How does buying in bulk work? Read this guide first to learn what you need to know to build a solid business in this field.
If you want to get into this business, you’ve probably thought about how you’ll get the goods you want to sell. If you thought about this, it means you don’t make the things you sell. You might not know this, but the best place to find high-quality products for your online store could be wholesale suppliers. Some of them have great things to offer and services to give. Just make a deal that works for both of you, and you’ll be set for life.
It’s true that a lot of business owners don’t think wholesalers are worth their time. That’s because it’s hard to find a good wholesale supplier who also provides high-quality services.
So, we decided to write this guide to help you learn the basics of buying wholesale and carefully choose your wholesale supplier. Make sure you read the whole guide and use our tips wisely as you look for the best supplier.
What exactly does it mean to buy in bulk?
First and foremost, don’t get confused by the word. Getting something at retail is very different from getting something at wholesale. If you still feel like you don’t understand, let’s go into more detail. So, when you buy in bulk, you buy a lot of items to sell all at once. When you buy retail, on the other hand, there is a third party between you and the manufacturer. That third party is the retail store.
Almost every time you buy in bulk, you’ll get a discount on most of the items you buy. From a wholesaler’s point of view, it’s much harder to sell large quantities than it is to sell small business owners products in smaller quantities. Where do you get your money? When you sell something to a customer for more than you bought it for, this is called retailing. Retail price is the price that your customers pay you when they buy your products.
The difference between the price at the factory and the price at the store is the profit, also called the margin. You pick your retail price based on many things. There are no rules, so you just add your cost to your profit to come up with a price. You need to decide this as you plan your marketing and sales strategy.
Figuring out how much it costs to buy in bulk
Before setting a price for their product, entrepreneurs need to know a famous definition.
Costs minus sales equals profits
Even though it seems easy, many business owners don’t know how to figure out their costs. The price your customer pays for your product is called the “retail price” or “revenue.” The costs, or COGS, are everything you have to pay to get the goods. But it is much easier when you buy from a wholesaler. You don’t have costs that change, only costs that stay the same. It’s easier to figure them out. You don’t have to do much math to get an idea of the price.
When you take the costs out of your sale price, you can figure out your gross profit. The “raising prices” method is the one that most online store owners use. This means to buy a lot of products at a lower price and then sell them for more money. For instance, you can buy fifty chargers for a certain model of iPhone for $10 each and sell them on your online store for $30 each.
In this case, you can see that the profit from this sale is $20 for each item. But there are costs that change. If you have a store, you need to pay your employees, your bills, or your rent. In the end, the wholesale price should be low enough to cover your costs and give you a profit.
Don’t forget that you can’t just change your prices. Once you’re on the market, your customers should know why you’re the best choice for them. It’s easy to find a replacement for your products on the eCommerce market. Just do what you’re good at and stay in your lane to keep your customers.
On the other side, it’s the same. You have to meet a manufacturer’s rules before you can do business with them. There are rules like a minimum number of items and a minimum price. When it says “minimum quantity,” it means that you can’t buy just one product. You have to get a lot of them. Why do these rules come from the manufacturers? Because they also want to make money.
Which is the best way to buy a lot of something?
When you buy things in bulk, try to get the most out of it. Our advice is that you should order your best-selling item because you know it will sell. Keep track of your sales and dig deep into your online store’s data to find your most popular items.
Find your supplier as soon as possible in this process. It’s a great idea to start looking for dropshipping items in your local Facebook groups. Try to get in touch with other people who sell online and get their products from local or foreign manufacturers.
You need to make a list of the best places to buy clothes in bulk. Find out everything you can about them. If there are bad reviews, you won’t get burned like the other business owners you know. Once you know more about them, it will be much easier for you to decide which one is best for you.
You need to decide what kinds of things you’ll sell on your online store. When you’re looking for a supplier, you should make sure they have all the products you want to sell in your online store. There are many suppliers with a wide range of goods, but do you need them? Maybe you need to narrow your search results if your product is very specific. This is a good thing to think about when choosing a supplier. Choose the one who can keep up with the growth of your business.
You need to make money, so when you make your business plan, keep your costs in mind. Keep those numbers in mind when you set the prices for your product. Don’t let the wholesalers fool you. You need to read more of the reviews on your supplier’s page. You want to find the right person, the one you can count on to get the supplies. The customers are on the other side of the door. The key is to keep looking, but don’t be in a hurry.
When you talk to your wholesaler, having good customer service is a big plus. If you are new to this, you will have a lot of questions for your manufacturer. If there is no one to answer them, then you know that manufacturer is wrong for you and your online store.
Check to see how much they know about the product they are selling. They might just be people who sell in bulk. You can’t count on someone like that if you want to start an eCommerce business. The more you know, the better. With this information, you can make your products stand out to customers. If they don’t know about the details of their products, it’s either because they don’t care or because they run a bad business. When choosing a wholesaler, keep this in mind. A good businessman knows what his products are and how good they are.
Where can I buy in large amounts?
To be more specific, where should you look first? We’ll give you a few tips to keep in mind. They can help you find the best wholesale clothing supplier, which is probably what you want. For example, if you start a wholesale partnership with Dropship Corporation, you can get a lot out of it.
Things are not run in a small way by wholesale suppliers. They are in charge of an entire business that usually buys or makes a lot of things. In return, they mostly sell to small businesses, online stores, brick-and-mortar stores, or chain stores. Even if they aren’t making things, they are still very important on their end.
How to find the right company to provide your business with what it needs?
If you’ve been a reseller for a while, you’ve probably already worked with a few wholesalers. But if you haven’t worked with a wholesale supplier yet, your business needs you to find the right one.
When you’re looking for suppliers, focus on what you need: reliability and the right contacts that can get things done quickly and easily, location, and good prices. The first thing you need to think about is what kind of wholesale product you want to sell before you choose a wholesale supplier. Once you’ve decided what products you need, it’s time to do some research and find the best ways to get them.
Knowing the products, the market, and how to do market research
If you have a specific product niche in mind, read the latest news and trends to “update” your knowledge. You can get your product in a few different ways, so remember that not every wholesaler is the same. There aren’t that many kinds of wholesalers, so we’ll just talk about the most important ones.
The person who makes the things is called the manufacturer. You can usually try to buy from them directly, especially if they are just starting out and could use the business. Importers are in the middle between dropshippers and manufacturers, so they usually charge less than dropshippers. But manufacturers are hard to work with because they mostly sell to merchants and retail wholesalers.
The second one is often called the merchant wholesaler. This kind of wholesaler buys products straight from the maker, stores them, and then sells them to customers. They can sell in any way they want, whether online or in stores. If the products lose value between when they are bought and when they are sold, that is the merchant wholesaler’s fault and no one else’s.
Last is the full-service wholesaler, or in this case, the retail wholesaler. They do everything a wholesaler does. They mostly sell to retailers and sell items to other retailers. For example, a retail wholesaler can import products from a manufacturer and then provide services to resellers (like dropshippers), who then sell the products to end customers. They help with logistics, shipping, packaging, and anything else that is needed for full service. It’s the best supplier for any store, whether it’s physical or online.
There are also agents and brokers who work for commission and connect wholesalers with customers. They deal with small amounts and are in charge of logistics and import, which is risky. But if you are just starting out, the ones above are much better.
So, when you start researching a product, don’t forget to look at all the ways it can be sold. Every business has its good points and bad points. Before you start working with any wholesale supplier, it’s best to know all of them.
Before you call the wholesaler, decide what information you need.
Before you get in touch with your supplier, you’ll need to know certain things. Most of the time, small businesses need to know the minimum order quantity, the price of the product, and whether or not it can be shipped. Before you call them, make a list and write it down.
Most of the time, the first contact is made by phone or email. First of all, don’t sound arrogant at all. Just be professional and know what you want. If you are already talking to other suppliers, you should let them know. That way, you can try to get a better deal and lower prices. Try not to talk about your competitors, though, because if you don’t do it right, it can quickly go wrong.
Do your market research and learn as much as you can about the market.
Focus on a certain group of products and find out as much as you can about them. While you’re at it, try to find as many keywords as you can, as well as the main competitors, different models, and different brands. You’ll need all of them in the future.
Sometimes you find the perfect wholesale distributor, but you can’t get in touch with them because their website doesn’t have any contact information. You can get all the information you need from the WHOIS website information provider. Next, try to find more than one wholesaler so that you can choose the best one when you do. You can also compare their prices, the terms they offer, and the reviews they get. You can easily find reviews for a wholesaler by Googling their name and adding “reviews” to the end of the search term. For example, if you type “reviews of company X” into any search engine, you’ll find a lot of information about the company, including comments from former employees and customers.
Check out both the local and international B2B markets.
In the next 10 years, many businesses will be able to find a large number of B2B marketplaces that are growing. So, as long as your business can buy a lot of products, you should be able to try them all.
To be clear, many of these B2B marketplaces are in Asia, which can be good and bad for a retail store. Most of the time, they put quantity over quality, so you might not find the quality you want there. Instead, put more of your attention on B2B marketplaces in Europe to find the right one for you. If it doesn’t work for you, you don’t need the biggest market in the world. Also, Europe is between Asia and the U.S., so it’s a great place to ship goods all over the world.
Through networking, you can learn a lot about an industry.
This is one of the most important things to know when starting out in eCommerce and learning about buying wholesale. In reality, the best things to do will be within your budget. There are a lot of small business owners who are willing to share what they’ve learned with other business owners who are also willing to learn.
So, look for them, make sure you’re connected to the right people, and build your business on real stories told by the right people. People often talk about their recent jobs in wholesale forums, which makes it easy to find these kinds of stories. LinkedIn could also be a great place to find out about things. You can learn from some of the best business people and work your way up to their level. You can also join some groups and sign up for some good newsletters with useful information.
Read about your field and what’s going on in it.
Before you go into the wholesale buying business, make sure you know a lot about it. Once you start buying things in bulk and reselling them, it will feel like you’ve already done this. You can find a lot of information online or buy a bunch of trading magazines and start reading them to learn more. Make sure to write down everything that could help you in the future. Make sure you spend at least 30 minutes a day reading about the latest news in your industry. Every day, new technologies change industries, and you need to keep up. The better you are, the more you know.
Go to business events and shows
If you’ve been to a trade show before, you might already know how it can help you. You can add people to your network who can help you grow. You’ll also be able to talk to and meet a lot of people who like the same things you do. With these professionals, you can share information and experiences, such as buying in bulk. By hearing about how other people have made mistakes, you’ll remember how not to make the same ones. You can also share some of your own bad business decisions.
Today, a lot of trade shows and other events are set up online. Right now, it’s easier than ever to go to any of them, so don’t miss a chance to grow and learn more about the industry.
Price and all that goes with it
To be clear, you want to make money, right? So, from the beginning to the end, you need to keep track of all costs. When you know how much everything costs, you can make better prices and set them however you want. Customers will always look for the best prices, so don’t think you can make a lot of money by setting the prices very high. The best way to get the best prices is to make a plan and stick to it. With a well-organized plan, you can guess some of the steps (and prices) that will happen during the process.
Learn from what you did wrong.
Lastly, mistakes can be made when buying products in bulk, just like they can be made in any other business. Don’t judge yourself too harshly. Even if you’ve done a lot of research to find the right wholesaler, things can go wrong at any time. Keep your head up, learn from the mistakes you’ve made, and don’t let them stop you from reaching your end goals.
Where are the best places to buy in bulk?
If we don’t talk about this, a beginner’s guide to buying in bulk won’t be complete. Learning where to buy products in bulk is the first step in building a business that makes money.
So, we’ll tell you about the most popular sites and wholesalers so you can check them out and go after them.
Amazon Business
This platform gives the retailer and wholesaler the chance to do business directly with each other. There are some paid versions, but having the option to use more than one account is a plus.
X Cart
When compared to other choices, there are some pros and cons that you might want to think about. It’s easy to use and can be linked to your other accounts. With this option, you can manage your marketing strategies that use more than one channel.
Global Sources
One of the most successful platforms is Global Sources. They are growing their business in every way possible from their base in Hong Kong. It is a good choice to do business with other businesses.
eWorld Trade
What kinds of wholesale goods can you find here? From security and machinery to chemicals and food, they deal with larger offers and effectively connect buyers and sellers, mostly in the more serious industries. Their main office is in the United States, in Dallas, Texas, to be exact.
Kinnek
Small businesses are the main focus of the platform. Kinnek is a new B2B marketplace with an emphasis on marketing that is open to both sellers and buyers in the U.S. and around the world.
Overall, these are some of the best wholesalers and markets where you can buy products in bulk. Don’t forget to compare prices and pick the one that fits your store the best. Set your own rules, and then choose just a few wholesalers who meet them. Compare them to your most important KPIs and pick the one that best fits your needs.
To sum up
Even now, a lot has changed in the eCommerce business. Since change happens quickly in all industries, don’t get too comfortable staying in one place. Try not to slow down and try to learn something new every day. We hope that this guide has helped you understand how to buy in bulk.
Follow our tips, choose a wholesale supplier, and get started right away with your eCommerce business.
