Exclusivity of Pebble and Best Years knitted and crochet toys

As a wholesaler of knitted and crochet toys we are used to being asked for exclusivity. Normally its not a problem as we are still a small company and our ranges are not as widely distributed as companies such as Jellicat and Anne Claire Petit. However as we grow its becoming more of an problem to us.

Although we understand why stores would want exclusivity it causes us huge issues. The problem is that shops presume that if they take your range first then they have the right to have it exclusivity.

However what should we do if a shop who takes our range only buys £200 in a year? If another shop in the same area wants to place an order for £500 what should we do? Our original customer will feel that they have earnt our loyalty, but do they have the right to keep the range if their turnover is low? We have always been happy to work with smaller retailers so we do not want to start discriminating on size now.

The internet further complicates the issue of exclusivity as it makes our range available to everyone. We also deal with a couple of very nice multiples. They cannot have exclusivity but on the other hand we cannot give ask them not to stock our toys in a particular town in order to maintain exclusivity to an existing Independent customer.

We have a responsibility both to ourselves and to the workers co-operatives we work with to maximise sales. In order to provide fairly paid employment to our workers we need to sell as many toys as possible. Our loyalties are torn between our retailers and our suppliers.

Currently we have exclusivity in 3 different places all of which are market towns where customers can walk easily around all shops. These arrangements have taken literary years to sort out and ultimately it took the shops talking to each other to sort it out.

Exclusivity is a very emotional point and we would appreciate your comments on what you think is right and wrong on our facebook page