Wholesaler supplying to online retailers

[ontherunway]

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Hi
I am looking to start an online store selling homewares, and some small furniture items. When I first started investigating potential wholesalers I ran into the issue of wholesalers not wanting to supply online retailers. I remember reading a bit about this on one of the threads here, but now I cant find it.

I am now considering opening a bricks and mortar store in addition to the online one, but would like to minimise my risk by going for as short a lease as possible.

Can anyone tell me, what wholesalers request as ‘proof’ of having a bricks and mortar store.. I vaguely remember reading that some ask for a copy of lease…so, wondering if they look at length of lease…?

Any help much appreciated.

Regards
Bev

[Jenny Spring]

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ontherunway, post: 193458 wrote:

Hi
I am looking to start an online store selling homewares, and some small furniture items. When I first started investigating potential wholesalers I ran into the issue of wholesalers not wanting to supply online retailers. I remember reading a bit about this on one of the threads here, but now I cant find it.

I am now considering opening a bricks and mortar store in addition to the online one, but would like to minimise my risk by going for as short a lease as possible.

Can anyone tell me, what wholesalers request as ‘proof’ of having a bricks and mortar store.. I vaguely remember reading that some ask for a copy of lease…so, wondering if they look at length of lease…?

Any help much appreciated.

Regards
Bev

Hello Bev

When you request a catalogue, simply supply your ABN, which they will want to send you a catalogue. They will also want to know where you are located, as they may not want to set up a competitive relationship with other stockists in teh same area. It is unlikely the idea of asking how long your lease is would ever occur to them.

Then — sell a lot of their products — and they’ll be happy to supply you, whether online or instore.

Jenny

[affgar]

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Good Points by Jenny.

I think part of the problem comes about when there is a level of price fixing.
A company would only want their products sold with certain level of markup (on average).

So it would look very unfavourable to supply to someone online who will then add the smallest margin & under cut everyone else because of their low over-heads.
Sure way to get all your resellers offside.

[LucasArthur]

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Hi All

There is actually another take on this.. Being wholesalers not wanting to sell to retailers….

Some wholesalers DO NOT WANT to deal with online sites as they can not be competitive enough in certain spaces… What i mean is that as the world is such a small place now days a lot of online sellers (depending on industry once again) can be manufacturers selling directly, drop shippers, people with inferior products causing issues in the online sphere and so forth…

Further to this, there is another issue related to online stores offering money back guarantees and the likes with 7-30 return policies.. Some new online operators try to have this return burdened to the wholesaler, which is not something favoured..

Again, just adding a little bit of a dif view and that…. as i tend to get a little side tracked on occasions..

Having bricks and mortar has the ‘representation’ of being stable and i agree with Jenny (as usual) that most will not ask for lease terms or lease contracts etc…

Cheers
Jason

Jason Ramage | Lucas Arthur Pty Ltd | E: [email protected]   P: 61 3 8324 0344    M: 61 412 244 888

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