Home brew distribution ideas anyone?

[AB2ZZ]

I am in the process of talking my boss into distributing home brew equipment on his websites and retail store and was looking for some advice from the home brew community.

I really want this to succeed. His websites offer free shipping for orders over $77 and just $7 for orders under $77. I figured this would be a good draw for people. Just looking to start out with basic beginners kits and such, and if that is successful, expand to offer items for more advanced brewers.

Right now I am negotiating with Crosby & Baker to stock True Brew equipment kits and ingredient kits, and am hoping to get with a distributor for Brewers Best.

QUESTION TIME: what do you guys recommend? When you buy online, what do you buy? Anything you wish you could get online that is hard to find? Do you have other product lines that I should try to look into? What about bulk items?
Thanks
Paul

 

[kh54s10]

A Great web site is #1...
When I started looking last year I knew nothing. I looked around and found a lot of listings. I ended up buying my Deluxe Starter Kit from Northern Brewer. They had the most information and easy to navigate site. There were others that were cheaper but all the other "deluxe" kits didn't seem to be as complete, or didn't really give enough information. I was also looking for ingredient kits at the same time and their site had one of the best selections and the BEST descriptions what the kit included and what it would make.

#1a is customer service. If you cannot provide A1 service you will get no repeat customers.

As for items. Unless you have something no one else has you will have to be in line with prices and that brings you back to #1

Good luck and let us know of your progress.

 

[mrgstiffler]

What kind of store is it?

 

[AB2ZZ]

we already have 3 great websites with a customer service infrastructure set up.

We are mostly a seasonal item store, specializing in christmas decorations in the winter. The retail store is sort of like a miniature super walmart with everything from pencils to steak and lettuce.

The HB supplies would go both in the retail store and online. As the sales pick up, they would probably get their own website but would share the customer service with the other websites.

I work with the customer service people, and am a beginner homebrewer so to make sure they know what they are selling, we are going to make everyone learn to brew.