Why is it important to buy from an Official Stockist?
admin | August 26, 2010
This may be an obvious answer but we are looking at all areas of buying from an official stockist. On most online retailers and high street retailers they are now putting on display “Official Stockist”. The word official can be related to words such as authorised, certified, allowed and approved. It is not always an easy process for any shop owner to become an official stockist either. When looking at brands such as Pandora, nomination and lovelinks they all follows similar criteria’s, it is all about a process of elimination.
They like to first establish who the retailer is, what other brands they sell and will their brand actually sell well in their shop or not. Certain shops will bring down the value of a brand. For example if you saw the range of Pandora in a Claire’s shop you may wonder why it was so highly priced compared to the other accessories they sell in there. Now look at Pandora compared to a Tiffany collection of jewellery you would think, Pandora was a perfect brand that is worth the money you are spending on it and would make the perfect gift. It is so important for them to find the right locations to sell their stock in.
So now they know their products are going to sell well they make sure their brand is given the space they require for it to shine within a shop. If you had a lot of competitive brands it would detract away from the products you really want to emphasise on.
Every authorised retailer has to follow company standards of their product should be sold and pricing. So when looking online for example a nomination bracelet you may notice on one site it will say £5 and on another it may be £1.50 this should ring alarm bells that maybe the company who is selling the item at £1.50 is not authorised. Every nomination stockists will be check regularly by mystery shoppers on their pricing and if they are not adhering to company policies will in-fact have the brand removed from all locations they sell it. This is something Pandora have already started doing within all their shops and closing down any unauthorised online shops.
Why is it important to pay the correct price, if you can get it cheaper elsewhere? Every piece of jewellery that is a genuine piece of jewellery and it does not have to be jewellery it could be clothing by Topshop for example, it all has the company name on it therefore they will always go out of their way to make sure their customer is satisfied. You have the added piece of mind that you have bought into a contract with that company and should the item become faulty you have a right to exchange the item and the company will provide this service. Buying from a reputable company also means that they too have had to have checks that they are adhering to the laws of buying and selling.
A lot of the time if you were to by a item that was indeed a fake you are not bound by any terms so even though it may appear cheaper at first it may not always be cheaper in the long run. To ensure the quality of the brand and that you are indeed buying the real deal always look for an official stockist.
A lot of shops are now putting up signs with official stockist with a ©at the end and to know you are actually dealing with an official stockist always look at their branded displays and point of sale information. Is it in line with others you have seen or does it look out of date? Always do a quick check first and this is where the internet is great as it will not take more than 5 minutes.
Most branded companies do actually have their own websites too, even though you may not be able to buy direct from the company they will have a list of all their shops that are stockists, these have all met the company standards and have been authorised to sell their brand. To check stockists in Google simply type the brand whatever the name is followed by stockist example lovelinks stockists
Don’t be caught out if at all you are unsure or actually are questioning the quality of the product you have bought contact the company directly they have teams that deal with enquiries such as this. No one really has money to throw away so spend it in the right places.
