MI Pro

European Music Distribution (EMD) has long led the way in the creation of an all singing, all dancing, A to Z of branded musical instruments, whether that is from the company’s central offices and warehouse in Brussels, from its US operation or through its numerous third party distributors (58 at the last count) around the world. Now the company has gone one better.

The past few years has seen EMD establishing its own factory and shipping operation in Foshan where everything from the simplest of accessories to the most complex brass and woodwind ranges (and literally everything in between) is manufactured. This is not a factory that EMD simply uses, it is its own – the workers there are all EMD employees. This makes for a much easier operation when it comes to anything from components used in manufacture and quality control, to storage and shipping and has now opened the door for the next phase in EMD’s global activities: Foshan Direct.

“We have now got our new website running where dealers and distributors can see what is in stock at our Chinese warehouse,” explains EMD’s sales manager in the UK, Tom Robinson. “It’s something we have had in operation from the European warehouse in Brussels for some time now, but now customers can look at the stock at source in China – and there’s around 500 different products – and put in an order based on the stock there.”

Although this sounds pretty good, a lot will probably shrug their shoulders and murmur that while this is fine, waiting months for stock ordered is not how they run their businesses.

This, says Robinson (with a wry smile), is where Foshan Direct comes into its own. “If you look at most shipments from China, from placing the order to the container arriving, I think you’ll find that five months is a good average. We can do it in four weeks. This is going to make a huge difference for our customers.”

There are those that run their companies looking six months into the future, of course, and for them, the scheme will make little difference, but for those that are looking for a fast turnover, this really is something worth looking at.

EMD began piloting the scheme in August, but has kept relatively quiet about it until it was sure that any glitches had been ironed out. Clearly it feels the plan is ready for the world with the announcement timed to get appetites whetted for a full on launch at NAMM.

What customers will need is to place an order amounting to £10,000 – although there are no constraints as to which products are included in this – the size of the order is calculated (as in volume within the container) and it is shipped – all fully insured, of course. Simple as that.

Or is it? £10,000 at trade could pretty much fill some shops – is Robinson expecting retailers to stock Stagg exclusively? “Of course, this isn’t going to be for everyone,” he admits. “There are lots of dealers that like phoning up, getting a few pallets a week and turning over business like that – and that’s brilliant. You will often find that the amount these dealers are selling over a three month period, they could probably have filled a container anyway, but that’s not how they want to do business.

“That said, a lot of quite modest retailers can easily sell this amount – Stagg is a very high turnover, high profit brand. The discounts from using Foshan Direct make it even more attractive.”

Robinson reckons that from the purchase of a £10,000 order, dealers could easily expect to sell them at £35,000 retail. He believes very strongly that EMD and Stagg offers dealers (on top of a fast turnover, high profit range) one of the lowest risk deals around.

“The website shows that all the products are there, waiting to be bought, guaranteed ready to leave, all handled by EMD staff, the loading is filmed. Once the order is loaded, we send an advice sheet to the customer, and then, a week before the ship is due to dock, we send another advice note saying when and where the stock will be arriving. It is a really efficient investment and those that have been using the scheme – three containers have come to the UK already – are already seeing the benefits. I have had one dealer telling me that he made £60,000 profit on a £68,000 order. It’s not hard these days to look around and see people spending a lot more and making a lot less.”

What Robinson is saying, of course, is ‘do more Stagg’ – and why not. With at least three ordering systems available to the UK dealer, and if such security and profit is really on the cards, most dealers would be hard pushed not to.