![\"handshake\"](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/handshake_375a54cc-dbbc-4997-af2d-d2de01e030ba.png?format=webp&v=1685055127\")
Imagine you could focus more of your efforts on product design and innovation, beautifying your brand, or streamlining operations instead of finding customers and worrying about sales.
\nMarketing doesn’t come naturally for all entrepreneurs, which can make sustaining and growing a business a struggle. Luckily, you can pass on some—or even all—of that responsibility to other retail businesses, by using business to business (B2B) as a new sales channel.
\nThis guide walks you through how to sell wholesale and, how to tap into the $12.3 trillion wholesale industry, with tips for sourcing wholesale items to sell and setting up your store today.
\nTable of Contents
\nWholesaling is the act of selling your products in bulk to another retailer, usually at a discount, who then sells the product to its customers at a higher price. It’s important to note that creating a B2B sector for your online business does still allow you to sell your product to the end consumer.
\nAs a wholesaler, you can sell to both consumers and other retailers. You don’t have to choose one or the other.
\nThe first example of a wholesale business model that might come to mind are probably large brick-and-mortar department stores, like Walmart or Target. Wholesale is, after all, often thought of as an old-fashioned business model that’s being disrupted by newer direct-to-consumer ecommerce businesses.
\n:One of the myths about wholesale ecommerce is that you need loads of cash to get started. While you do need some startup money to break into the wholesale market, there are ways to scale your growth, says Simon Slade, founder of SaleHoo
\n“For example, reorganize your existing space to make room for your bulk products rather than renting a new storage space right off the bat. And don’t forget to negotiate with your suppliers—they tend to be more flexible when you’re making a large order.”
\nWith the rise of B2B marketplaces like Alibaba, Faire, and Handshake, the wholesale landscape has undergone a significant transformation for large and small businesses.
\nWhile ecommerce continues to empower direct-to-consumer brands by reducing barriers to entry, wholesale is adapting to changing buyer expectations, offering a streamlined and convenient shopping experience.
\nToday’s wholesale market allows buyers to find a diverse range of products in one location, catering to their growing desire for efficiency and variety.
\nFinding profitable items to resell not already on Amazon or eBay is challenging. Here is a round-up of the top marketplaces to find high-demand bestsellers from worldwide brands.
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Handshake is a B2B marketplace powered by Shopify that connects wholesale suppliers and retailers. You can find handpicked wholesale items to sell from established and emerging suppliers, spanning categories like beauty and wellness, stationary, pets, and more.
\nHandshake integrates directly with the Shopify ecosystem, and curates a selection of unique products from a thriving community of trusted brands.
\n![\"Faire\"](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/faire_f1e4d6f2-5c48-4d2a-b663-c0ce53c96fc0.png?format=webp&v=1685055148\")
Faire is a wholesale marketplace operating in Europe and North America. Based in San Francisco, it ships to more than 15,000 cities in 15 European countries, the United States, and Canada, and offers over 60,000 independent brands. It’s free to join Faire, and you only pay a commission if Faire connects you with a new retailer through its marketplace.
\n![\"alibaba\"](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/alibaba_30870bbf-3def-40b5-ac0c-cd01d5e2d37b.png?format=webp&v=1685055166\")
The Ali family of sites is China’s most dominant online marketplace and app. Alibaba is for B2B buyers purchasing wholesale items to sell, while AliExpress is for business to consumer (B2C) products.
\nAlibaba and AliExpress are good for finding:
\n![\"salehoo\"](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/salehoo_53453a01-1579-45e0-965c-e5cbe215a68d.png?format=webp&v=1685055186\")
Salehoo is a New Zealand–based wholesale marketplace with more than 8,000 suppliers. In order to use the network, it’ll cost you a $67 per year membership fee. That will get you access to suppliers and providers in New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
\n![\"tundra\"](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/tundra_6e776f69-0ab3-429a-b937-766907ebccee.png?format=webp&v=1685055207\")
Tundra is a zero-fee wholesale marketplace with over 10,000 brands as suppliers. It’s a wholesaler for people just starting out, and is free to use—it doesn’t even take a commission from your sales. Tundra also ships wholesale products to over 100 countries.
\n![\"tradegala\"](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/trade-gala_a0451412-34b4-44b4-bb92-d6b478b5ca8f.png?format=webp&v=1685055227\")
TradeGala is a London-based wholesale marketplace focused on fashion brands. It offers a three-tier membership, yet none of them requires a membership fee. If you’re a wholesaler looking to break into the fashion market, know that TradeGala only takes commissions off of sales made through its site.
\n![\"indiamart\"](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/india-mart.png?format=webp&v=1685055252\")
IndiaMART is a free wholesale marketplace for both sellers and buyers. Based in India, it has a massive network of seven million suppliers in 40 categories at your disposal. It stocks everything from consumer goods to medical and industrial supplies, and even agricultural supplies.
\n![\"eworldtrade\"](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/eworldtrade_875cfbbd-cbfc-4c5c-b519-591af7d6b260.png?format=webp&v=1685055273\")
eWorldTrade is a US wholesale marketplace with thousands of suppliers providing items in 39 categories. Know that eWorldTrade is on the pricey side: it has five major selling plans, and the cheapest begins at $399 per year.
\nRead more: How to Find the Right Wholesale Supplier for Your Business
\nThere are many wholesale items to sell as a B2B business online. Whether you’re a veteran or a beginner, you can expand your product line with the ideas below.
\nThere is a large annual market for education supplies. In the United States alone, there were more than 56.5 million K–12 students enrolled and more than four million teachers employed in 2022.
\nBelow are some education products to consider wholesaling:
\nAccording to Statista, home improvement sales globally amounted to around $830 billion in 2022. By 2027, this amount is expected to reach over $1 trillion. Home décor is a solid market for the wholesaling business.
\nSome home décor products to consider wholesaling are:
\nWhether it’s clothes for work, day-to-day, or special occasions, everyone needs to wear something.
\nThat’s why fashion is a large and ever-growing market. In 2022, the revenue of this market was approximately $1.53 trillion. According to the Consumer Market Outlook, this value will increase to almost $2 trillion by 2027.
\nSome popular product types to consider are:
\nEvery human on this planet needs food, and will continue to need food for the rest of their lives. So this is an obvious category to wholesale, as the demand will always be there.
\nBelow are some wholesale food products to consider selling:
\nThe global handbag market reached $38.5 billion in 2022. Below are some types of purses and handbags to consider selling wholesale:
\nThe kitchenware segment is expected to reach $17.3 billion worldwide in 2023. The market is expected to grow annually by 3.83% until 2027.
\nBelow are some kitchen products to get your wholesaling business off the ground:
\nThe health and wellness industry is set to make well over $7 trillion a year by 2025. Research shows that the pandemic has driven people to care more about their health.
\nHere are some health and wellness products that do well in this product category:
\nUS homes spend an average of $703 on each pet annually. It’s clear that getting into the pet supplies wholesale business is profitable. Here are some wholesale pet items to sell:
\nThe party planning market reached $4 billion in 2022. Wholesaling party supplies not only gives you a variety of products to sell, it gives you volume as well. Plus, the market doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
\nHere are some products to consider in this category:
\nPricing strategies are one—if not the most—crucial component to creating a successful wholesale business. When selling directly to customers on your website or in your retail store, you get to keep whatever profit margin you set for yourself, which often can be north of 50%.
\nHere is an example of a healthy pricing strategy, where a wholesale business would retain a 50% profit margin on wholesale orders and a 75% profit margin on direct-to-consumer sales:
\n![\"wholesale](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/wholesale-pricing.png?format=webp&v=1685055369\")
A profitable pricing strategy for wholesale requires a business to be able to maintain a profit margin while offering retailers 50% off the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP).
\nLuckily, there are ways to price your product wholesale to mitigate the risk of not being profitable. One way is to offer a discount based on purchase order quantities.
\nThis way, retailers are encouraged to place larger orders for a better margin upon resale of your product. Many wholesale businesses even set minimum order quantities (MOQs) that retailers must buy in order to carry their product.
\nWhen you decide to wholesale your product and have it carried by multiple stores, you can sometimes run into issues with competing retailers undercutting each other when it comes to price. This is why creating an MSRP is an important element of your wholesale pricing strategy.
\nAn MSRP is often part of a contract that a business will give a retailer that wants to sell its products. It guarantees the retailer will stick to the suggested retail price so the product pricing will be the same wherever it is found, in stores or online. Usually, the MSRP is found alongside individual products on a wholesale storefront, or on a sales sheet or product brochure sent to prospective retailers who wish to carry your product.
\nOne thing to consider when setting up an MSRP agreement is whether you want to allow discounting around holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, or specify certain times you might want to discount the product to customers on your own website.
\nAs the wholesale supplier, you get to set the rules that your retailers have to comply with, but maintaining a fair pricing balance is essential to making your retailers successful. If your retailers are able to make a profit selling your product, they’ll continue to come back and place larger orders.
\nWhen it comes to selling wholesale, you can sell B2B and direct to consumer (DTC) in a single store, or choose to have a separate, dedicated B2B store but still through one single admin.
\nIf you are considering only selling your product wholesale through other retailers, you can set them up with a customer account in your store.
\nB2B customers can use a password-less process to log in. When a B2B customer logs into your store, they’ll receive a six-digit verification code to their email address.
\nAfter entering the code, they can place B2B orders, access price lists reflected in the online store, and access company and location information in their account.
\nYou can manage these in your Shopify admin under Settings > Customer accounts.
\n![\"customer](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/customer_accounts_8e4b3b84-b290-423b-b18f-20d62e5afaa1.png?format=webp&v=1685055411\")
There are a few ways B2B customers can access new customer accounts:
\nIf your company does a high volume of sales, consider upgrading to Shopify Plus and take advantage of its B2B Ecommerce feature. You can easily create a personalized buying experience for B2B that convinces customers to continue buying.
\nCASE STUDY: Brooklinen Scales Their Wholesale Business to New Heights with B2B on Shopify
\nPayment terms let you set how long that company has to pay. You can set payment terms for any company that you sell to with B2B.
\nAfter you set payment terms for a B2B buyer, any representative can enter payment information for the order.
\nThere are three available payment terms to offer:
\nCredit card vaulting is a functionality available to merchants that use Shopify Payments. It allows secure storage of credit card information for convenient future transactions.
\nB2B customers can save their card details during checkout or through their customer account. Vaulted cards are linked to a specific company and can be used by all customers associated with that company.
\nCustomers can manage vaulted cards in their account, and you can manually charge cards, change cards for pending payments, or delete vaulted cards for a customer.
\nNow that you have your wholesale pricing strategy figured out and a wholesale channel set up in your store, it’s time to search for prospective wholesale customers. But where do you find these retailers, and how can you increase sales?
\nOftentimes, a retail customer will actually find you first. If you’ve had success with direct-to-consumer advertising, you’ve possibly already received messages from distributors who want to carry your product online or in their physical stores.
\nWhen you are advertising to consumers online, you are also reaching other business owners who might be interested in carrying your wholesale items to sell on their sites. This is why it’s important to keep a link in your website footer for wholesale inquiries: so resellers browsing your website can easily contact you about potential opportunities.
\n![\"wholesale](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/wholesale-on-website.png?format=webp&v=1685055464\")
Rockwell Razors keeps an easily accessible link to a wholesale inquiry form on its website footer.
\nRetailers today can find and order products from wholesale marketplaces. Aside from selling wholesale to retailers in your own ecommerce store, you can also join a popular marketplace to build brand awareness and reach new buyers.
\nDo research on prospective marketplaces to make sure they’re the right fit. You want the marketplace to easily integrate with your store.
\nTrade shows are traditionally where a wholesale business goes to make connections and find retail partners. There are specialty trade shows for nearly every category of retail, from baby apparel and athletic leisure clothing to furniture and home décor. There are even trade show directories that list top trade shows according to categories.
\nTrade shows, however, can be expensive. They often require travel and a substantial booth fee, if you want to exhibit there. It’s worth attending first and walking the floor to make sure it will be worthwhile to exhibit.
\nOne added benefit of a wholesale channel is that, unlike direct to consumer, you don’t always need a large volume of customers in order to grow. If you have a handful of high-quality retailers who are successful at selling your product, they can come back and continue to place larger orders again and again.
\nTo find these select partners, reach out personally over social media, phone, or email to a company you believe would be a great fit. A business that sells complementary products is a good place to start.
\nOne example of a wholesale collaboration between two complementary brands can be found with Pehr and Stokke:
\n![\"wholesale](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/wholesale-collab.jpg?v=1685055503\")
Pehr and Stokke formed a partnership and now sell each other’s complementary products on their respective websites: Stokke creates and sells a line of cribs and baby furniture for design-minded families. Pehr created a line of 100% organic sheets that are now sold on the Stokke website, while Pehr carries Stokke’s cribs on its site.
\nSome of the best wholesale partnerships are made through personal contact and establishing trust and rapport in real life. So if you see a brand you admire, reach out if you believe working together would benefit both sides.
\nIncentives work for wholesale buyers just like everyday consumers do. Some online retailers selling wholesale will offer discounts to buyers based on the amount of products they buy. A common offer is a percentage off for a customer’s first order. Other incentives could include offering:
\nYou could also offer dropshipping services as a wholesaler. When a company sells a product on its website, you deliver it to the end customer versus a wholesale distributor, which could be cheaper for the company.
\nThis newer version of wholesaling, which often takes place in online marketplaces or through smaller boutiques, has advantages that attract direct-to-consumer brands, too. Here are three reasons why opening up a wholesale channel might benefit your business.
\nAs a direct-to-consumer brand, a large amount of your budget needs to be allocated to marketing in order to grow. For every new customer acquired, there is often a cost, after all.
\n“The most common myth is that B2B customers won’t shop online, so there’s limited growth potential,” says Shane Barker, digital marketing consultant. “In truth, B2B ecommerce is experiencing massive growth and drives much higher revenue than B2C ecommerce.
\nBy selling your products wholesale, another business shoulders the cost of customer acquisition and inventory management, while you reinvest your time and money into other areas of your business.
\nJust as acquiring new customers costs money, building a loyal audience of fans and customers is not an easy feat. By creating a wholesale partnership with an established brand that has already made a name for itself within your niche, you can leverage the company’s goodwill to get your product into customers’ hands.
\nExpanding your business to a new country or territory comes with a series of associated costs, like warehousing and logistics. You might also have to start from scratch, marketing to a population that hasn’t heard of you.
\nFinding another retailer with an existing presence and supply chain in a new market can reduce the risk of international expansion by cutting your setup costs.
\nUltimately, a wholesale distribution business model benefits both the retailer and the wholesaler by creating efficiencies. The retailer gets a new—often complementary—product to sell without investing in research and development, and the wholesaler saves money on marketing by gaining direct access to an existing customer base.
\nThe rise of ecommerce has allowed direct-to-consumer brands to launch faster and grow digitally. As a result, many had written off selling wholesale items as a fading retail trend. However, a new wave of wholesale startups are actually thriving in the era of ecommerce by rethinking the way wholesale works.
\nBoth direct-to-consumer brands looking for new sales channels and entrepreneurs who want to save on marketing spend are opening wholesale businesses. With the right pricing strategy and a little know-how, you can start opening your business up to new revenue-generating partnerships and see your product flourish among complementary brands.
\n\nRetail and wholesale differ primarily in their target customers and sales methods. Wholesalers sell products in bulk to other businesses at a lower price, while retailers sell individual items to consumers at higher prices. As a result, wholesalers can provide a cost-effective supply chain for retailers, who in turn serve consumers.
\nhttps://www.shopify.com/blog/selling-wholesale
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A new AI service for “parsing” music tracks.
\nThe Mikrotakt neural engine can split any track into vocals, instrumentals, bass, drums, and other audio tracks.
\nIn addition, you can upscale vocal tracks to clean up the voice and adjust the pitch. This feature is ideal for musicians and content makers.
\nThe new Chinese model DeepSeek-V3 becomes a competitor to ChatGPT:
\n– registration requires only your email and password
\n– the neural is quite fast: answers are generated in seconds
\n– Thinking mode, where AI turns into an academic on any topic
\n– the model can read diagrams and generate any texts
\n– files of different sizes can be uploaded
\n– the neuron is good at working with code
\n– absolutely free
\nHailuo AI from China can clone any voice without censorship in a few seconds. Its library includes more than 300 voices in different languages and intonations. The model also allows for full customization: you can change the tone, speed, and timbre and add sound effects.
\nThe Chinese have released a worthy competitor to ChatGPT.
\nThe Qwen2.5-Plus chatbot provides accurate answers, can read documents and images, and is completely free of charge.
\nKrea allows rotating models in its “Photoshop”
\nKrea developers have come up with an incredible feature for their neuro-Photoshop: you can drop any object and edit its position in 3D space.
\nThe Upscayl neuron has received a 16x upscale, so now it can save even the most hopeless photos. The download is free.
\nThe Wegic neural network has become even cooler.
\nNow websites are generated in seconds, and all your edits can be made with simple queries.
\nYou just throw in a promo and you have a perfectly(?) designed website.
\nA working AI meme generator.
\nThe Brainrot neuron follows trends, selects relevant images, and produces memes that are even funny to read. And all this is free.
\nGoogle has released a top free guide to AI agents.
\nIt contains everything: basic knowledge, tools, architecture, training methods, and a step-by-step recipe for creating agents on LangChain and LangGraph.
\nIt is a cool service for learning languages with an AI interlocutor.
\nThe Lingocat neuron imitates the native speaker, gives feedback, and has tasks to improve skills. And all this is free of charge.
\nThe free neural from the Chinese outperforms(?) ChatGPT.
\nA new model called R1 has been released that outperforms the best version of ChatGPT. R1 is twice as powerful as the previous version and it has literally everything you need: programming, math, rewriting, and everything else. It’s worth noting that if you look at the graph of how it “outperforms”, it doesn’t encourage you to switch from OpenAI to the Chinese neural.
\nUniversal AI photo editor.
\nGenerating, replacing, or deleting details, styling, changing the background, and upscaling – and this is not the whole list of functions of the new and free Dzine neural.
\nPrompt generator for ChatGPT
\nPromptEngine works according to the official recommendations of OpenAI. The service also supports other language models: Claude, Gemini, LLama, and Mistral, which can be selected from a list.
\nOpenAI President showed a feature for the o1 model.
\nAccording to Greg Brockman, the o1 model works a bit differently than other types of AI, and to achieve high performance, you need to follow a certain plan in writing promos:
\nthe goal, response format, warning, and context.
\n(The Anatomy of an o1 Prompt attached an example image)
\nChatGPT can now write first.
\nThe neuron will remind you of important things like a real assistant. For example, in the morning, it can provide a ready-made excuse for being late for work, and in the evening, a convincing explanation for a deadline shift.
\nSo far, only 10 regular tasks are available, but by the end of the week, all paid users will receive the new feature.
\nOpenAI offers free tokens for ChatGPT.
\nHowever, there is a caveat: in exchange, they ask for permission to use your promos to train models.
\nThe offer lasts until the end of February. Pro users can get up to 1 million tokens per day, and mini-version users can get up to 10 million!
\nTrump has canceled Biden’s decree on control over AI development.
\nThe document, signed in 2023, required developers to share test results with the government to reduce risks. However, Republicans insisted that this restricted freedom of speech and hindered progress. Now, AI development is unrestricted again.
\nChina will organize a competition between robots and humans
\nIn April, China will host the world’s first half marathon where people will compete with robots. The race will involve 12,000 runners and dozens of androids. Technology versus biology is a real race of the era.
\nAI tokens soar after the Stargate project announcement.
\nOn January 23, Trump announced a $500 billion investment from the private sector in the development of AI infrastructure in the United States. As part of this project, OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle will create a joint venture called Stargate. Immediately after this announcement, the AI and big data token market showed significant growth:
\n– AI16Z and AI Rig Complex (ARC) grew by 30% per day
\n– GRIFFAIN and ZEREBRO tokens doubled in price
\n– MetamonkeyAi (MMAI) showed an increase of 152.25%
\n– FLock.io (FLOCK) – by 57%
\nThe smartest o3-mini model will be free!
\nSam Altman said that this neural will be able to solve complex problems in programming, math, and data analysis – all for free.
\nFeatures of o3-mini:
\n– advanced analytical abilities
\n– accelerated data processing speed
\n– ease of use for everyone
\nThe release is planned for the near future.
\nOracle founder supports AI totalitarianism
\nBillionaire Larry Ellison stated that the total surveillance system with artificial intelligence based on cameras, drones, and police recorders will force citizens to “behave in the best way possible”.
\nOracle has recently entered into a partnership with OpenAI and Softbank. Digital dystopia is becoming a reality.
\nThe first Chinese base for robot training was opened in Shanghai
\nThey will learn to help around the house, play football, and assemble cars.
\nThe data obtained in the process will be shared with various companies.
\nCurrently, the center has more than 100 androids and plans to expand to a thousand by 2027.
\nChatGPT can now create any kind of application – a new Canvas feature has been released that runs the code right in the browser.
\n– There are no limits to ideas – we invent and ask AI to draw up a detailed project description.
\n– Copy and paste the request into the chat with the neuron, but add the “/canvas” command at the end.
\n– AI will produce a fully working application in React and HTML in a second – you can test it right away!
\n– There are no limits or restrictions – you can even clone YouTube in your browser.
\nThe feature is free.
\nTop 5 promos for working with any amount of information – the neural will squeeze out all the “water” from the source and give you only concise, verified facts:
\n![\"\"](\"/static/f0c3865203f0eb84451f04f5379021f7/85b06/A-weekly-inspirational-newsletter-1080-x-1080-px-1920-x-800-px-3.png)
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