How to Sell Your Home, Hardware and Housewares Products to Retail

Do you have an home and housewares invention that you want to sell into retail chains? Have you ever wanted to sell to TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, Bed Bath and Beyond or any other chain store retailers?

If so you will love this new training on Home and Housewares Inventions – How to Sell Your Home and Housewares Inventions to Retail Chains! No Experience Required!

In this video, we explain what to do and how to get started today!

With that said, let’s talk about how to sell your home and housewares inventions to retail chains. Really, this training’s just going to be about some quick tips and strategies and things to think about in regards to your category and going after retail stores such as TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, Bed Bath and Beyond and any other retailer that sells houseware goods! 

Why You Should Sell Home, Hardware and Houseware Inventions to Retail

Here’s the thing about your category. If you’re selling a product that’s great for the home, just remember that this is an EPIC product category and the buyers are always looking for new products. I know this for fact, because we have a lot of different products in a lot of different categories we work in. We work with clients in every product category and home and housewares seems to be consistently always looking for new, hungry products, interesting innovation, something for their stores. There’s always scaling, always growing, especially during tough times, like the pandemic. People were buying stuff for their homes for all sorts of reasons.

People just love their homes and they love to buy at stores. They like to look at things and walk around and experience it and buy stuff online. It’s a very hot category. A lot of room for growth there, which is fun for you because there’s some categories where the product categories where the buyers are just not looking for new stuff, it’s really tight, very competitive, and so forth. This is kind of the category that will always be around because people like their home.

Sell Your Home, Hardware and Housewares Product to Bed Bath and Beyond Stores

Great places to sell your product, to include Bed, Bath and Beyond. They’re great with new products. If you walk around their stores, you’ll see that they’re always innovating and they’re actually not that complicated to sell into if you come up with new strategies and words to use to get them interested in your product. It’s all about the word smithing and the things that you say to buyers to ultimately get them to buy. Really, it requires you to just put some feeling and thought behind your product before you just go out and reach out to retailers.

The thing about Bed, Bath and Beyond is they have counter area displays where they put a lot of impulse buy products. Don’t ignore that retailer, if you have a smaller product that maybe not is conveniently thought of as home and housewares products, because Bed, Bath and Beyond actually sells so many things for people. They have every type of thing that you can imagine around their counter area.

That’s called an impulse buy and there’s buyers who specifically buy for that and they sell a lot of volume of product. Very exciting. It’s also warehouse style, where it’s much larger than other retailers. They have more room to buy things and so forth. 7-11 and certain retailers, are very small stores compared to a Bed, Bath and Beyond. It means that they have the ability to buy more, test more, experience more, and that’s kind of cool.

Home Depot and Lowe’s are actually another retailer that’s not so hard to sell into. 

You’d be surprised. A lot of people don’t know this about these guys. As long as you know what words to use and you have a good product, decent product, they’re really good at testing products. A lot of them are actually working online and doing a lot of work online, meaning that they’re putting a lot of stuff on homedepot.com, Lowe’s.com for new products. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s actually a great way for you to test your product with them. They can bring in another six, seven figures worth of revenue for you. Eventually, if the product sells, it’s a great revenue stream. A lot of times, if you have a new product and you haven’t sold anywhere before, I would definitely check out home Depot and Lowe’s. A lot of my clients have gotten into those stores.

You should take a look at their stories because if you think your product wouldn’t make sense for them, think again. It’s a massive retailer and they’re the riving right now. They are thriving. It does change obviously, but in general, they are doing something right, and people are buying from them.

One thing to note about Home Depot and Lowe’s is that because they do a lot of purchasing online, not necessarily just not in stores, but they tend to test a lot first online. 

They work with distributors like CommerceHub, who basically are third-party logistics companies. If you ever decide to go after Home Depot and Lowe’s, a lot of times, if they decide to sell your products online, they’ll actually redirect you to a distributor called CommerceHub, as of now anyways, depending on when you’re watching this video. This is a distributor who will literally charge you a little bit to handle all the imagery and the shipping and the deliverability and all that stuff. They’re basically kind of managing the relationship with the supplier for people like Home Depot and Lowe’s.

The good news about working with, say, a CommerceHub is if they do accept you into their system, they work with other retailers and you could conceivably go after other retailers because you’re already set up in the system. There’s more to say about that and I have other trainings on working with distributors. Definitely take a look at our YouTube channel and our website because we have lots of blogs on this type of stuff. But the essence is Home Depot and Lowe’s a lot of times will start new products online and, when they do, it’s still a good business. You definitely want to know that they’ll be working with a third-party logistics company, which could actually conceivably help you in the long run, as mentioned.

Don’t forget CVS and Office Depot and other retailers like that. If I had a home and housewares product, I would definitely take a look at other retailers that your competitors are not looking into. A lot of people don’t think about CVS for home and housewares product, but they do have a lot of stuff in there. If it makes sense for your product, definitely explore that option. Office Depot as well, tons of home and household products that people don’t even think about. Definitely explore other retailers beyond just the basic ones that people sell into in your category.

Check Out the International Home and Housewares Association

If you want to learn about your industry as a whole, definitely take a look at the International Home and Housewares Association. They’re an epic organization that supports people in this category. I would definitely become a member, if you’d be open to that. You learn a lot of strategies from other like-minded individuals who’ve already succeeded in retail in this category and you kind of look kind of cool when you are associating with the best. They also have an event every year called the International Home and Housewares Show, which is an epic event. Definitely, when you can go visit that show. I’ve spoken at that show before. It’s massive, insane, cool.

They have a really cool inventors spot typically, where if you have a innovative new product, that would be a great place to try and get your product shown at that event because there’s a lot of massive companies who sell products at the International Home and Housewares Show, but the inventors corner is something that’s kind of a sexy thing where they put all the new inventions over there. If you do have one, definitely see if you can throw in for that one, because it’s a cool opportunity.

We teach strategies on how to not necessarily sell your products at trade shows because we try to save people money and show them virtual solutions. Also, some people aren’t good physically and doing face to face meetings and stuff. So in general, we try to teach all sorts of strategies for people. If you have kids, you’re busy, you have a lot going on, you don’t have time for all this. We show you how to do it every other way as well.

If I could give you any quick tips and strategies, really, what I would say to you is definitely look beyond your nose in terms of the retailers you typically would sell to because people don’t understand that when I was a rep for years and years full-time before I eventually started teaching this stuff and I still practice what I teach. We have programs where we do this work for other people, so we’re always testing our information and the validity of it for very many long time. What I would say is that if I can give you advice, it’s don’t listen to everybody else. Figure out where competitors are not necessarily selling as much and go after those retailers, retailers that your competitors never even thought of.

Again, it requires you to do a little due diligence and see what’s going on in the world, but where else could your product sell because you don’t want to be with all your competitors. You want to find retailers that can buy your product because one chain order can mean millions of dollars to your business and your bottom line. You could sell your home and housewares product to TJ Maxx. I have clients who just sell to one retailer like that and they make millions of dollars every year from that one retailer.

There’s so much opportunity in the world. Stop thinking like everybody else. If you want to learn how to do that, and how to think about strategy, and how to get some support, and some coaching, or have someone do the work for you, take a look at what we’re up to.

Free Webinar on Selling Home and Housewares Products to Retail 

I actually have a free 90-minute webinar coming up. If you go to retailmba.com/free, you can sign-up for that. You can learn all about getting into stores. I could spend some time with you explaining how buyers buy and so forth. Also, we have done for you programs, do-it-yourself programs, upcoming masterclasses where we do virtual intense coaching groups in small group settings over a 30-day period where we give you homework assignments and help you build out your plan.

A lot of this is strategy, guys. It’s not just hiring someone to do the work for you. In our business, you have to take responsibility for your product and build out the best plan so even a rep can do anything with your product. That’s why most products don’t get into stores. We teach you how to get around that. If you want to take a look at what we’re doing, go to retailmba.com. You can see our programs, and services, and systems, and so forth, our buyer lists, and more. Take a look at our testimonials page. We have so many people who’ve succeeded over the years who had no experience, no buyer relationships, no nothing and our scaling and growing. We really, really want that for you.

Anyways, this is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. Please subscribe to this channel, like the post, keep in touch with us. We have so much new content coming out all the time, and we’d just love to help you and keep you involved in this industry. It’s a great business to be in.

Thanks so much.

Karen Waksman, RetailMBA.com