Shutters are the product that we at The Shutter Store sell (as I'm sure you've deduced!) however it doesn't matter what product your company produces or sells - it's crucial that you have a good network of companies who can supply you with good quality products and services.
This has been central to the successful growth of our European based shutter companies. When we started our shutters business, it was very much a case of doing a lot of the start up business activity ourselves, simply because the money was not there to pay other people to undertake certain tasks. However, as time progressed, we sold more shutters and we were able to bring in experts to handle different parts of our wooden shutters business.
Over the years, we have built up very strong partnerships with a number of different suppliers and this is in our view one of the central reasons why our different shutter companies have grown successfully and why we're doing the same with The Shutter Store USA and forming good, strong partnerships with a wide variety of American companies.
It doesn't matter if it's shutters you sell or any other product or service - you'll need to establish strong relationships with a whole host of different people. For example, today I've been talking to the people who make our shutters hardware, the people who handle the shipping of shutters, the people who handle our shutters web based marketing and the people who handle our data storage. We've built good relationships with these companies, so much so that they've been able to help with our international expansion selling shutters in both American and France.
Many of these companies have worked with us for many years and while we're approached by different people wanting to handle these aspects of our shutters business (for example, our shutters shipment) the value of that relationship and subsequent reliability outweighs any savings we could make by going with a different supplier.
Of course, we are continually looking at the costs our shutters business incur and try where possible to keep our costs very tightly managed to sell our shutters at a very competitive price. However, we always factor in the value of the relationship we have with that supplier and what impact (AKA cost) loosing the supplier could have as a bad link in the chain of supply can have a big knock on effect.
So - whether you sell shutters or party hats or cardboard boxes, you should always be open and communicative with your suppliers. Tell them if you’re not happy with their service but tell then when you are. Tell them when you have issues and see if you can work together to solve them. While not directly on your payroll, they're your partners and integral to the successful growth of your business. Never underestimate it!
The Shutter Store Inc is a US Shutter retailer based in Las Vegas Nevada, selling FSC Approved wooden plantation shutters throughout North America.
