Small business and big costs: How to save money on bulk order sites
Starting a brand is small. Very small. Audience. Resources. Wins. Losses. Everything small. But for the purpose of this article, let’s focus on Resources.
When sourcing production for a branded item for Paracosm (the world’s greatest, smallest brand) I often find myself ordering 10, 25, or mayyyybe 50 of an item. For this reason, I usually end up eating a massive egg when it comes to setup cost, manufacturing, shipping minimums, and so on. DezignATee4U.com is not setup for small makers like you and I. Their interfaces are awful (opinion) and their product minimums are astronomic (fact.) “No, I simply cannot order 10,000…of anything…yet.”
NOTE: I only recommend using these big bulk sites when the product you need, cannot be produced by a local small business. There are a million screenprinters in the world that can print your t-shirt for you, but maybe not every town has someone that can make a vintage hotel keychain with your logo on it.
Large corporations order massive quantities which drives their costs way down whereas small businesses order hundreds if they’re lucky which means you’re paying corporate setup fees with small business ROI.
But if you shop around websites and manufacturers enough, you may find a flavor of DezignATee4U.com that has a hidden cost-saving SiDe QuEsT you can go on.
I’m talking about the customer service telephone number. Yes, that app on your telephone that you never use: the telephone. (Gary Gulman has a very funny bit about this premise.)
These massive bulk order sites have contact phone numbers because these (also) massive corporations, order thousands of products for thousands of dollars and need to be able to get someone on the phone STAT if they have questions or issues. I know this because I have worked on both the production and client side of this work stream.
But as a small business owner with limited resources, you can ALSO call that phone number and talk to an actual human being who has an actual voice and actual life and actual interests and an actual attitude that may vary.
Be overly nice on the telephone to that actual human and ask them a couple questions about their service. The color options, the weight of the shirt quality, or maybe just explain the project you’re working on and how you came across their site.
Before getting off the phone with that actual human being, ask if they are running any promos or discounts that are not listed on their website. A free shipping here. A discounted setup fee there.
Maybe…just mayyyyybe that actual human being will also view you as an actual human being and give you a lil PROMO4SAVINGS for your time.
Thank you, Josephine, for inspiring this post.