How To Place Small Wholesale Orders


More and more people are working from home running an online business from a spare room in their homes. This is great way to be your own boss and set your own hours. However, this usually means that you don't have a lot of physical room for inventory of products that you sell. Plus, as a small retailer, you don't want to get stuck with products that don't sell very well. The answer is to place small wholesale orders. However, this usually creates a problem as most wholesale suppliers have minimum order sizes.

How Wholesalers Work
A wholesaler makes their money by purchasing and selling in bulk. For example, a wholesale supplier of fashion items may be able to negotiate a deal with a designer handbag company to buy 10,000 handbags at 50% off retail. However, the designer company is eager to move more units so they offer the wholesale distributor 60% off retail of they will take 50,000 units. So now, the wholesaler has 50,000 handbags that it needs to move. They contact their retailers and resellers and offer these handbags. Obviously they want to move as many handbags as possible as quickly as possible. Wholesale suppliers don't make any money having inventory sitting in a warehouse. So they usually set a minimum order size. Different wholesalers have different minimum order sizes. Some set their sizes at a specific number of units such as a whole case, or 100 units. Other suppliers have minimum orders set by a certain price; for example, a $1,000 minimum order.

How to Place a Small Wholesale Order
If your business is small and you only move a small amount of inventory each week or month, you may need to find a wholesale supplier that specializes in working with the small reseller. These specialized suppliers work with small retailers so they are accustomed to orders for one unit. And they usually have a support staff trained to work with the small retailer. The downside, of course, to dealing with small orders, is that you may pay a little more for your products.

Getting Creative with Small Orders
Another way you can get around the minimum order requirements of most suppliers is to partner up with another reseller and combine your orders to save money. You might be able to find another reseller selling similar products as you in your local community and partner with them. If you work from home, you may be able to find a traditional store in your community that sells similar products. Talk to the owner and you may be able to piggyback your orders in with theirs.

Joining a Supplier Membership Site
Perhaps the easiest way to find a wholesale supplier that will ship and fulfill small orders is to join a membership-only website. These websites cost relatively little and will pay for themselves in a short amount of time. When you join, you will be provided with a list of suppliers that cater to small resellers. These lists will be up-to-date and current. You will also be given tech support email address (and sometimes phone numbers) and a forum where you can communicate with other small resellers. In these forums you can share information about the different suppliers and experiences with them. These sites are well worth their money.

So if you are a small reseller working from home, you don't have to worry about stocking large inventories of product. We recommend that you join one of the wholesale supply websites to get their list of small suppliers. Also, log into the forums and ask other small resellers about their experiences with specific suppliers. Contact the suppliers directly, either by phone or email and explain to them your business and ask them how they can help you grow your business. After all, you supplier wants to see you succeed. If you are successful it means more business for them as well.