Selling gloves as 'hand tools'

Much like safety glasses have transformed over the years from the clunky Buddy Holly-style to sleek, colorful Terminator-style glasses, a lot also has changed in the glove market The industry-standard glove used to be thick and bulky and come in plain colors. Today's gloves are made of more technically advanced materials, are carefully designed with task- and application-specific palms, fingers and wrists, and have an increased attention placed on comfort, fit and style.

Add to this influx of glove options that lower costing, stylish, high-tech-looking (but not high-performing) gloves can now be found at big box stores everywhere. The result? Workers are at greater risk of selecting the wrong glove and being dissatisfied. It's up to distributors to help workers navigate the options and purchase high-quality gloves. And focusing on selling gloves as "hand tools" is an effective sales strategy.

Educating workers

When equipped with the proper product education and training, an arsenal of the right questions to ask, and great merchandising tools, salespeople can educate and engage their customers, establish trust and ultimately increase sales.

Successful distributors help workers view gloves as another hand tool integral to doing their job productively and safely. When workers make the parallel between the importance of using the right tools on the job with the importance of using a glove designed specifically for their profession, their satisfaction with the product and trust in the distributor and manufacturer multiply.

Narrowing it down

Workers today have options like anti-vibration gloves with polymer pads and neoprene knuckle pads or trade-style gloves that offer wrist to fingertip protection, with materials ranging from leather with Kevlar-reinforcement to breathable spandex with tough PVC palms. For those whose jobs include lifting, loading, pushing and pulling, there are gloves with silicon grip zones. For cold-weather wear, there are thermal gloves with Thinsulate insulation and Hipora waterproof liners. Workers who need to be conspicuous on the job can select hi-vis gloves with reflective tape zones. And this is really just a fraction of what's available.

To help workers narrow down their choices, salespeople must first have extensive product knowledge, which the best manufacturers provide. Then they need to gather as much information about the worker's job as possible.

Some sample questions to ask:

• Do you work indoors or outdoors?
• Is weather a factor in your work environment?
• Do you work in extreme heat or cold?
• Do you need to protect your hands from vibration, abrasive materials or chemicals?
• Do you handle power or hand tools?
• How visible do you need to be on the work site?
• What level of dexterity do you need for your tasks?

Traffic-stopping merchandising

Finally, successful distributors also understand the important role that colorful, impactful product displays can play in increasing walk-in or last-minute glove sales, increasing customer awareness and building product excitement. For example, Ergodyne's merchandising program provides distributors with in-store branding materials like banners, "authorized dealer" decals, stickers and trade show banners; in-store product displays like the counter/shelf glove box display; in-store product fixtures like wire grid racks or peg racks that can be endcaps or free-standing displays; and in-store fixture cards.

As high-tech materials advance, manufacturers will continue providing the marketplace with better quality and more task-specialized gloves, meaning the opportunity for distributors to become trusted resources for workers will also grow. So make sure you have the right tools in place — especially product education and merchandising support — to make the most of this opportunity.