Sales & Marketing Palmer AK

If you want to understand how important sell-through is to the success of your product, consider the case of Contech Electronics.

By focusing on shelf space and sell-through at such big-box retailers as Home Depot, the Victoria, British Columbia, startup is on pace to produce $4 million in revenues this year, and more than $8 million in ’07, compared with six-figures a couple of years ago.

“It takes more than a good product to sell well,” says CEO Mark Grambart, whose company makes motion-activated sprinklers meant to chase wild animals from lawns and gardens. “You need to spend as much creativity and innovation to sell your product once it’s on the shelf as you did in creating the product.”

Here are more tactics for putting your startup on the same path as Contech:

Get all exclusive with your major retailers

Shelf-space is one thing, but it’s quite another to get a major retailer to give your product a chance to prove itself. One way to do it is by promising exclusivity. In an era of homogenous big-box retailing, this can be very tempting to Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe’s or other major chains.

Robin Gohsman believed Target would be the perfect retailer for Be Bars, a line of nutrition snacks he was creating. He studied similar products offered by the Minneapolis-based chain, and the gaps in its lineup. After he impressed Target buyers, they agreed to significant test marketing of Be Bars – if they could be the exclusive retailer.

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