Dive Into a New Product Category

First step: Be specific in what you want, says George Mollo, president of GJM Associates, a Nanuet, N.Y.-based catalog consultancy. “State your requests plainly, such as, ‘Here are the necessary measurements and fabrication.’ You’re the buyer, and you must specify your requirements for production.”

But Mollo and others agree that beyond that, a certain number of vendor-compliance rules and policies must be stated and enforced in order to make the merchandise manufacturing process operate smoothly.