As a retailer of wedding dresses, suits, or beautiful accessories, you source your products in different ways. Some purchases are made directly from the supplier, while in other cases you buy through an agent. In this article, we explain what an agent does and what advantages there can be in having a good relationship with an agent.
– An agent can briefly be described as a business operator who has the right to sell another company’s products. As an agent, you run your own business and have agreements with one or more manufacturing companies, which means you are responsible for driving their sales in the agreed region. This is how Heléne Beckeman, owner of Nordic Agency Group, describes the role of an agent. We took the opportunity to ask her a few more questions.
How do you work as an agent?
– We are several people working in the company. We have an office in Falkenberg where I work together with my colleagues Janine, Carina, and Jörgen. Janine mainly handles customer service and is available to customers by email and phone on a daily basis. Carina works partly with customer service, but also with sales, and Jörgen focuses mostly on the menswear side. At trade shows and larger events, we also get help from additional staff.
We believe it is important that the stores can focus on taking care of their customers, which is why we try to help as much as possible with customer service. This can include, for example, placing dress orders, following up on deliveries, handling complaints, helping to find specific dress models that a bride-to-be is asking for, and assisting with various questions that bridal stores may have regarding sizes, prices, express deliveries, and so on.
We also focus on driving sales to the stores by getting our suppliers to advertise both in print and online. We also work with bridal fairs, mainly in Sweden, where we set up fitting rooms and refer brides-to-be to our retailers. We are happy to participate in bridal fairs and trunk shows, and we constantly focus on how to encourage future brides to shop with our retailers.
There is no additional cost for the retailer to purchase through us — the dresses cost the same as if they were purchased directly from the supplier.
What are the benefits for retailers?
– One of the advantages of working with an agent is that we keep the sales structure “in order.” We know where our retailers are and work to ensure that all stores have room to run their business. We also have a close relationship with most of our customers and can help explain things to the suppliers if something is not working well for the store.
How do you, as an agent, strengthen the bridal industry?
– We constantly care about ensuring that our retailers have the best possible conditions to succeed and to run a profitable business. We always try to sell with consideration for the customer and with the intention of building long-term relationships with our retailers. Many times, we look more at the industry as a whole than at our own company making money in the short term, because we know this is a vulnerable industry. We must always think carefully about what we do so that we do not harm, but instead strengthen our retailers as a whole — because we want to be here and conduct healthy business in the future as well.
What is the best part about working as an agent?
– It probably depends on who you ask. Personally, I love traveling and meeting people. And I enjoy building relationships. We work in an industry with beautiful dresses, and of course it is just as exciting every season when the new collections arrive. When I then get to show them to our customers and they become just as enthusiastic, that is truly rewarding. But this is not a nine-to-five job — you have to be prepared that at times there may not be a single day off in an entire month. Still, I wake up every morning looking forward to going to work, and that is something not everyone gets to experience.
