and/or products, or even remove products that are not relevant to your customers.
You can also categorize your products in a way that it caters to your customer.
For example, your brand may have Men's and Women's apparel and accessories. If you want to sell your products to a retailer who is only buying women's products, you should rearrange your line sheet accordingly. You should place women's products at the top, followed by women's accessories. You can either remove men's products altogether or add a blurb section, which states that you have other products/categories available.
See below examples of how you can customize your line sheet:
Having a handful of different categories or arrangements for your line sheet is a great idea. You have to know your customers to make line sheets work.
Mistake #3: Having Poor Quality Product Images
Image quality has a significant impact on conversion rates.
If your line images are poor, customers most likely won't even take the time to look at your line sheet. Having a good product image can be a bit time consuming, but worth it.
We recommend having images with a neutral background - Simple, professional, color images are the best. You should also consider showing your products from different angles and sides as well, to provide a complete picture (pardon the pun).
When it comes to deciding whether or not to use models, there's no one-size-fits-all answer. For products that are easily lost on a model, it may be better to use solo product images and save your modeled images for your lifestyle shots.
Mistake #4: Not Organizing and Categorizing Your Products Well
Line sheets are product catalogs that present your products to current and potential buyers. They usually have several products with different types, styles, and categories. Having all those products in one line sheet is excellent; however, you have to organize and categorize them, so they are not all over the place.
That's why Brandboom has different sections to help you do this.
As you can see on the image below, the “Coats & Jackets” and “Scarves” are title sections and their corresponding products are under product sections.
Divide your products into different categories, categorize by styles or product types, arrange by style numbers, etc.
There are a lot of things you can do to make your line sheet more organized and more appealing. Don't just throw all of your products in one line sheet without categorizing and/or organizing them. Make sure to view your line sheet from a buyer's perspective.
These are just some of the common mistakes we see every time we view line sheets. Line sheets should be beautiful, well-structured, and cohesive from start to end.
We strongly feel that working on these things will provide a significant improvement over time and can land you more customers.
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