I am loving your site

Hello. You have no idea how much you are going to help me. I thank you so much for that!! Hope all is well. Heidi

My event listings website has an opportunity to partner with a thriving e-commerce company to sell tickets to our various events right on our website. I have no idea how to do this or even who to contact. Is there any advice you’d give me when trying to nail down a block of tickets?

I’ve worked for a decade in live entertainment marketing for non-profit arts as well as big budget shows along a glitzy stretch of road filled with tourists 24-hours a day in a desert valley against very heavy competition from not just other shows, but nightclubs, dayclubs and other ways to spend and lose a lot of money…

I’m unsure how old this comment is – and maybe you’ve discovered the answer for yourself – but for anyone else who has stumbled upon your question and curious about the answer:

You would work with the (s). Their job is to look at sales projections for the show to see if there is a need for a ticketing broker and, if so, how many tickets they can allot to you, which seating locations, what showtimes/days, what discount they can offer and when they can release those tickets to you.

The traffic and advertising will be done by IEG Group but it’s up to little old me to obtain the tickets and develop the relationships with the shows/events selling those tickets

Sometimes they can even dictate to you the lowest amount that you may sell the ticket. Some organizations are very protective of their brand and feel that if you publicize tickets at too low of a price point, it cheapens the brand/experience or makes the show look desperate.

Overall, there is no real cookie-cutter blueprint that you can follow when approaching each show. Unless, of course, you have access to a LOT of potential customers – your own database or email newsletter, you have sales kiosks in heavy foot-traffic locations, your website community is huge, you advertise well, etc.

At that point, when you have the customer base and the leverage, you can go in with your own package and demand more from shows: more tickets, better seats, more favorable profit splits, guaranteed allotment….take it or leave it. It’s very hard for us to say “no” to that kind of exposure, especially if our competition is saying “yes.”

Note: Some vendors won’t even ask you for your sellers permit! But having one allows you to purchase your supplies tax free. It also demonstrates to your vendor that you actually have or are trying to start a real business.

You don’t need to have a sellers permit. You don’t need to have a corporation or an LLC. You don’t need to have a website or anything at all!

For example for our wedding linens store, we are still considered a small fry when it comes to our purchasing volume so it wouldn’t make sense for us to contact a large linen manufacturer directly.

Can I just send you an order by email and you’ll ship it to my customer? Is my contact info on the packaging slip? Can you provide an order summary to confirm the order? Do you tack on a dropship fee? Do you provide a discount once I start selling in higher quantities? Is there a restocking fee and how are returns handled? How long do I have to return a potential order? Does a customer contact me or you directly when they want to make a return? Do I get charged immediately for an order or do I pay later after connecting singles a set period? How long does it take for orders to be processed/shipped? Do you ship via DHL, FEDEX, UPS, and USPS and do you provide tracking numbers? Do you ship internationally and how do you deal with shipping exceptions where the merchandise is returned to sender? Do you provide order and shipment confirmations and tracking numbers?

As part of running our online store, we get requests from businesses all of the time that want to carry or purchase our items wholesale or in bulk.

How do you approach supplier for an e-commerce website? Some of them want to see website first but then in order to complete the site, I would catalog content. What would be the best way to go about in this situation?