As you may have noticed, we are at the forefront of a new business revolution, where humanity is taking the front seat. Brick and mortar stores are working hard to compete with online retailers with interactive displays, personalization, customer relationships, and better services to enhance the shopping experience. This provides an excellent opportunity for laser machine owners to team up with local retail stores. Our objective is to help you create products and services that directly fulfill human emotional needs.
Local businesses are stronger together. A great way for you to get involved in this business revolution would be to grab your AP Lazer and partner with your local retailers to offer engravings on products they already sell. Here at AP Lazer, we’ve discovered the value in these partnerships and want to share this undiscovered growth opportunity with you!
How Does it Work?
- Start by creating a business plan and present it to the store manager or owner.
- Find examples of products within their own store for engraving and display. Show them that even more profit is sitting right within their own storefront.
- Encourage store owners to provide your engraving services for free to promote their high profit, slow or overstocked inventories, and new products.
We know, providing a free service sounds like a strange business practice, but we’ll explain!
As the owner of an AP Lazer, you have the most versatile laser on the market. Educate local retailers on the kinds and sizes of materials your AP Lazer can work with. Remember, with AP Lazer’s open architecture design, there are no size or weight restrictions, making the possibilities limitless. You can engrave items as small as a bracelet to as large as a piece of furniture, opening up your opportunities to a variety of local retailers. Products made of materials, such as woods, acrylic, glass, leather, granite, and various metals, make perfect candidates for engraving emotional value.
We’ve created an example of a business plan for you to present to local retailers that you can download here.
Why Offer Free Engravings?
Encouraging local retailers to provide your engraving services for free instead of advertising for a discount will dramatically increase their marketing ROI (return on investment). Customers are already spending money on their products, and with free engraving services, are more likely to purchase more engravable items.
Laser engraving is interactive and fun, making the shopping experience more memorable and adding advantages for their store to compete with online retailers. Watching an engraving live and meeting the individual performing the engraving has a much more personal feel than blindly ordering something over the internet. Every piece of engraved product will act as a word-of-mouth advertising spread, for both you and your retail partner. Setting up shop in their shop gets your business name out there and gives you an opportunity to create priceless relationships with customers face-to-face.
Become a Priceless Relationship Ambassador for Your Local Retailers
One of the main appeals of this kind of partnership for local retailers is that they don’t have to do any additional work or stress about trying to hire someone to perform the engravings. You can do it all! Your services will include set up, engraving, as well as customer service, which benefits both you and the shop.
This experience will allow you to explore new emotional engraving designs based on the products local retailers want to promote. Offer to feature their products on your social media, website, and ads, promoting the event, and their brand. As you know, a simple social media post has the potential to reach large audiences. Post interactions and shares essentially do the work for you and give “word-of-mouth” a whole new meaning.
If your retail partner doesn’t feel comfortable offering free engravings, encourage them to offer some kind of discount on engravings if customers buy products from their store or website that they choose to be engraved. This will most likely drive customers to purchase more engravable products, meaning more profit for you and your retail partner.
Market Your AP Lazer to Local Funeral Homes
It’s no secret that building business relationships is a sure-fire way to grow your business, but have you ever considered your local funeral home? Funeral homes and the services they provide to your community are highly valuable and often overlooked when it comes to seeking out partnerships. Many funeral homes are looking for ways to diversify their business and create more revenue, while still staying true to their line of work.
That’s where you come in! With your AP Lazer, you can offer to provide engraved keepsakes for their customers and take the guesswork out of diversification. Provide funeral homes the chance to create even stronger priceless relationships with their customers without them having to lift a finger. Efficiency at its finest!
“What objects do families want?” This is an opportunity to work with your funeral partner to understand how you can best support their business and the community. Using this question is a way to nourish your partnership to provide them with product options they’ll be happy to offer, and in turn, customers will love and cherish.
AP Lazer’s open-architecture laser machine is the perfect addition to any funeral home looking for diversification. Give your local funeral homes the opportunity to unlock the limitless profit potential, while providing their customers with highly-emotional, personalized keepsakes, urns, caskets, granite monuments and so much more, all through your business. This will help your funeral home partner to stand out from the steep competition, improve product offerings, and add unrivaled profit potential for their business. Your services essentially sell themselves!
We’ve created an example of a business plan for you to present to prospective funeral homes that you can download here.
And we’ve also created a trifold marketing brochure template that you can customize for your brand which can be downloaded here.
Success Stories
Learn more about the unlimited potential of local retail partnerships directly from a couple of our AP Lazer success stories:
Brandon and Nicole Smith of Cutting Edge Lazer Engraving
In December of 2021, Brandon and Nicole found increased success by partnering with a Crate & Barrel store in Novi, Michigan. They set up shop in the store on a Saturday and provided eager Crate & Barrel customers engraving services on the products they purchased in store.
“It was such win-win-win for the store, for Brandon and me, and for customers who were ‘wowed’ when watching their holiday ornaments, cutting boards, platters, wine glasses, and other items engraved in real-time before their eyes.”
Nicole Smith
This experience created a whole new outlet for Brandon and Nicole’s business and opened up a world of possibilities. Read more about their partnership event here.
Bonnie Gilbert of Treblig Design
Bonnie Gilbert has created her own local success with her business, Treblig Design. Looking for even more opportunities for growth and success, Bonnie partnered with a few local retailers, including a salon, cafe, and men’s clothing store, to display her unique, personalized laser engraved products. This partnership allows the establishments to offer shoppers an opportunity to support local businesses while purchasing a personalized gift.
Read all about Bonnie’s business venture here.
Get the PDF downloads
In this article, we’ve included three PDF downloads to help with your business plan, your business brand, and your marketing. If you’d like to download all three in a single ZIP file, click here.
Want to get started with your own exciting business venture?
Speak with any one of our knowledgeable laser experts by contacting us directly.
We are also available by phone at 1-800-585-8617.
0 Comments