Tattoo Shop Supplies
Tattoos have had something of a renaissance in recent years, and love them or hate them it seems as though they are here to stay. The press certainly seem to adore them and the more we see of articles in magazines, tattooed rock stars and programs like Miami Ink the more mainstream the tattoo is likely to become.
There is an old saying that says something like “If everyone is digging for gold, you’d better be the one selling shovels” and hence the logic behind this idea. Tattooists need guaranteed products from reputable suppliers and the suppliers are few and far between in any given locality. Providing you can find yourself a reliable source of accredited accessories (needles, ink etc.) you should be able to find a market pretty quickly.
You need to either come up with a fairly comprehensive set of products, or something different. Examples might be genuine Chinese Inks for those Asian designs, or maybe white ink for an ultra violet tattoo. Do some research and find out what is hot, if it is available already in your area work out whether you can supply it cheaper. You should be able to do all of your research online, but all the knowledge you pick up will help when you come to talk to the artists themselves.
Given that you are looking to supply to trade, and not to individuals your distribution options are more limited, however we can still think of the following options: -
Ebay
Website
Tattoo Magazines
Yellow Pages
Conventions / Trade Shows
Believe it or not I found 453 entries for Tattoo supplies on Ebay. If you decide to exploit this kind of market, please make sure that you are NOT selling to kids, and ideally that you are only selling to licensed tattoo artists.
A website is great in as much as it can be promoted at conventions etc. with a simple business card and gives the user much more information than you could in a two minute conversation. Given the 1.5 million results on Google for Tattoo Supplies you will have to do some work to get to the top of the listings, and even then I suspect that most of this kind of equipment is sold through word of mouth and relationships, as opposed to directly from an unknown source.
There are now many tattoo magazines, and you will often find them in tattoo shop waiting areas to act as inspiration, or motivation for that next piece of body art. If you thumb through these magazines you will find plenty of adverts for tattoo guns, inks and other accessories. Just because there is competition here doesn’t mean you shouldn’t advertise. It helps build your brand, and thus trust and you may well pick up some orders this way. Be clear on why your offer is different, whether that be price, or what you have on offer and you should get a lot of enquiries.
Yellow Pages is great for two reasons; you can look up all the tattoo shops in your area and go and visit them / or call them for an appointment, you can also advertise there.
Conventions and trade shows are a great place to drum up business. Take plenty of business cards even if you don’t plan to host a stand. You will meet plenty of tattooists and would be tattooists there as well as the tattoo fans and they are a naturally sociable lot. If this is a field you know nothing about then I strongly suggest attending some kind of tattoo show or convention to better understand your market.
Whether you choose to source from a large supplier like www.camtattoo.com or to source form overseas using somewhere like www.alibaba.com or www.globalsourcing.com remember to make sure that what you are buying is appropriately certified. The best approach when you start out might be to work with existing wholesalers on a bulk buy basis, in order to get volume discounts which you can pass on to the tattooists. As you get bigger and more confident you can source individual suppliers for certain lines and start to edge out the middle man.
If you don’t have a tattoo or two or three you may need to be a very fast talker to get out of having some done. If you are scared of people with tattoos, or repulsed by them it will show, don’t even try pretending otherwise.