Our Approach

Focus On The Product, We'll Focus On the Sales

You Focus on Your Prod­uct, Foot­print Reps Will Focus on Sales

In terms of mar­ket­ing, con­tinue to be your­self! Foot­print Reps is not in the busi­ness of telling you how to build your prod­uct, cre­ate your mar­ket­ing mate­r­ial, or sell your prod­uct to the end con­sumer. That’s your job, and you’re great at it! We sim­ply han­dle the busi­ness devel­op­ment in the US mar­ket. We are busi­ness con­sul­tants and will help you develop the US mar­ket. We only work with man­u­fac­tur­ers that have a clear vision in terms of their brands and have put together a pow­er­ful mes­sage that com­pels con­sumers to purchase.

Step 1

Under­stand Your Goals

Under­stand Your Brand and Your Goals

Our process is to clearly under­stand your brand and where it is posi­tioned, then we dis­cuss your goals for the mar­ket and develop a strat­egy to meet those goals.

Who is your tar­get market?

Age, Eco­nomic Sta­tus, Gen­der, Geo­graph­i­cal Ter­ri­tory, Inter­ests, Etc.

Where do they shop?

Where are your cus­tomers already shop­ping?  What key retail­ers make the most sense for your brand?

What cat­e­gories work best for your product?

Where does your prod­uct belong in the store?  In which key cat­e­gories are you see­ing the most suc­cess from a global sales standpoint?

Step 2

Make Sure We’re Ready

Next, we make sure your brand is ready to sell within the US mar­ket. We openly dis­cuss the require­ments of retail and go over your cur­rent sup­ply chain and pro­duc­tion line. If some­thing is lack­ing, we help you get it set up.

Retail Require­ments

Do you have a domes­tic warehouse?

If not, we’ll help you find one that meets your needs.

Is your ware­house famil­iar work­ing with Retail, and are they ship­ping sim­i­lar products?
  • Your prod­ucts may require spe­cial handling
Is this ware­house cur­rently work­ing with your tar­get customers?
  • Are they cur­rently ship­ping to the tar­get retailers?
  • Are they famil­iar with the tar­get retail­ers Rout­ing Guides?
    • Car­ton requirements
      • Label­ing, size, con­fig­u­ra­tions, etc.
    • Pal­let requirements
      • Height, con­fig­u­ra­tions, etc.
Can this ware­house han­dle both drop-shipping and pal­letized programs?
  • Drop-Ship:
    • Are they able to han­dle Drop-Shipping?
    • Can they com­mu­ni­cate in-stock lev­els via EDI?
    • Are they able to ship out by the cut-off times?
  • Pal­letized Programs:
    • Are they able to han­dle these?
Are your Mas­ter Car­tons in con­fig­u­ra­tions that work for retailers?
  • Will the case pack quan­ti­ties work for the retailer?
  • Have the case pack dimen­sions been ana­lyzed for opti­mized ship­ping costs?
  • Have the case packs been opti­mized for pal­letized shipments?
Do you cur­rently have a Prod­uct Lia­bil­ity Insurance?
  • Does your pol­icy meet the tar­get retail­ers’ requirements?
  • Are you able to co-insure?

**If not we’ll help you find a part­ner and pol­icy that works for you.

Do you cur­rently have UPC or EAN codes?

If not, we’ll help you obtain these.

Are you cur­rently setup with EDI?
  • Are you able to issue and receive the fol­low­ing documents?
    • Issue:
      • 810 Invoice
      • 997 Func­tional Acknowledgment
      • 856 Advanced Ship­ment Notice
      • GS1-128 Car­ton Labels
    • Receive:
      • 816 Orga­ni­za­tional Relationship
      • 850 Pur­chase Order
      • 860 Pur­chase Order Cancellation
      • 864 Text Message
      • 997 Func­tional Acknowledgment

**If not, we’ll help you get it setup.

Oper­a­tional Requirements

What is your capacity?
  • What is the stan­dard pro­duc­tion lead-time for the products?
  • How many units can be pro­duced a month?
From where will the prod­uct ship?

City and Country

Step 3

Opti­mize the Program

As busi­ness picks up and becomes estab­lished, we look at the busi­ness objec­tively to see if any cost and lead-time sav­ing ini­tia­tives can be put in place.

Opti­miza­tion

Is there any­thing we can do to min­i­mize costs?

Is your domes­tic ware­house in the ideal loca­tion?  Does it match your business?

Is there any­thing we can do to cut down the lead-time?

Is your US ware­house in the cor­rect location?

  • Is it opti­mized to cut down in-bound shipping?
  • Is it opti­mized to pro­vide 2 day ship­ping to all US customers?
Are we using the best meth­ods of shipping?
  • Are we look­ing at the cost of ship­ments objec­tively?  Are we weigh­ing the cost of all the dif­fer­ent forms of tran­sit to get to the best cost?
    • Air Freight
    • Sea Freight
    • Train Freight
    • Truck Freight
Have the mas­ter car­tons been opti­mized for shipping?
  • Have the dimen­sions of the mas­ter car­tons been max­i­mize for pal­let capacity?
  • Have the dimen­sions of the mas­ter car­tons been max­i­mized for stan­dard par­cel shipments?
Are we fore­cast­ing accurately?
  • Are we tak­ing sea­sonal trends and hol­i­days into consideration?
  • Can we fore­cast from an entire mar­ket standpoint?
Are we using actual sales data in mar­ket­ing campaigns?
  • Are we uti­liz­ing geo­graph­i­cal sales data in mar­ket­ing campaigns?
Are we tak­ing advan­tage of all of the Sea­sonal Trends and Holidays?
  • Christ­mas
  • Back to School
  • Black Fri­day
  • Memo­r­ial Day
  • Valen­tines Day
  • Moth­ers Day
  • Etc.