When most DTC brands think about scaling, they focus on optimizing Facebook ads or expanding to new digital channels. But Jared Mehr helped build something different at Pura Vida—a wholesale empire that became 25% of their business and played a crucial role in their $135 million exit to Vera Bradley. In this episode, Jared breaks down the counterintuitive truth about wholesale: it's often more profitable than your direct-to-consumer sales, provides incredible diversification, and creates marketing lift that benefits all your channels.

Starting from cold calls and trade show hustle, Jared shares the exact playbook that took Pura Vida from selling friendship bracelets in a San Diego bedroom to building relationships with thousands of retailers nationwide. Whether you're tired of being at the mercy of Zuckerberg's algorithm changes or looking to build a more attractive business for potential acquirers, this episode reveals why wholesale might be your most overlooked growth opportunity.

—

Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to (https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact) and request your FREE strategy session today!

—

Chapters: 

(00:00) Intro

(04:23) The Importance of Wholesale in Business

(13:42) The Pura Vida Success Story

(16:51) Practical Steps to Launching Wholesale

(21:44) Wayflyer: Fast, Flexible Funding Designed for You

(22:26) Making It Easy for Retailers to Say Yes

(27:21) How to Identify Your Target Retailers

(34:08) Common Mistakes in Wholesale Retail

(37:51) The Role of Sales Reps

(42:05) Understanding Retailer Terms

(45:30) Pricing Strategies for Wholesale

(51:15) Threecolts: Recover Hidden Revenue for Free

—

Connect With Brett: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce 
• Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/ 
• Request a Free Strategy Session: https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact 

Relevant Links:

• Pura Vida Bracelets: https://www.puravidabracelets.com/
• Jared’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredmehr
• Special Offer | Wayflyer: https://wayflyer.com/en/partners/omgcommerce
• Special Offer | Threecolts: https://www.threecolts.com/

Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, JC Hite, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Stephane Colleu, Jeff Oxford, Bryan Porter and more

These retailers want to

have a relationship and they

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Hey, now featured in all

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Hey, thanks again for tuning into

the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.

I want to take just a minute and

talk about my agency OMG Commerce.

We've been helping e-commerce

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and that's like a

hundred e-commerce years.

And our specialty is finding opportunities

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And unlike channels that you're

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For example, YouTube, most

brands are sleeping on YouTube,

and my belief is it's the biggest

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We're also good at adding up to eight

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And so if you are looking for

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that's what we do. We'd

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We'd love to review your

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and we'd love to schedule a complimentary

strategic review with you. With that

back to the show. Well,

hello and welcome to another edition

of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.

I'm your host, Brett

Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce.

And today we've got Jared

Mehr joining the pod.

I had the privilege of speaking at the

same event as Jared in Midtown Manhattan,

and I got to hear hisT story of helping

Pura Vida bracelets build out their

wholesale retail program en route to

135 million exit to Vera Bradley.

So we're going to unpack that story,

talk about the whys of

building a wholesale program,

the hows and some fun stories

along the way. And so with that,

Jared, welcome to the show,

man. And how's it going?

Thank you, I appreciate it.

It's going really well actually.

Every day is a new experience for me.

I left in March,

I thought I was going to take some time

off and ended up getting bored after a

couple of weeks.

So here I am building some wholesale

programs and speaking at events. Man,

it's really good to talk to you.

I love it, dude. And I hear that

so much from my friend Moise Ali,

who found the native had a great exit.

It's like if you're used to building and

you're used to just going all the time

and you've got, you're bright and

you're talented and all that stuff,

it's kind of hard to take more than a

couple weeks off without building the next

thing. And so I was really pumped to

hear you in the game again and speaking

again. And I will say, Jared,

I thought this was a bold move on your

part and I want to applaud you for it

here on the podcast. So

we're speaking at this event,

shout out to Johnny Hickey who put

the event together is fabulous.

Near Times Square in New York.

Everybody's got a PowerPoint, right?

I'm speaking, I'm talking YouTube.

I got my PowerPoint stuff. Oh man,

here's Jared walks to the stage. I

got no PowerPoint, I got some notes.

And by the way,

this is my first time speaking at an

event and then you proceed to crush it and

tell amazing stories and break down.

And so I was like, this was great one,

it was a great pattern interrupt.

It was just different from

all the other speeches,

and then it was incredibly valuable.

So kudos to you on that bold move.

Thank you, man.

I thought I would be one of few without

a PowerPoint presentation and I ended up

being the only one and I was just like,

alright, I guess I'm doing it. Let's go.

It was 50 minutes of the crowd just

staring at me directly and not anything

behind me. But I'm glad it went well,

and I'm glad everyone got

a lot of value out of it.

And I'm just so passionate about teaching

people about wholesale and retail and

why it's so important. I mean,

I've been doing it for 15 years and I

think it's cool that more and more people

now are seeing the value of it, how

profitable it is, how cool it is.

And I mean, I know we'll get into that,

but I was able to really speak from the

heart and I think that's why it went

well.

It resonated. It resonated

for sure. And yeah,

we have a mutual friend and Chris

Lynch from Everyday California.

In.

La, JOA, California.

Shout out to Chris Lynch.

And so when I mentioned that we're going

to do the pause, Jared's the real deal.

So you got the Chris Lynch stamp

of approval, which is also good.

So awesome, man. Well,

let's talk about a couple of things

that I want to lay the foundation,

set the stage a little bit,

get people excited about this,

and then we're going to talk story and

examples and get into a lot of the meat

of this. So you guys had that 135

and I believe that about 25% of

the business or so at that time

was wholesale, the rest was

D two C, is that correct?

And we'd love to just

get your perspective.

How much did the wholesale part

of the business play into that

successful exit? Yeah.

A hundred percent. So

yeah, my two buddies,

Griff and Paul founded

on a surf trip to Costa Rica, found

some guys selling string grace,

it's on the beach, thought it would be

cool to bring 'em back and sell 'em.

And so they brought 'em home,

started selling 'em in San Diego,

and a few months later I

jumped on, I was like, Hey,

I'm doing commercial real

estate sales. I hate it.

I'm making a hundred cold

calls a day. It sucks.

Let me figure out how

to sell these wholesale.

So thankfully they let me on and we kind

of took it from there and to answer,

so.

Wholesale was really part of.

It from the early days

of Vida. Yeah, honestly,

from month two or three,

Paul's sister,

her name was Erin, she jumped on and I

jumped on and we were just like, Hey,

let's just do it. Let's sell

wholesale, let's figure it out.

And so happy to tell that story,

but I think to answer your

questions in the beginning,

I mean for the first probably nine years,

wholesale was like 10% eComm

90 wholesale then was like

15 eComm 85. And then I would say, yeah,

when the deal happened in 2019,

wholesale was about 25 to 30 ish percent

eComm being the rest.

And I think why it was so important is

because what Vera Bradley liked about the

company is that we had

multiple legs to stand on.

They really wanted an e-commerce brand,

they wanted a young e-commerce brand,

a hundred percent. But the fact

that we had, I think at that point,

20 ish million, 25 million in

revenue for wholesale, I mean,

it was just a massively added benefit.

Yeah, it's so good. And

we've seen this a lot,

talked about this a lot with our clients

channel diversification from a traffic

standpoint.

So that's one of the ways that OMG has

really exploded lately is we understand

YouTube and most of the DTC

brands are really focused on meta.

And so they want to diversify. They

want to open up YouTube as a channel,

but what we've seen from the best

brands we work with is they're all

multi-channel and a lot closer to

omni-channel where if you've got

distribution, diversification,

and you're selling multiple places

makes you stronger as a business more

attractive to a buyer,

which is super important.

So I definitely want to back up

and hear the story just a minute,

but one more question

to set the stage here.

Because.

There may be people that dunno who

Pura V is, and I love the story,

I love the product. It's all really cool.

Why is it so important

to think about building a

wholesale business?

Give me some of the bullet list

of this is why it's valuable,

this is why you should

do it before we dive in.

Yeah,

I think the first thing is for all the

brands that are e-comm only or e-comm

focused,

you don't want your brand to grow and

scale and be fully dependent on Mark

Zuckerberg's mood that day.

Yep.

If you are fully e-commerce and you're

running meta ads and that's your whole

business and anything happens,

you're screwed and all of a sudden it's

unprofitable or no one's buying or it's

too saturated. So a diversification.

B, and that vulnerability is a discount

factor when you go to sell. Right?

The buyers know that too.

So they're like, Hey,

I'm going to factor that

into my valuation here.

And especially now too,

I had some other buddies that sold

companies like Movement watches.

Love that product.

Yeah, great brand. My buddy

owns Blenders Eyewear also sold,

and yeah, I mean they were

mainly e-commerce focused,

but started building a little bit of

wholesale and had that out there and that

was just another reason why these

strategic partners liked them.

Yes, totally makes sense.

That's one. Number two is nowadays

with, again on the meta topic,

wholesale is more profitable,

to be honest. Yeah.

Isn't that crazy? Isn't it awesome as well

than Amazon too in most

cases, and I love Amazon, but.

And I think where people that aren't

super familiar with wholesale kind of get

tripped up is like, let's

use a really easy example.

So let's say you have a product

that retails for 30 bucks,

you're going to wholesale it for 15.

And so I think what I've found is when

talking to founders of e-commerce brands,

they're like, oh, whoa, it's

$15. I'm only getting 15.

I could sell it for 30 online,

but online you have a signup bonus,

so that's a 10% off or 20% off,

that knocks it down, then you're

paying 20 for a customer maybe.

What's your cac? Yeah, yeah, your

credit customer right at the top.

So then out the door you're just like,

oh wait, when I sell a product online,

I'm only getting $2 out of

it. I'd rather sell it for 15.

And so I think it's just a mindset

shift that once you have that you

realize, okay, it is worth

it. So profitability.

Number two, it could be the most

profitable channel that you have.

Yeah,

and I think number three and probably

four is just getting your product

out there. Getting your

product in the market is huge.

Some brands have products

that people want to try on,

they want to see it in person. I'm going

to use bikinis in it as an example.

For a lot of women, they buy

bikinis, online return, half of 'em,

they don't fit. That's

something you want to try on.

And I say that because I'm

currently working with a

really cool bikini brand and

they're going to crush it

at retail because customers

are literally saying, Hey,

where can I find this near

me? I want to go try it on.

And I think that goes for a lot

of different types of brands.

Totally, totally.

And I would say lastly, e-comm

and wholesale don't compete.

And I think that's also kind of an

industry misnomer for all these years is

if someone sees an ad online but they

don't want to buy because they don't know

much about your product,

but then they go to a store on the

weekend and they see it, they're like, oh,

I got an ad for this. This thing's

awesome, let me buy it. And vice versa.

They go into a store, they buy

the product, they're like, man,

these sunglasses rock. I want

another pair. They're buying online.

It's a win-win.

Dude, I love that so much.

It's a really good call on.

I think a couple of things of note

there on the competition piece,

we've helped a lot of successful brands

go from strictly D two C to opening up

Amazon as an example. There's

been a few brands, again,

talking Moise from

Native, he was like, man,

I wish we'd gotten on Amazon sooner,

but there's always going to be some

cannibalization. You open up Amazon,

there's going to be some cannibalization

of people that not going to buy D two

C, now they're going to buy on Amazon.

I think there's definitely less

of that When you open up retail,

it's almost all upside in

terms of who you're closing.

And even if you're looking

at existing customers,

they're probably going to consume

more and buy more If you're in retail.

I was talking to my buddy Jimmy Sandstone

from the normal brand and the St.

Louis Missouri brand, and I'm here in

Missouri, but they've got, I dunno,

12 plus stores, maybe 15 stores

now, something like that.

But they found that when they open a

normal brand store or when they're in a

prominent retailer in a particular market,

obviously retail sales go up big time,

but D two C sales go up too because,

and this is one of those things

like going back to marketing 1 0 1,

my marketing professor in

college would be so proud,

but you got the four Ps of marketing,

product, price, place, promotion,

but that place is important.

Where is your product?

And it's part of the marketing equation,

having your product in physical source.

And so yeah, that we can't

overstate, I don't believe.

I mean, it just lends incredible

credibility to the brand, right? It does.

What's crazy is what we found at Pura

Vida, which I'm happy to say I was wrong.

So we were selling to thousands of

retail stores, mom and pop, surf shops,

boutiques, that kind of thing. We started

opening up our own Pura Vida stores.

We had I think five of 'em, five or six.

And one big thing that I was

very against is I'm like,

do not put Pura Vida stores near

existing retail stores. Don't do it.

It'll cannibalize. And

here's what's even more.

Insane. The retailers will get

pissed and stuff like that.

Don't upset them totally.

But we put up a store in Myrtle Beach

where we had three other retailers,

peer reviewed retailers, one

in the same shopping complex,

a couple down the street.

I was scared the retailers were

pissed sales for all of it went up.

And I think that what's behind that is

that it just cements credibility of this

brand that they're like, yeah,

you can go to the peer Vida store,

I can buy the product, but when I see

it elsewhere, these guys are legit.

This is a real deal brand. And I.

Think credibility, awareness,

awareness lists, which all of that,

all that's really valuable. So yeah,

what a cool call out. Well, awesome.

So okay,

now we tease and we're going to get into

a lot of the how-tos and the story and

stuff like that. But let's back up a

little bit for those who are like, wait,

peer reviewed bracelets, what's that?

You talked about Griffin and Paul surf

trip to Costa Rica. Sounds magical.

They buy bracelets, they bring it back.

Tell us what the bracelets are and what

some of those early stages were that

causes to be such a phenomenal success.

So they bring these bracelets back.

They're wax coated polyester bracelets.

They literally look like

friendship bracelets that

we made in elementary school

Colored, they're colors, they're

fun, they bring 'em home,

they start selling 'em out

of their bedroom in Pacific

Beach in San Diego where

we live, start going to San Diego

State Library, giving people bracelets,

having 'em follow us on Instagram

and basically kind of just put up a,

it wasn't Shopify back then,

I don't remember what it was,

but it was put up a little

website and start selling online.

Myself and Aaron come on.

And we were just like, Hey,

let's essentially knock on

doors, let's make cold calls,

let's email samples out.

We go to a trade show,

we rent out half a booth

in someone else's booth,

give out bracelets to everyone, and we

just start growing the brand like this,

right? Super organic. I think we were,

I don't want to say one of the

first on Facebook with Facebook ads,

but very early when it was insanely

profitable. So that was very helpful.

It was like literally you put

in a dollar, you get $5 back.

And so the brand kept growing that

way. And I think wholesale wise,

we went from zero to a couple

hundred K in our first year,

a mil, three mil, seven mil, oh,

we need some sales reps, 15

And so the wholesale path kind of went

up and at the same time the path went up

and that was kind of the growth story.

And so we went from one style of

just string bracelets and colors to

tons of different styles ranging

anywhere from $5 retail to about

20 Came out with some rings

because we were like, Hey,

naturally we make bracelets, we're

taking pictures of people's accessory.

Let's get rings on it.

So expanded into rings

story behind the brand too is they're

all handmade by artisans down in Costa

Rica. So we employed over 600 artisans.

Wow.

It's amazing that handmaking all

the bracelets and everything.

So it was a give back story. We

partnered with over a hundred charities.

We made bracelets for American Heart

Association, so it'd be a red bracelet,

JDRF, which is juvenile diabetes

research, blue bracelet.

And so it was a great story. People, we

felt good about buying. We donated tons.

We've donated 4 million

now in total. So yeah,

I mean it was a fun ride, a great product.

I think a lot of people were just like,

why would I spend $5 on a friendship

bracelet in the beginning?

And then thankfully it caught on.

It, man, it was such a great

vibe, fit the San Diego ethos,

but then obviously when coast

to coast and beyond and carried

cost those Costa Rica vibes as

well, which is just awesome.

And so let's kind of break this down.

So growing it to 15 million

plus in wholesale business,

most profitable portion of the business,

what are the practical

steps? So for like, okay,

I want to launch wholesale.

Where do I start? What do I do?

What's kind of step one in that process?

Yeah, step one is to figure out if you

have the margins for it. So step one is

going back to the example

of a $30 retail product.

Can you sell that for $15? It doesn't

make sense. And not only that,

could you sell it for 13? Because the

more margin you give these retailers,

the better.

And you look like a hero if you could

give these guys 55 or 60 margins.

So can you do that? The answer is yes.

Because if you can't, you're just not

going to get your foot in the door.

If you're like, Hey, retail's

for 30, but also two for 24,

that's not going to work. Generally.

People are going to laugh at you,

people are going to laugh at you.

Unfortunately it sucks. But

they have to pay their staff,

they have to pay the bills, they have

to pay their, you know what I mean?

So they need the money

to make up the margin.

Last thing is can you pay a sales

rep down the road 10%, right?

Just something to factor in.

It's not immediate by any means,

but can you do it because that

will come into play if you scale

properly. So if you check all those

boxes off, that's the big first step.

You're good to go there.

Second thing that I advise all these

brands to do is think about your sales

pitch. Think about the elevator pitch.

What is so special about your brand,

but not in the sense of,

hey, we get the most,

our ROAS is two x or we get the most

clicks on our Google ads because

store buyers don't care about

that. They're old school.

A lot of 'em don't even know what

ROAS means, as funny as it is.

So you need to have some sort of sales

pitch that's a good story that they can

relate to or your price point

is amazing and it's going to

bring customers in their store.

Something that will make someone that has

never heard of your brand want to take

a chance on you and bring it in.

What was the Pura Vida pitch? And

that totally makes sense. By the way,

you can't, I mean maybe you can

highlight a few things online,

but that's not the story.

That's not going to make as much sense

in the head of the retail buyer like it

does for you. So what was the

story you told for Pura Vida?

So for Pura Vida, ours

was the Costa Rica story.

So all the bracelets are

handmade down in Costa Rica.

We provide jobs for over 500

artisans. Everything is wax coated,

polyester waterproof, so you can surf,

swim, shower, give them to friends,

gift 'em, they last a long time. Colorful.

We partner with a hundred charities

and they retail for five bucks.

So it's a really easy price point.

And so I think these retailers were

either like, oh my God, I love Costa Rica.

I go there with my family once a year.

Love.

The charity aspect, my store gives

back. Or even just like, Hey,

I love the price point. I

like that they're five bucks.

That's really easy for me to sell.

Let's do it. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it totally makes sense. And

in some of these boutique shops,

they want to be able to tell

a little bit of a story.

If somebody's browsing and like, oh,

lemme tell you about these bracelets.

There's a story here. And that's useful

for merchants to be able to lean into.

Got.

It. That's awesome.

It helps you cut through the noise

because let's say you are a candle brand

or a bracelet brand or whatever,

there's a lot of competition out there.

And so if you just are, hey,

we make water bottles or candles

and it smells good, it's like,

okay, but a lot of people do that.

But if you have a charity aspect

or a great founder story or

can do custom labels or can just do

something that will bring customers in and

make it worth it, you'll get a lot

more yeses than if you didn't. Got.

It.

And any tips on how are we

translating that story into potential

benefit for the retailer?

I know obviously we want to lean

into the story and the narrative,

but we can also be too

focused on us or our product.

So any tips there on how to make

that applicable to the retailer?

Yeah,

I think the story is important because

they want to feel good about what they're

selling and essentially know that

people will come in and shop.

I think in terms of benefit,

you want to just be able to offer the

retailer the fact that you are going to

put them up on your store locator.

You're going to bring customers in,

you'll post on Instagram about 'em,

you'll provide marketing Dropbox if they

want window decals, that kind of thing.

I think gone are the days in

a sense of just like, Hey,

I'm going to give you your product,

you're going to sell it and

I'll call you in a few months.

It's like these retailers want to have

a relationship and they want you to

post about it. Hey, now

featured in all Ron John stores.

Go find 'em or link with them in the

holidays and do a little gift with

purchase and just have

it be a partnership.

I think that goes a

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Totally makes sense.

And this is probably the time when it

does make sense to talk a little bit about

your online marketing, right? Hey,

we're generating awareness and demand

and we tell people that it's available in

your store that that's going

to be a benefit to you,

and we got these other support materials

to help you really sell it in store.

So that totally makes sense. Okay, great.

So first step is do I have the margins?

Can I give 50% to the store owner

because that's what they want,

and then in the future, hopefully or

not, hopefully we need to plan for this.

Can I give 10% to a sales rep even

if I don't have any sales reps.

Right.

Away? And then the second thing is

what's the story? What's the pitch?

How do we nail that down? What's next.

Is you want to figure out what do I want

to offer? And it sounds kind of funny,

but let's say you have 30 SKUs

on your site or 50 SKUs too

many. You need to go to market

clear and concise strategy.

You need to make it easy for these guys.

I can almost guarantee

that if you have 50 SKUs,

they're not all 50 best sellers selling

the exact same amount, But let's take

that 50 s skew line and narrow it

to 20 and go to market with 10 or 20

and say, okay, out of everything we have,

this is the line we want to go to market

with. Narrow it down and go from there,

build the line sheet, build the

catalog, build the assortment,

wholesale pricing, retail pricing,

and boom, you're good. Now,

if your product is small, if it's

jewelry, if it's a key chain,

if it's a magnet, if it's something

you can kind of sit on the counter,

I then suggest having a little bit of

a point of purchase a display branded,

something like that.

If it's not, it's okay.

If you're a clothing brand or

something bigger, it's okay.

But that's kind of the variable factor

in terms of getting the line prepared to

go to the retailer at the next step.

Nice. So yeah, if we got 50 skews,

let's narrow that down to the top 10,

maybe the top 20. You talked about this

a little bit presenting in New York,

but you talk about make

it easy to say Yes,

and part of that was what you just said,

but can you unpack that a little bit?

How are we making it easy to say yes?

And it may seem obvious to

some, but why is that important?

Because I think sometimes

this point may be missed.

So retailers have a lot of

things going on in their mind.

They're managing a store,

they're managing employees.

If they're a buyer for a bigger

company, they're buying for 50 stores.

They have a hundred decisions to make

every day. So you're cold emailing,

you're cold calling and you go, Hey

Brett, I'm Jared from Pura, Vida,

bring in the line. And they go,

okay, I like it. And I'm like, Hey,

here's 30 different colors.

Pick five of each that you like

and then send me this too much.

You probably won't get an answer.

Yeah, yeah.

So what I recommend doing, and it

doesn't, again, it's not universal,

but it works for a lot

of people and brands.

It's like some sort of starter pack or

some sort of opening where you're like,

Hey, I put together the best sellers.

I'm going to give you the best sellers.

I'm going to give you a display

for free. I'll have it shipped.

All you have to do is say yes, and

you'll have a box at your door next week.

Dude, I love that. Yeah,

because you're 100% right.

Just think about it from

the mindset of a consumer.

We go to the toothpaste aisle, we

don't want to know what we want to buy,

and there's 500 choices, and then

it's like, I don't know what to do.

Same is true with your buyer. They

don't know your product if you just say,

this is our catalog,

do you want a couple of this or a

couple of that or what do you want?

It's too much. Just say, this is

what you need. Made it super easy.

Just say yes. Yeah, man, I love

that approach. And that also,

and I think another benefit to

that, just knowing that, hey,

you built this into a program

with multiple reps and

you're kind of running the

show, makes it easier for a rep

as well. You train a rep on, Hey,

here's our get started package.

That makes it easy to say yes,

clear training to level

up your reps as well.

Yeah, a hundred percent. And you

can even categorize that by channel.

If you sell to oh man,

stores on the east coast and stores on

the west coast and that stores on the

east coast love the bright colors and

stores on the west coast love the dark

colors. It doesn't have

just one thing for everyone.

You could have two and every store

you reach out to on the east coast,

you're just like, Hey, I put

together the best sellers.

It's all the bright colors we know

they kill it in New York and in Jersey.

Just say, yes, here's the starter

pack that we recommend. Love it. Boom.

So for us, we had 80 of one,

20 of another and 20 of another.

It was 120 bracelets and a display

free of charge. A display was,

we called it the starter pack, and

we were just like, just say, yes,

I'll have it at your door next week.

And people were like, yep, let's do it.

That was so easy. Heck yeah. And

it just on repeat, on repeat.

On repeat, it's amazing,

man. I love it so much.

Walk us through this piece and

we'll get back to the next steps,

but just have this thought and

want to double click on it.

So a buddy of mine, I actually introduced

'em to you, but Jared Mitchell,

ghost ammo,

sunscreen for men shaped like

a shotgun carer. Super cool.

So he's talking about how am I

going to go retail and stuff.

I think one question that a

lot of brands have in mind is,

where should I go? Who

should I approach first?

What advice would you give

there? Where did you start?

It sounds like with Vida you

started, you were just hustling,

you were calling everybody, but how

did you kind of build that short list?

I'm guessing you weren't going to Bass

Pro shops in the beginning or whatever.

How did you build that initial

target list of retailers?

Yeah, I think you as a brand owner

need to figure out where you want to be

and you may say, oh, I want to be

everywhere. I want to be everywhere.

And I think you can't

because you can't sell to

high-end boutiques, but then sell the

same product to cvs, it just won't work,

right? The boutiques will

say No cvs, whatever.

So I think what you need to do is figure

out, okay, where do we want to start?

Do we want to be in boutiques?

Do we want to be in gas stations?

Do we want to be in surf shops?

I think having some sort of clear

focus channel is a great way

to start. And from that point,

you can use one of the many

tools online of scraping leads,

going to similar brands, websites,

hopping on their store locator,

stealing their list of stores and

thanking them for the free leads.

I guess it's not even stealing, but

it's public. It's public, right? Yeah.

Going on, there's a program called Fair.

It's like a wholesale marketplace.

A lot of brands hop on it to kind of

just get some revenue coming in the door.

I don't think it's super

scalable, I will say that,

but I do think if you're

new and you're just like,

I want to get a little bit of revenue,

you can throw some products up

there and see who bites and.

See what retailers are

graVidating towards your product.

Exactly. And I think those two avenues

are the perfect starting point.

Where do you want to be sold and maybe

hop on fair to prove a little concept and

get some revenue going in the door. It's.

Amazing. It's amazing. Talk a

little bit about the display aspect.

I know you talked about,

hey, if it's something small,

if it's on the countertop, you definitely

want to display, if it's apparel,

clothing and stuff, maybe not as much,

but what advice do you

have about displays and

then how important is the

merchandising piece of this,

even though some of the

merchandising is up to the retailer?

Walk us through that a little bit.

Display is really, really

important to me in my world,

and if you have a product that

can go on a display, you should

Twofold. First one is you call the

buyers, you call the retailers,

you're trying to get your

product in there, they love it.

What's the first thing they're going

to ask you? Hey, I love this product.

Where do I put it? I don't know.

Wherever you want. I dunno,

you might've lost them.

Second part is if you still

have 'em and they're still down,

they're going to put you on some

display in the back of the store,

they're going to put you on a random

display that has things from China.

No branding, it just is

not a great look for you,

and I don't think you're going to see

the sales from it. Now, on the flip side,

if you can offer a branded display,

even if it's small, if it's big,

if you have a product like towels

and you could do a standing display,

sunglasses, have a display, whatever

it may be, your brand's on there,

you can tell a story.

You can have your colors,

you can have a QR code where someone

could scan it and go to your site and read

about the product. You can have a one

little blurb on there on our displays.

It was a spinner and it said $4

million donated made by artisans

all hand. And it's like you got to think

people don't know what your brand is.

It's their first time seeing

it. If you can't tell the story,

it's pretty hard to sell.

Totally, totally. It's really the

ad that someone sees in the store,

it positions the brand, it tells the

story in a very brief and concise way,

but without that it's just a

friendship bracelet on a rack or

on a shelf or something

like that. So yeah,

it's critical to get

that piece if you can.

Any good advice there on resources or

what people should check out or who they

should learn from or who does it? Well,

just thinking some of people on

the pod that the list of the pod,

they're pros at Facebook ads or

Google ads or whatever, but I dunno,

never built a display. What am I

putting there? What am I showing there?

Any advice and or resources there?

Yeah,

so I think the thought of a display can

sometimes be daunting if you don't have

any experience it in it, but what I

would recommend is just get something.

If you don't need to go to a professional

display manufacturer on day one

and spend thousands of dollars

on mockups and display,

go on Etsy and find someone

making a little wood piece.

Have 'em make you 20 of 'em

and put your brand on it.

Go on Alibaba and get 20 of

something. Just get something.

Our first display was literally

wood from the beach Beachwood.

This guy would get it, cut

it into one pole like this,

and then one two poles across and it

looked like a little tree and it said P

beat in it. It looked like a kid

made it in a junior high project.

It didn't matter.

Yeah.

It was just like get something out there.

And I think the same can be with these

if you don't know a display manufacturer,

heck, I bought displays on Etsy

recently for a trade show. It's great.

Yeah,

you guys started this right out of the

gate or month two or whatever it was.

When should most brands

consider this, right?

Because not every brand is going

to have you as their buddy.

They can just do this and

you're sick of your job,

so you're ready for something new. When

should someone strongly consider, Hey,

I need to diversify.

Let me explore wholesale

retail. Any guidelines there?

Yeah, I think there's not

a hard number of like, oh,

if you are doing X amount in sales,

go to wholesale. But I will say,

and a lot of the brands I've been speaking

to and people in the industry is get

a little bit of an e-commerce presence

going, get your social media up,

get sales going, get a proof of concept.

It doesn't have to be $4 million. Prove

your product market fit, prove that.

People want this.

Prove it.

And then because if you just start

and a brand and then on day one

go call a bunch of stores and

get your product in there,

you don't even know if people

want to buy the product.

If it's priced and then stores are

stuck with your product, it's a mess.

You lost that credibility, and so

I think there's no hard number,

but if you can prove your concept by

getting some e-comm sales rolling in at

least for six months or maybe a year,

you're in a much better

position to succeed.

Totally makes sense. Yeah. Jared,

what were some of the mistakes,

either the mistakes you made at Pura Vida

or just mistakes you see brands making

when they're getting

into wholesale retail?

A really big one that I have been seeing

lately and that we made is trying to go

too big too early.

I can fully understand why when you're

starting out thinking about Nordstrom

or the Buckle or something like that,

handing you a $200,000 po, that sounds

awesome, right? What could go wrong?

This is amazing. The problem

is you're not ready for it.

They have shipping guidelines, they

have chargebacks, they have EDI.

They have crazy,

crazy processes that if you

ship one day late charge

if you don't write the right

thing on the box charge,

and I've seen brands literally lose money

on these orders because they weren't

ready for it and because

they got seen be chargebacks.

What.

Is E-D-I-E-D-I is when

stores transfer their orders

system to system where they're

not calling you and saying,

Hey, Jared, I want a

hundred pieces. Send it.

Their system sees that inventory is low,

electronically delivered to your

system to reorder it, and it takes set.

It takes integrating with your warehouse.

It costs money. You have to have this,

and if you're not ready,

brands won't work with you.

And so that's the first part.

The second part that's

really scary is let's say,

I'm going to use Nordstrom as an

example again. Let's say they go,

Brett love your product. We want it

for 50 doors. And you go, okay, great.

So you make all this product, you front

load the cash 50 doors. Okay, well,

they're not going to pay you for 60

or 90 days floating cash from when you

started creating the product

60 days after they had it.

That could put you out of business.

Totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah.

You got to make sure you've

got that ability to float.

And then I'm also assuming the

terms are going to vary from

retailer to retailer, so maybe you're

getting the cash 60 to nine days later,

but it's maybe not all the cash and

every retailer is a little bit different.

I know my buddy helps brands get into

Walmart on physical shelves there and he

talks about how I can be like the hug of

death where there's so many good things

happening, but if you're not ready,

it's going to put you out of business.

A hundred percent.

And what if someone tells you they

want 50 doors worth of product?

You make it all, and two days

before you ship it, they go, Hey,

actually we close down 20 of our

doors so we only need 30 doors worth.

And you're like, what do I do with,

what do I do with this inventory?

I'm screwed. Right? We made that mistake.

We made that mistake with Pac Sun.

We sold the PAC Sun way too

early in the Pura Vida days.

We had a terrible product assortment.

Which had to have felt awesome,

right? You get P on massive retailer,

it's got to feel like you're riding a

high because you got PAX on to say yes. I.

Thought I was the man. I got

invited to Pax Sun's warehouse.

I went to corporate. I was posting

photos on Instagram. I'm like,

me at the Pac Sun warehouse, Pura

Vida. I thought I was so cool.

We get this order. I didn't know

what assortment to make them,

so the colors were so off.

We were late on delivery.

We got chargebacks, we tagged it

wrong. They needed custom UPC codes.

We tagged it wrong. They never

order it again, still to this day,

and we blew our shot.

And so I just think the biggest

thing that we did and that

people do among others is just

going for the big guy way too early.

And I think the solution for that,

the solution is don't

ignore the mom and pops.

Don't ignore the smaller chains.

You can move a lot of inventory that way,

and you're going to be able to learn and

grow and protect yourself financially

that way. Love that. Other

mistakes to avoid mistakes.

You guys made anything

else to call out there?

Yeah, I think one thing we did was we

hired reps and showrooms too early.

I think the concept of

you're new and some sales

rep that lives in Florida reps three

other brands, right? Sounds cool.

You're like, oh, well

he'll just rep my brand.

He'll just plug me into the hundred

stores that he already sells to on day one

or it's a showroom. Oh, when a

buyer's in the showroom for a meeting,

they'll just sell him my brand too.

And unfortunately that's not the case.

You're just so low on the totem

pole when you're brand new and

when a rep or a showroom

has to pioneer your brand,

which means literally pave the path,

it's extremely labor intensive,

time intensive,

and if a buyer comes into a showroom

and they only have an hour and a rep

sells five brands, and here you are

at the bottom of the totem pole,

they're going to show the

buyer these three brands,

because these three brands make 'em money.

They got to make that sale.

They got to make that sale.

So we did it, we did that.

Then we ended up taking it back in house

because we can tell the story the best

we can lay the foundation. We're

working nine hours a day selling it.

So then we went back

out, we did it ourselves,

and then when it was the right time,

then good reps came to us and good

reps wanted to spend time on us.

So that was a big, big

learning for us too.

Yeah, that's really great. Any rules

of thumb there or thoughts on, okay,

when do I do this myself versus when

do I bring on a rep versus when do

I partner with somebody, like

a third party rep or whatever?

Yeah, I mean,

I think you should lay the groundwork

yourself for a little bit at least. Yeah,

totally agree. It's beneficial because

no one tells the story as good as you.

No one has all the time in the day

of selling your brand as good as you,

and whether that's you or you bring

someone on in-house or you hire an intern.

When I say you, I mean just

something you can in in-house.

I think you.

Just, it's also important too.

Just a quick side note there,

Jared is just almost like

you guys had the benefit,

and I talked to Preston

Rutherford from Chubby.

They did the same thing where they

were selling chubby in parks in San

Francisco. You guys were at the San

Diego State Library selling Pura Vida.

There's something powerful about looking

your customer in the eye, selling it,

getting that immediate feedback,

seeing what they think,

what the conversations are like.

And in the wholesale world,

you got two customers really,

right? You've got the end buyer,

which you probably already know

by now, then you got the retailer.

And so being able to understand what

they care about, what they want,

what they don't want,

it's pretty valuable.

And then you get that feedback the best

from engaging in those conversations.

I think just another reason why doing it

in-house or doing it yourself to begin

with makes a lot of sense.

Nailed it a hundred percent.

You establish a relationship,

right? And to piggyback on that,

you start going to trade shows,

which probably is another chapter in

this journey of what we're talking about.

You want to be at the trade show,

you want to be telling the story.

Griffin Paul, we're at the first

couple years of trade shows. Oh,

hey, this is the founder. This is

the story. We're telling the story.

We handed the reins too early. And someone

would come up and say something like,

Hey,

what were the names of the two guys in

Costa Rica that you met first and the

reps didn't know and you lost your chance?

So I think that's why it's very

important and truly, truly, truly,

if you have a baseline of stores, let's

say again, I'm going after someone,

I want to rep in Florida because I'm

too busy. We're at a certain point.

If we have no stores to give this guy to

manage, on top of him getting his own,

we're probably not going to get the best

reps. Now, if I go to him and I say,

Hey, we have 40 retailers

in Florida, they're awesome.

We want to give those to you to grow them,

but then also have you

bring on a hundred more,

the best of the best reps are going to

be the ones that say, heck yeah, I'm in.

Yeah. Yeah. Very clear objective for

them. It's a clear structure for you.

Clear path to ROI. Everybody's

aligned. Makes a ton of sense. Jared,

you've talked about this a little bit,

but walk me through or walk us through

what are some of the terms we could and

should expect,

and what are some of the terms that

are negotiable versus probably not.

I mean, I know everything's

negotiable to a certain degree,

but what kind of terms should we

expect going into these deals.

Out in the retailer front?

Like if Retailer? Yes. Okay.

Yep, yep, exactly.

The majority of the

time, product dependent,

but the majority of the

time the mom and pops,

the smaller chains are going to

pay you with a credit card upfront.

So they'll give you their credit

card when they place the order.

Pay the full.

Amount of the PO at the time of

order, full amount of the po, no,

at the time of shipping. Shipping. Got

it. So let's say they place an order,

it's a thousand bucks,

it ships next Friday,

I'm going to get their card right before

I ship it. I run the card in full,

I ship the product.

Got it.

It's amazing because the money's

in my hand. We have the cashflow,

we have the money, great.

They have the product done.

So I would say that is how the majority

of the smaller chains and the mom and

pops work now, as you get

bigger, 10 doors, 20 doors,

maybe 50, whatever it may be,

you start working with net terms.

So net most common is 30.

So they will pay you 30 days from

when they receive the product.

Not usually from, it's sometimes when

you ship it, you can say 30 days,

we try to do that, but

sometimes they'll say, Hey,

we didn't get it for seven days after

it's kind of a little bit of a gray area.

You could say 30 days from invoicing,

they're probably going to be a day

or two late. But in general, net 30,

next common is net 45,

45 days net 60,

and then net 90

brands hate net 90 retailers

love it. It's just kind of like,

I want to say a clout thing. I

guess retailers that are really,

really good pump, really good volume,

big names, the Nordstroms of the world,

the, I dunno, maybe Bass

Pro shops, I'm not sure,

but those are the ones that

can say net 60 or net 90,

because you don't have a

choice. You say no, they say no.

It's massive distribution. How else

are you going to get in the door?

Yeah. So that's kind of that

world, and that's why again,

getting this mom and pop baseline going,

you're going to have money coming in,

right? You have.

Yeah, that's going to cash flow.

Going to create float for the

bigger retailers with more.

Yeah. So you got the cashflow

going, you have all that,

and then when you go out to the big

guys, you can handle it better. Now,

in of the big guys,

for people who are a little bit afraid

of floating money for 30, 60, 90 days,

there's third parties

out there called Factors.

And what that is is basically you

hire this factor on, you say, Hey,

I'm going to ship to Bass Pro shops,

the order's a hundred thousand dollars,

the terms are 60 days.

They will say, okay,

we approve this because we know

they have a good track record.

They will then collect the money for you

guarantee some sort amount of money in

that. And then they take

take a cut when BassPro pays.

So we've used a bunch.

It's very helpful for brands that you

don't want to float that yourself.

Got it. So you're taking a

discount, you're taking a hit,

but you're solving your cashflow issues,

which for growing brands,

sometimes the cashflow is more important

than just protecting EBITDA as an

example. And so makes a ton of

sense. Jared, this is an amazing man.

This is super good. I'm

excited to go wholesale here.

Any other mistakes that are worth calling

out? Mistakes that we should avoid?

I know there's probably a

lot, but in any noteworthy.

One. Yeah, no, this is good. I think a

big one, I don't want to say mistake,

but I think it's something that you

really have to keep in mind is if you have

an e-commerce store and your entire

model or a big model for you is

discounting, you are always on

sale. You're always offering 50 off.

Every other holiday is 40 off, and

that works for you, that's fine.

But I want you to know you may have

a hard time getting into wholesale

because you cannot be constantly

competing with your retailers.

They will see it, they will find it,

they will subscribe to your email list

just to be in the know and you're going

to beef with them. And I think not even

just beefing with existing retailers,

if you're going after these guys and

you're cold calling your emailing and they

hop on your site,

they want to learn more and you're

running 50 off every other day,

it is just like you're not

going to get these guys to see.

You. That becomes your price, right?

There needs to be clear map

pricing or clear MSRP or something.

If.

You don't have pricing integrity, a

retailer is going to sniff that out.

And while that might may be

the first thing you think of,

that's probably one of the very first

things that a retail thinks about, right?

Yep. Especially in this day and age

where e-comm is such a big deal.

It's a big thing they look for.

And so I think you don't have to tone

your entire pricing strategy down on day

one when you have zero wholesale orders.

I fully get that you

want to test the channel,

but I think you have to be open to

saying, okay, if wholesale works,

let's tone down the discounts

on e-com and be open to that.

And I think if you are,

you will be successful.

I'm want to say hardheaded about

it. If you're just like, no,

our brand model is we go 40 off

two weeks a month, and that's it.

You may be spinning your wheels a

little bit in the wholesale world.

Totally makes sense, man.

Jared, this is awesome.

Thank you for dropping so much knowledge.

I'm excited about this ton of value.

For the listeners, those that are

listening, well, first of all,

any final comments before we talk about

how people can get in touch with you?

Yeah, I mean, not really. I think

this whole thing is super exciting.

Wholesale and retail was such

a big thing for me growing up.

I think probably for a lot of

our listeners growing up of like,

you wanted a t-shirt, you went

to the store and bought it,

you want a skateboard, you go buy it.

eCom became such a big thing 2010 and on.

And I think now we're seeing such a

shift back into retail and wholesale,

especially with how hard it is online

and how expensive That I think it's

exciting, and I know I'm

biased because it's what I do,

but I really hope more people

catch on and just see the benefit.

And trust me,

that first time you walk into a store

and you see your product in a store,

it feels so freaking good, man.

And to one up that the first time you're

chilling and you have a buddy send you

a screenshot and go, oh my God,

I'm in Hawaii at my resort. Look,

I see your products here. This

is epic. It feels so good.

So not only is life

just an amazing feeling.

Yeah, I love that. And one final

thought that I've got to share,

I think it's really important is we're

talking a lot about it in marketing right

now, incrementality. And so

we do a lot with YouTube,

but also met on other channels. And

so we're always looking at, Hey,

what's providing net new sales,

net new lift that we would not have

gotten otherwise? What's really cool,

and they actually just talked about

this on the operators podcast.

Nice.

So Sean Frank and Mike

Beckham and the guys,

and then also Marketing Operators podcast,

Cody Ker and the Collins and stuff

is, Hey, when you are in retail,

your incrementality factor goes up. So

as an example, I'm running connected tv,

I'm running YouTube, something like

that. So it's a little more upper funnel,

maybe not click-based as much, but it's

driving awareness is driving demand.

Your incrementality factor or the

incremental impact of those ads

goes up pretty dramatically

when you're in retail stores.

And so it makes everything better.

It can change the economics

of your ad campaigns,

creates an awareness as you were talking

about with the pure Vida stores or the

normal brand stores.

There's just so many benefits here that

it's worth exploring and then anything

worth doing the right way.

And so as people are listening

and they're like, man,

I got to talk to Jared, first of all, it

sounds like you're getting covered up,

so maybe people are going to need to

take a number wait in line type of thing.

But how can people connect with you?

What are the best ways to reach out?

Yeah, definitely. Shoot me an

email, Jared meer@gmail.com.

Message me on LinkedIn. I

don't have MEHR, right? So.

Jared.

MEHR, sorry, J-A-R-E-D-M-E-H r@gmail.com.

I'm a little embarrassed to say I don't

have a website yet. I'm working on it.

It's just.

Just out there doing it, man. You're

out there doing, it's totally cool.

I'm too busy. No,

I'm trying to have a meaningful

name and everything is taken.

And so it's all happened really fast

of helping brands and kind of putting

myself out there. So I will have that.

But in the meantime, email is great.

LinkedIn is great. Yeah, I

would say that's the best.

Awesome. Jared Mehr, ladies and

gentlemen, Jared, this is awesome.

And thanks again for the time, man.

And we'll have to do it again soon.

And next time I'm in San Diego,

let's hang out. I'll be there.

Hundred percent, a hundred percent,

man. Can't wait to see you.

Thanks for having me on.

I really appreciate it.

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