280 | Selling wholesale to Nordstrom, Anthropologie & REI with Lana Effron, Lana's Shop

Don’t you love hearing other people’s business journeys? I sure do. Today I’m joined by Lana Effron of Lana’s Shop. Lana is a Paper Camp alum and a member of our Proof to Product Advisory Board who has built a successful business selling wholesale to numerous large and well-known companies.

Today you’ll hear why and how Lana made the jump from working as graphic designer at Vogue Magazine and Gap to opening her own design studio that now sells vibrant products in hundreds of stores around the globe, and partners with brands like Terrain, Anthropologie, REI, The Lumineers, and Lily Collins.

On this episode, we talk about how her business has evolved, how her partnership with Nordstrom came to be, and she shares strategies that have helped her grow in selling wholesale.

Today’s episode is brought to you by our Is Wholesale Right For You masterclass! During this free, on-demand masterclass, we’ll walk through 12 questions to ask yourself to determine if you, your products, and your business are ready to sell wholesale. I’m sharing my own tips for you to move forward confidently with your next steps.

GET ACCESS

Pursuing a Dream as an Artist

Since she was a little girl, Lana dreamt of being an artist. She imagined herself working at a greeting card company, so when she wound up in roles at Vogue Magazine and Gap, she continued her dream on the side. She painted for herself and her coworkers, creating cards of her own.

After a long process of painting at night in her free time, Lana finally built up the demand and the confidence to pursue her dream full-time. That was in 2012; nearly five years later, in 2017, Lana joined Paper Camp. At that time, she had exhibited at the National Stationery Show, had her products in a few stores, and was growing her business and team.

Lana’s business has a variety of revenue streams coming in, including selling wholesale and retail, along with big brand partnerships like Nordstrom, Anthropologie, and REI.

Getting Noticed By Big Brands

It’s not every day that you check your email and get a pitch from a big brand. So when Lana received an email from Nordstrom, she assumed it was fake—thankfully she opened it and responded. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t fake.

How did they find her? Social media!

Ultimately, Nordstrom carried three designs across 30 stores during a holiday pop-up, ordering a small quantity per store, along with online. Thankfully, gift wrap is one of Lana’s best-selling products so she was very familiar with the process of gathering and shipping when it came time for her to fulfill the Nordstrom order.

Woman holding wrapping paper. Text overlay: "It just takes one design for them to say yes! - Lana Effron"

If you ever feel like the time you’re investing in creating social proof on Instagram or social media in general, this is your reminder that it just takes one person to notice your work and make that connection for you.

Investing Time Into Pitching Wholesale & Relationships

Now success in wholesale partnerships isn’t always that simple. For her other partnerships, she has earned them through building long-term relationships and pitching. As you gear up to pitch yourself for brand partnerships and deals, you have to remind yourself not to take silence personally.

A lack of response does sometimes mean that it’s not the right fit—and it’s okay to accept that.

Remember though, the people behind these email addresses that you’re pitching are busy. It’s okay to follow up. When you have a great product, you’re doing them a favor by dropping it in their inbox; they just might need that reminder.

Selling Wholesale to Anthropologie

For Lana, it took her forever to get into Anthropologie. She connected with so many buyers, would finally get a meeting, then learn that the buyer no longer worked there—forcing her to restart her process.

In this industry, there is a lot of turnover, so you have to keep at it with making connections, building relationships, and pitching. Don’t let the size of the brand intimidate you—the people you need to connect with are just like you; simply people doing their job.

After pitching her contact at Anthropologie for a meeting while she was in town, Lana got to meet with Anthropologie and get one step closer to securing her spot in their stores. Finally, after many, many emails, her contact liked one of her gift wrap designs, but thought it would work on a tea towel for their brand—there was zero hesitation in Lana’s “Yes!”

Lana pitched five designs, they narrowed it down to one, and that started the process of selling wholesale to Anthropologie. Lana manufactured the tea towels for this specific collaboration, but for Terrain (Anthropologie’s Garden Brand), they buy the design and print it themselves.

Negotiating Partnerships, Wholesale, & Exclusivity with Big Brands

As you enter into collaborations and partnerships, there are a number of things to consider: legal, compensation, responsibilities, exclusivities, and more. At the end of the day, you want to feel good about the partnership, considering the compensation and marketing.

text overlay: "when it comes to negotiating partnerships, at the end of the day, you have to feel good about it. - Lana Effron"

For Lana’s first collaboration, she worked with an attorney to feel more comfortable and confident in the agreement and negotiations. Now she’s able to tweak that contract depending on the client.

Continuing to Grow in Business as a Full-Time Mom

Lana has the privilege of being home full-time with her baby right now while still running a successful business on cruise control. Her biggest focuses for now and the future are making time to paint, branching out with licensing, and expanding on her new product, Packadoo.
Lana attributes the success of where she is in business and how it’s running to the people she works with. While it’s hard to let people in, delegating makes this possible. To stay connected to her art, Lana books an overnight trip every season where she can focus on painting.

In Conclusion,

Lana has spent years taking things step-by-step to grow her business in selling wholesale. She mentioned numerous times in this episode how important it was to just do the next right thing, even without knowing how it would turn out. Let this be your inspiration to just keep taking baby steps and keep reaching out because you never know when someone will see your product and want to have it on the shelves of their store!

Quick links:

Here is a recap of all the links shared in this episode:

If you’re looking to expand your wholesale revenue—more orders, higher AOV, and stronger relationships with your wholesale accounts, be sure to join our waitlist for Paper Camp! Since 2011, we’ve helped thousands of brands get their products on the shelves of stores big & small, and we want to help you do the same.

JOIN THE WAITLIST

Download These Quotables to Save and Share

MEET LANA

Little design studio filled with sunshine that wants to share some of those hopeful rays with you. Lana’s Shop is helmed by Lana Effron who after working as a graphic designer for Vogue magazine and Gap, Inc., the native New Yorker moved to Colorado and launched her stationery and paper goods business in 2012. Lana's products are handpainted, bright, and focused on all things nature with the hope of helping you spread some kindness one design at a time. You can now find her vibrant paper goods in hundreds of stores around the globe. Lana has also done exclusive designs for Terrain, Anthropologie and REI as well as clients such as The Lumineers and Lily Collins. Her work has been featured in Crate&Kids, Brides, Martha Stewart, Architectural Digest, Glamour Magazine, Real Simple, Southern Living and Vogue.

Even as we grow, our main goal is always to form a genuine connection with each of our clients and buyers, and to give each project 100% of our focus. We want every new design to be your new favorite design.

CONNECT WITH LANA

WEBSITE: lanasshop.com | INSTAGRAM: @lanasshop | FACEBOOK: @LanasShop.3 | PINTEREST: lanasshop

Connect with Katie Hunt

Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.

Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct