Let Feed Bandit Be Your Virtual Dealer
What is a Virtual Dealer?
We believe in the value of your product or service and would like the opportunity to be your Virtual Dealer. By this we mean we do not have a physical store location so we only operate and sell online.
We’re excited to work with you!
How does the Virtual Dealer work?
We would act as a salesman for your products or services and sell them by promoting them to our podcast followers, email list, blog and via our website store.
Currently we have two ways in which we would facilitate transactions:
- Virtual Dealer Affiliate Option
- Virtual Dealer Drop Ship Option
Both methods are discussed below. Please read on for more details.
1. Virtual Dealer Affiliate Option
How does the Virtual Dealer affiliate option work?
This is our most popular option because it is the most simple and less complicated option that also allows you to control the entire sales process directly on your website.
You would set up a discount/promo code such as “Feed Bandit” that we could give out to our followers. We would let our followers know of your products and link to your product page where they would initiate the purchase.
This code would give them a discount on their purchase and we would get a certain percentage of that purchase as an affiliate fee.
OK, but how exactly would that work?
As an example, many of our partners may discount their product, say, 15% from MSRP for dealers.
Since under this arrangement we would not be holding inventory but only acting as a salesman for your product, when a customer uses the promo code they would get a 5-10% discount and we would get a 5-10% affiliate referral fee for driving the sale to your website.
We can discuss what discount and affiliate fee makes sense for both of us.
How will we sell your products and services?
We will make our community aware of your products and services via our podcast and podcast interviews, our online store, our email list and more.
We will either send folks directly to your website and product pages or send them first to a product page that we would set up on our website which would then link directly to your product page.
What do I need to do on my end to facilitate this?
Your website must be able to accomodate discount/promo codes that you would be able to track. For example, your website would need to be able to tell you how many sales occured in a specific period of time using our unique discount/promo code.
Don’t worry, you would not have to remember to remit payment to us, that’s all on us to remind you!
We would simply send you an email on a montly basis asking you if anyone made a purchase from you with our code during that month and if so then you would remit our affiliate fees to our bank account, typically via PayPal.
Simple as that.
What if my website can’t handle discount/promo codes?
If your website can’t handle discount/promo codes then we recommend exploring the Virtulal Dealer Drop Ship Option below. Or we can work with you on another option if need be.
2. Virtual Dealer Drop Ship Option
How does the Virtual Dealer drop ship option work?
Again, we would act as a salesman for your products or services and sell them through our website.
When we make a sale we would turn around and purchase the item from you at a wholesale/dealer price and you would act as our drop shipper sending the item directly to the customer (if it is a physical product.)
OK, but how exactly would that work?
When we make a the sale through our website, we will remit the customer’s purchase details via email and transfer to you the wholesale/dealer cost plus any shipping we collect on the sale.
We’ll keep the difference. You’ll then package and ship the product directly to the customer.
Do we hold any inventory of your products?
No, we will not hold any inventory.
In order to allow us to maximize our investment into building out the Feed Bandit community via online advertising we cannot purchase or hold any inventory for sale.
Our relationship will be that of Salesman-Drop Shipper arrangement.
Because of this we’ll reach out to you on a regular basis to verify that your products are still in stock and how deep your inventory is.
How will we sell your products and services?
We will make our community aware of your products and services via our podcast and podcast interviews, our online store, our email list and more.
We understand you will have MSRP’s on your products however we will need the ability to offer promotions and discounts to our community at our discretion in order to build our hunter community and your customer base. We will respect your MAP pricing, of course.
Won’t we be competing for sales against your website?
Not really. Not any more than your website would be competing for sales against Amazon if you list your products there or the website of any of your other dealers if they list your products there.
Think of Feed Bandit as another outlet and opportunity to sell your goods.
Who handles customer service issues?
Since it is your product or service we feel it is best for your to handle any customer service issues that may arise.
This will also allow you to develop a rapport with that customer in hopes of retaining them for the long haul.
How are refunds handled?
Should a customer require a refund once they return it to you we will ask that you remit the amount we sent you at purchase back to our PayPal account and we will issue the refund to the customer on our end.
Why you should work with us.
For one, it costs you nothing. That’s right. At this time we aren’t charging any sort of listing fee or other commission for selling your products and services.
As we are just getting started we want to share in the success of sales with you but be sure you aren’t out anything if we don’t sell. Think of us as your 100% “commission” sales force working for you.
Second, by us informing our community of your products and services you are getting free publicity on our dime and time. Again, nothing out of pocket for you to get this exposure.
Third, as we are focused on doing what we can to help small towns and small businesses in the hunting space we will direct all our efforts to promoting this idea and promoting it to a targeted group of hunters that has joined our community interested in this ideal.
They will become your best and most loyal customers.
What are the risks?
Well we’ve tried to think of some of the risks to you but they were hard to come by. If you think of any, please let us know.
Truly the only risk we can think of is that we sell too many of an item that you have on backorder and you may have to do some customer service to keep the sale.
But we will do our best to stay up to date with you about your inventory levels in order to prevent this.
What we’ll need from you.
We will need the wholesale/dealer cost to us of the products and services you’d like us to list as well as the dimensions and weight for shipping costs, lead times, warranty information and your standard refund period and policy.
We’ll also reach out to you on a regular basis to verify that your products are still in stock and how deep your inventory is.
In some cases we will need more and better pictures and product descriptions as well. For much of it we may be able to scrape your website for the information and use our own material but we’ll let you know for sure what we need on a case by case basis.
Finally since we’ll be doing all the work to setup your products on our website all we’ll need from you is your blessing of the sales copy on the product pages. That’s it!