Holiday How-To: Wholesale on Etsy

Great Article Danielle, nice tips to keep in mind.

Thanks for the article! Very helpful and informative.

thank you so much for this article-I really need business and technical information, tips, and help with this whole business.....business. thanks!

Good info Danielle...I just had a wholesale request this week. I'm going to try to make it to the lab today.

This is a perfectly timed article for me...i'm just getting around to some local shops, and it's great to know what the standard practice is. Always hard to figure out the fine line of wholesale/retail pricing. Thanks!

great article w/ lots of useful info. thanks!

I hope to make it to the lab! Thanks for the tips! xo

great article, and very very helpful :)

Thanks for this information. I just had a lady ask me about this at a craft fair I just did. She is opening a new store and now I will be able to make a deal. :)

Perfect timing! Great info, now I'm hitting up the links in it to see what else I can glean. I just had a request and now, rather than being so intimidated by it, I can try to figure things out with more logic and less panic :D

Excellent article, thank you for this information! I'm starting to make the rounds at local shops, and this is so helpful. Thank you Danielle and Etsy!

Awesome article. Thanks for laying everything out for us!

Great article! I wanted to mention the "will you send free full size samples" to me before I purchase your products? Of course they will offer to pay the shipping most of the time. I did some research to see how experienced wholesalers usually respond when I first started wholesaling and this is the answer I received the most. Offer to ship what they are interested in at regular price explaining that they will receive a credit with their first wholesale order reflecting the wholesale price quoted. I have only had one buyer respond negatively, most are perfectly fine with this response. Here is something to consider, if they ask 100 sellers to send 3 items (of course they'll pay the shipping-the product is free), they have received 300 free products less shipping. Don't be surprised to see your items listed on ebay or at the local flea market!

Thank you so much for this!!!

Thank you for the great article!

Great article Danielle! Word for word these are pretty much my policies! DEFINITELY get proof of resale!!

thank you , very useful!

Great, thanks!

Great, Thanks for sharing.

Great article, thanks!

Thanks for sharing! :-)

Great article and good information from WickItDesign.

Thanks for the article. Very informative and helpful!

Great article--very helpful!

This is so helpful! I'm fairly new to wholesale & I really needed this information, thank you!

Wholesale is just too much fun! We have a few B&M shops + wholesale + Etsy + sell online and are always glad to soak up any info we can find on this subject.

I actually do it backwards, and offer a smaller minimum for the initial order, if they want to test the waters in their shop, to make sure it's a good fit... This way the don't have to make a big commitment off the start, most of my wholesale buyers seem to appreciate this, and will return for more again : )

This is a great article. Now if only someone wanted to buy wholesale from me... Must list more chocolates...

Regarding packaging... as Danielle says, hangtags are a must, and even better if they have a sentence or two that is a "story" about you or the work. (ie "This widget was lovingly made by Susie, who works out of her garage studio in the mountains of Tennessee"). Your packaging, however, SHOULD NOT contain your website, email or contact information. Retailers will remove this information (even if it means removing the whole hangtag), as they don't want their customers going directly to you to make purchases. By keeping your contact information off the tag, you are showing your support for driving customer traffic to the stores and galleries that carry your work.

Wonderful article and very informative. I've had several requests for wholesale orders and only one, so far, has been ligit. Look out for those that want to buy 3 items at "wholesale" price! They don't REALLY want to resell your items, they just want a major discount and you'll never hear from them again. When I sent them my terms, the response I got for 2 of them was, "I don't know what I would do with 20-30 pair". Well, for personal use, I can see that as a problem but if they were going to resell them in their own retail stores, 20-30 pair is not a whole lot and wouldn't have been a problem. Beware of those just wanting a huge discount and keep away from them!

Thats sum up the answers to my questions. Thanks for the information.

Thanks for this very informative article. Well written, well organized, very helpful. Thanks!

Great advice. V. helpful : Thanks!

Not only an awesome article but such good feedback comments too. Thank you all so much for sharing!

I could have definately benefitted from reading this BEFORE my first wholeale sale, rather than stumbling through it on my own. Excellent article, I will bookmark it for next time to refer back.

I agree lildid! Does anyone know where to check the resale certificate, business license or state tax resellers permit to see if the business is legit? Is there a web site? I had to get a ton of info from my first wholesale client and just trust my gut...not recommended but it worked for me once.

This helped so much! Thank you!

Thank you so much for this article. I don't know what I would do without the Handbook articles. I just received my 2nd wholesale request, and I'm going to memorize this article before I respond.

Excellent! I just received my first wholesale order & would be lost without it!! thank you daniellexo

I'm going to piggy back with PamperMePlease. Where does one confirm the resale info that's given??

Thanks for the info. This looks very helpful. Will there be any follow-up articles?

I disagree. I think it is irresponsible NOT to include your business contact information on the label, and I do believe in certain industries (food, bath and body) not including the business address, site, phone number is a big no no. FDA standards and whatnot. I have never seen a client rip labels off of products to keep their shoppers from knowing where/whom they come from. If I did have that happen, they would no longer be my wholesale client. There is such a thing as private labeling.

Which would be another topic that would be great to cover! Private Labeling!

very helpful - thank you :)

Great information! I've just been asked to wholesale some of my products and I didn't know where to start. Now I do!!!

thank you

Thank you very much for this article, two years later, still good advice!

How do you handle payments? This boutique in Alaska send me money after I send them the goods, just for a few times, then she ignored my calls, stole more than $2,000 of my items.

Terrific information. I have been wholesaleing worldwide with galleries for 25+ years and have also had some wholesale orders on Etsy since I joined 1 year ago. My adivise is definitely stick with your policies regarding minimum and re-order $ amounts or as I do when I sell with www.wholesalecrafts.com, those who would like to order less than the minimum will be charged an extra fee, this way you will know who is serious and legit.

This has helped so much this week! Thanks for bringing it back!

This is so funny. I just had my first wholesale request in today, so this is super timely!

this really helps with my question, "well, how much should i charge". thanks!!!!

Great ideas will try this out I have an item or two I can wholesale.Thanks for info.

Great information! I did my first wholesale order a few ago and have found that many other wholesale inquires are coming through ETSY!

pricing is for sure the hardest part of wholesaling. finding that perfect price that works for everyone.

Very nice article on wholesaling! I work with quite a few brick and mortar shops off of Etsy but recently started offering wholesale lots right in my Etsy shop and have sold quite a few just in the past few weeks plus gained two more b&m stores in the process! Definitely worthwhile to add a wholesale section to your existing shop!

My recommendation in regards to wholesale. Be sure you can still provide great customer service to your wholesale customer. It is very frustrating to get lousy service from a seller that is providing great service to its retail customers but can't provide wholesale items in a timely manner. It is nice to get wholesale orders but say no if you have too many excuses why you can't provide product and customer service. Also be wary of people who want to complete the transaction off of Etsy. Then you can't leave negative feedback if you need to....

Thanks for sharing the terms of agreement when selling wholesale. Great insight!

I really appreciate all the info on this subject. I'm actually wanting to approach some shops so I can use all the advice I can get!

Really interesting information, I shall sit and read it at my leisure. I am new to Etsy but I hope to sell jewellery really soon!!!

Oh, my goodness! This was super helpful. Thank you for this article.

Thank you for posting this again. It was a great help. Just days ago I got my first request via Etsy for a wholesale order. The buyer asked for a line sheet with pricing. Does anyone here have experience with compiling something like this?

Good article and I agree with the wholesale idea that we will send at regular price with a coupon for the same or larger amount with the actual wholesale order. It seperates the wheat from the shaft.

I've been approached a few times, but didn't take the leap due to lack of know-how for wholesaling. This article helps to open my mind to it. Thank you for sharing this info!

It is really helpful ! Thank you you for sharing :)

Great artical. I have been thinking about wholesailing my items and this artical gave me some good tips about getting started. Thank you:)

Thanks for all the great info! I'm working on creating wholesale prices and policies, so this was super helpful!

Thank you for your advice :)

Wonderful, helpful article. Thank you!

Excellent info - thank you!

This was exactly what I was looking for after searching under Help for advice! So, from the article, it sounds as if it is not required to complete all wholesale request transactions through Etsy, but recommended?

Fantastic article!!! This is EXACTLY the information I was looking for. Thanks a million!

Years later and still helpful, thanks!!

Great article!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks

Great thank you^.^

great article!! thank you Danielle, very helpful :)

I so needed read this! I have heard all these terms but thanks for defining them so clearly!

You forgot to mention if price should be different in case a store does not want to buy directly but wants your pieces on consignment.

Great article! We all use our shops in other ways than just having a source of extra income. The shop serves as a catalog of all work in case someone is interested in carrying your product! Such a cool tool to have in the small business tool belt. I need to share my experience with wholesale orders: Someone contacts you about a product they would like to purchase, in bulk, at wholesale price. That's the good news! There couldn't possibly be any bad news, right? Ha-ha. The bad news is you need to be realistic about the amount of product you can produce and in what amount of time. Many of us have day jobs so there aren't as many hours in the day as we think there are. I have had experiences with orders I can keep up with (local, smaller orders) and some that are overwhelming, but totally worth it for the income. Before agreeing to any wholesale agreements I think it's totally fine to feel out your wholesale customers' intentions. Are they a large company with a big distribution? Are they a small boutique with a busy season around the holidays but much slower during the rest of the year? Are they located in a small town or a big city? All of these questions will direct you towards understanding more about what may be expected of your ability to fill orders in the future if/when your product sells well for them! There's more good news, though -- getting a league of wholesale customers in combination with the sales in your shop are the first step towards handmade being your day job!

Great article! I've recently had some inquiries, and have made some attempts to get my items in shops around town....and getting to know the terms, as in this article, and what people expect is crucial.

I was contact a few days ago with information abour wholesale price. I think I have covered all the aspects of this thread in my answer, then got a proposal to reduce the price to a 1/3 of my Etsy price, I said I could reduce a little, but not that much(my inical proposal was 1/2 the price) and got no more feedback. What shoud I do?

Very Good Advice.

Great ! I Thanks for the useful info! I was looking to create wholesale prices and policies, so this article is super help!

This is SOOOOO helpful. Thank you!!!!!