.
First, a HUGE thank you to those dealers who have put their trust in us. We have passed the $1 million mark in our wholesale business. Every day we are learning, but we know we are far from “world class.”
Dealers should sift through the Overstock Liquidation Sale. Note that you’ll need to have an account set up to see dealer pricing. The discounts should make the product price well below the likely replacement cost for either the exact item or a substitute. It will also help the industry clear the gigantic pile of inventory—over 200 full truckloads—in the most efficient manner possible. Many hands make light work.
Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a rummage sale. Much of the Overstock Liquidation Sale product is not as well organized as you would typically find on our website. That said, there are some fantastic deals. We are heaviest in Art Alternatives and other Mac “e-brands,” especially (no surprise here) items that don’t move as easily. As a sweetener, the discounting is far better than what MacPherson’s offered to the trade.
Overstock Liquidation items are either items we do not plan on continuing, or items estimated to have greater than a one-year supply. Every week more product rolls off sale status. There are great deals on Sennelier, Fabriano, and Stabilo 88s—where we already have at least a 15% tailwind due to tariffs on new imports from Europe. It’s closer to 40% on items coming in from Asia! For full disclosure, some items may eventually have even deeper discounts—but waiting comes at the risk of missing out entirely.
If you would like a spreadsheet of the Liquidation Sale products, please email wholesale@dickblick.com.
We know it’s not in the best interest of these brands (Montana, Sennelier, etc.) to have Blick as their exclusive wholesaler, and we won’t favor one brand over another the way MacPherson’s did. We stepped in as a stopgap, in the sense that we could secure supply quickly and had the distribution capacity to warehouse it. You should be confident, however, that these brands will eventually be available through either a new sole distributor (which we will use as well) or from multiple sources, should you not wish to purchase from us.
We now accept spreadsheet uploads via order template, which allows you to create a cart you can modify at your convenience. You can download an order template on our For Dealers & Retailers page—scroll to the ‘Order Template’ link under ‘Resources.’
To upload the order template to your cart, you must be signed in to your Blick Registered Account, which is linked to your Dealer Customer Number.
This process works best if you have the MacPherson’s or Blick SKU numbers. If you only have the UPCs, the Blick website may not recognize them. If you run into issues, please email your order template to our Wholesale Team (wholesale@dickblick.com), and we will match UPC codes for you.
SKUs can have multiple UPCs, but our website system currently only stores one—something we’re working to fix.
We have clarified some internal roles and responsibilities to better assist with customer service. Sales and Customer Service are still a bottleneck, but less so than before—and this will continue to improve.
We are weak in communication on deals, so it is mostly self-serve. To see your pricing, you need to log in with your Blick Registered Account, which is linked to your Dealer Customer Number.
We finally sent our inaugural deals email, focusing on a very small selection of the total Liquidation products available. We hope to have a better cadence around items that are available soon.
We are working to improve our capability to provide reasonable shipping and handling charges on smaller parcel orders. Currently, we are not competitive. Once we sort this, we should be able to lower our freight minimums as well.
As a stopgap measure, orders that fail to reach our free freight limit will be sent to our Customer Service team, who will estimate the freight and provide a 6% credit, up to the cost of the freight charge. We should be able to get the final number back within 1–2 days.
Based on our own stores and what we are hearing from vendors and dealers, consumer sales have been solid in Q3 and the first part of Q4.
While this varies by market, we think for brick and mortar it is at least mid-to-high single-digit up in most markets. Optimistically, we think this will continue through the first half of next year. K-12 and collegiate student business is not improving as fast.
Soft Comps: Presidential elections, like any very heavy news cycle, are a distraction for consumers. Late 2024 was weak.
De Minimis Tariff Relief: In August, the loophole that allowed Temu, Shein, Amazon, international retailers, and many others to sell into the U.S. tariff-free—as much as a 40% cost advantage—ended. I think this is a big deal and worth writing your congressman over as a smaller business. Even a $100 de minimis level is a killer, especially when combined with the tariffs that all of us pay. Most consumer baskets are under $100.
Joann’s and Party City Closures: Our stores have seen an increase in the secondary and tertiary categories carried by those two retailers. I wouldn’t go overboard, but having some yarn is not a bad idea. Knitting is trending. Cut fabric… not too sure I’d make that bet.
The Demise of Macpherson’s: This one may be surprising, but Mac was a major source for Amazon third-party sellers and unauthorized resellers. We are concerned as there is at least one distributor seeking to serve the market that has a business model that prioritizes selling top performers to third-party sellers, leaving the rest of us to support the slow-moving sludge. You should clarify any prospective distributor’s position on this matter.
The long-run trends still stink in our view. We think there are simply fewer people painting, based on the quantity of products sold in those categories. We are adjusting our social media to focus on projects aimed at getting more people to paint and draw. We think the biggest challenge is not zero-sum share within the industry—not even Amazon—but rather the lack of any sort of tailwind from people using more of what we sell. If the market had kept pace with the overall economy in the past decade, we would all feel a lot better about our prospects.
I know working with us may not seem logical. All your vendors are, at times, competitors and, at times, partners. Some of our vendors have their own ecommerce site or sell as themselves on marketplaces. Mac selling to “bigfly whomever” was a good example of a serious misalignment. Blick is a significant seller on Amazon. They compete with us in many ways, but they are a partner in others. In the long run, you will appreciate the choice, information, and service that we provide. If we disappeared from wholesale, you would not be better off.
.
Robert Buchsbaum | Chief Executive
1849 Green Bay Road - Suite 310. Highland Park, IL 60035
Office: 847-681-6843 | Mobile: 847-542-1465
.