Finding Wholesalers In The UK & USA - From Floral Designs To Cookie Tins

The traditional way things work in the retail world is the following: a manufacturer makes a product. Then the manufacturer sells out a large quantity of its production to a wholesaler, from whom you can then buy the product in bulk, and resale it.

This is the simplest process, which is supposed to work well and effectively. However, in reality quite often you have to deal with a very tricky situation: people, who are claiming themselves as wholesalers, actually are not those at all. They are the dreadful middle men, whose actions result in marking up the product's price and thus cutting off your profit.

In the USA, for example, to start business relations with any real wholesaler, you have to be registered as a business unit, and submit your business tax ID to the potential partner-wholesaler upon request. If you are unable to prove your business registration, you are lacking ability to be involved into a trade business as a wholesaler. 

A different scenario applies depending on the country and its legislation. In some places you can participate in the trade chain mechanism without having your own registered business. In the UK, for instance,  you are allowed to do it as a “sole trader”.

In my situation, I have managed to launch my  own wholesale account in the USA and Asia, and develop business relationships with the local real wholesalers, with only providing a copy of my business banking account cheque book, not a business tax ID, as I claimed a tax ID is not needed in my local country to trade.

There is a category within a wholesalers group called “drop-shippers”. A drop-shipper would assist you in providing an effective delivery of your product to your customers. Of course, you have to pay for this service, but in exchange you would avoid any troubles with inventory, storage or packaging. Therefore, as soon as your customer pays you, you need to pay to your  drop-shipper, and they then send the product out to your customer.

Undoubtedly, the best scenario is when the manufacturer themselves sells their production directly to you. If this is the case, you can save money on mark up prices, which you would incur buying the item you want from someone else in the chain.

From my own experience, I would recommend two good sources for finding very reliable both drop-shippers and the wholesalers. These are: World Wide Brands (WWB) and E-sources. The latter is more focused on the European market, and the former the USA. I am a lifetime member of both of these companies.

World Wide Brands guarantees to supply the names and full information of qualified and  trustworthy drop-shippers and wholesalers who have agreed to work with you. WWB also has a tool that advises you whether the product will be easy or difficult to sale online.

I have found that E-sources can give real wholesalers and dropshippers on their site, but unfortunately I also have found many of them turning out to be the dreaded middleman. It is probably easier to masquerade as a real wholesaler in the European market since the "Asking for the Tax ID" part of the equation is nonexistent in this area of the world. I would thus advise to have them verify this or contact the manufacturer to get a list of their authorized wholesalers.

By Brian Mahaffey

@ 2008 http://swiftnetmarketing.com