Semester with Scott Week 4: Jaftex’s Various Sales Channels

This is the fourth “Semester with Scott” blog post. It is a perfect follow up to how we sample the products which were discussed in the third session. We now move onto the different sales channels that we use to optimize our sales of each collection.

Make sure to watch the class video about our various sales channels this Wednesday, November 4, 2020, at 7:30 PM Eastern on my @jaftexpresident Facebook page. Please share my page and the videos with all your fabric loving friends. After the “Semester with Scott” video goes live, make sure to be on the lookout for the Sunday quiz on my Facebook page. You will have the opportunity to win some great fabric prizes just for paying attention and answering a handful of easy questions.

I want to first provide you with an outline of all the types of customers that we cater to:

• Brick and mortar quilt shops.
• Online retailers.
• Hybrids: both brick and mortar and online.
• Fabric stores.
• We sell to chain stores through our Fabric Editions and A.E. Nathan divisions i.e. Wal-mart, Jo-ann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby to name a few. We do not sell FreeSpirit, Henry Glass, Studioe or Blank Quilting lines to any of the domestic big box retailers. Those brands are for quilt shops ONLY!
• Domestic distributors.
• Overseas distributors.
• One overseas big box retailer called Spotlight of Australia.
• Manufacturers of finished products and clothing.

Now that you know who our customers are, I am going to give you an overview of all the people who sell the fabrics to the resellers who ultimately sell to consumers that I like to call “my customers’ customers.”

• We have multi-line sales reps (FreeSpirit & Henry Glass) and exclusive sales reps (Blank & Studioe) that sell to our quilt shop and online customers. A multi-line rep is a rep that works for various and unrelated companies selling fabrics. They have no particular loyalty to one company. I like to say that their loyalty lies with the company that sells best for them aka pays them the most. I compare that to an exclusive rep who just carries one company’s line.
• We sell through domestic and international distributors. We provide them with color cards and they sell in their territories. Many of these distributors commit to fabric upfront and put it on their shelves in anticipation of selling the fabric to their own customers. The heads of our companies i.e. me for Studioe and Blank or Larry Reichenberg for Henry Glass handle the domestic and international distributor accounts. For FreeSpirit, we have an international sales manager named Norm Bagley.
• Canada is the only place outside of the US where we sell through direct reps to the resellers. This is only the case for FreeSpirit as they did this prior to my family buying the company.
• When selling to the big box retailers, those accounts are handled by account managers who are assigned to the different accounts. I cover Spotlight in Australia with the help of many others.
• We also have sales managers for several of the companies that cater to the larger customers. For Studioe and Blank, this would be Cliff Garfinkel. For FreeSpirit this would be Liz Dougherty.
• We sell online through our websites for all the companies.
• Our customer service reps also assist in much of the selling too.
• During quilt market, all hands are on deck and pretty much everyone in attendance can sell.

This provides you with a great overview of what I will discuss in much more detail on this Wednesday’s video. Hope you make the time to watch it. Peace!

Here is a quick recap if you missed the first class:

• What is “Semester with Scott”? Read this.
• Here is a video of the third class on fabric sampling: Click HERE.
• Here is the reading material that aligns with the third course…Sampling of the Lines.